Badlands Trip - Day 2

The next morning we woke up... not quite as early as the day before.  For some reason I wasn't feeling too well.  I had a headache and heartburn and was not particularly interested in getting out of bed.  When I finally got up and about, and Frank and I stepped outside, we saw all the beer cans lying around the firepit from the night before.  No further explanation needed.

I had a quick shower and we eventually packed up for another day of hiking.  Frank was anxious to get moving but I wasn't moving all that quickly.  It must have been close to 11:00AM before we finally got back out to the badlands.  We headed back to the same spot as the day before, but just drove a half mile or so further up the valley.  Frank set out on foot, down into the badlands.  I curled up in the front seat of the truck for a nap.  It was very warm, but somewhat overcast and very breezy.  I snoozed in the truck until early in the afternoon and then felt a whole lot better.  Eventunally I set off down into the badlands as well.

At one point I had my Ebony view camera set up on my big wood tripod.  I was photographing a slope with some prominent rills and a few little outcropping greasewood bushes.  A big gust of wind came up and blew my tripod over.  The Ebony crashed down onto the sandstone slope, narrowly missing my Nikon D810 that I had set to the side.  It was with a great sense of dejection and fear that I slowly picked up the camera and started to inspect it.  The wood on the back of the camera was scraped up and dirty, and all the movements were all skewed and distorted.  I feared the worst and slowly began to examine it.  The ground glass and the fresnel lens were not scratched or broken.  The camera landed lens up, so the Schneider G-Claron 210mm that I was using was unscathed.  I loosened off all the locking knobs at the back of the camera and it first it appeared as though some of the brackets were bent.  But, with everything loosened off the camera slipped back into position.  The focusing rack was a little skewed but on closer inspection it appeared as though I could adjust that when I got back home.  The tripod head was loose, but did not appear damaged.  I do carry an insurance policy on my equipment but it seems as though I will not need to put in a claim as nothing appears seriously damaged and I think all I need to look after is a thorough cleaning and some adjustments when I get home.  Equally important, the camera was still usuable so I could continue shooting for the weekend.

This image of a dead greasewood skeleton is similar to the one that was taken with my view camera just before the accident.  This is followed by an image of my camera set up to take that shot.  Shortly afterwards I moved the camera over a few feet to take an image of the rills and greasewood similar to the third image.  Then the big gust of wind came along...

As the day drew to a close we hiked up out of the canyon and headed back to the truck for the long drive back to the campsite.  Up in the grass there were lots of dried out puffballs.  These things were huge... larger than any puffballs I had ever seen before.  Here is a shot of one beside Frank's size 12 hiking boot...

As it was still moderately early at this point we decided to utilize the remaining daylight to make a side trip over to Burstall, over the border in Saskatchewan.  Here we filled up the truck with diesel fuel, and picked up more beer to replenish our supply.  I stopped to take a quick snap shot when we found a humerous sign on the fence beside the highway.  Someone was advertising a tree mulching service, but there was not a tree to be seen for miles.  I'll bet this guy doesn't get very many calls!

We eventually got back to the campsite and got a fire going and some food on the BBQ.  This time around I had a lot less beer...!  The wind finally died down once the sun set, but like the night before it quickly cooled off and we really needed the fire for warmth.

These remaining snapshots were all taken during the day while I was hking down in the badlands...