Tamrac

Well i can laugh at this now. I was hiking this small creek off the Hamma Hamma river yesterday, you can just barely see the creek off the road, its in steep terrain and i hiked quite aways up not being able to get near the creek. Yeah i was sweating pretty good. Hip boots on and the tamrac backpack on my back. Its also funny that when its all said and done, the hiking and picture taking, you get back to the car and take the boots off and your wet from sweat anyway.....go figure. So back on the hill side, steep and rocky and mossy. I saw this nice place on the creek that looked like i could get to with a nice small waterfall, not much water, got closer and said forget it, too steep to get too, and went higher above it and made it to the creek as it fell down above me and below me. Still sweating. Sat there a minute and was checking out compositions and had my backpack off on the ground, nothing great but it took me a bit of hiking and cursing to get there so i was going to take a damn picture no matter what. Pride is a silly thing. Grabbed the pack and got the polarizer out and on the lens, set the pack, zipped back up, down and got the tripod set up for a low angle shot. Peacefull setting, kneeling in the creek setting up and heard this odd noise and thought it may be a bear, cougar,...whatever the imagination can bring in such a nice peacful setting with a small crackling creek. The noise definitely didnt belong. I turned around looking up, only way to look, nothing is going to come up the creek, a cliff straight down about 40-50 feet, and out of the corner of my eye i see this black something tumbling down the first ten feet or so before the creek really falls the forty or so feet. All i could say was quite a few learned words that eventually made it into websters. Yep, i wish it had been a bear, cougar or what ever the imagination can bring up. There it went in plain sight and nothing to do but watch. Over the cliff it went with three lenses, another body, nds, the works, i can still see it in slo-mo, mor slo mo, that was in there to. Weird thoughts go through your head as you make your way back down the creek. I should be in church more. I shouldnt have used the lords name in vain all the way up the steep ridge to get to the creek, did i spend to much money on 'things' and not enough for things that count? On and on as i still cursed everything i could think of. Its a visious cycle isnt it? Maybe cliff, you were just stupid and even as you layed the pack down you thought for that split second that it might slip and tumble down the creek, and you still left it there! Every excuse in the world, but the right one. So i got to the point where i was just above the pack at the bottom of the waterfall. Now i gotta get down there and get it. Obviously i made it in and out. And that wasnt any fun, i didnt go there the first time but i was damn well going there the second time. Took a crap picture there to. Pride wins! Oh, the tamrac backpack. Best frigging thing i invested in!! Thats right, the best.

Great story, Cliff. Quite an experience you put yourself through and it sounds like you'd have paid twice what you did for that Tamrac backpack! You've got a good way with words too...

You need to be careful in terrain like that. My son did a similar thing but ended up falling down the falls of the stream he was climbing along the side of. I almost lost him that day and he ended up with six operations over the course of a year and had to learn how to walk again.

Geoff, that is terrible, hope all is well now with your son. I usually watch myself pretty good, the Boy is getting older (13) and the girls are grown up and out of the house, so the boy doesnt hang out with his old man as much, so i go alone all the time. So yes, be careful even on a day hike. :)

Yes, all is well with him now. He carries a plate in his hip for the rest of his life as a reminder and suffers some pain in his feet, but he can play tennis and basketball so he's happy. Thanks for asking.

I remember those teen years with my kids. They want to hang out with their friends more than with their parents. The cycle of life...

Sounds like yesterday was a day for low physical biorhythms (and some not so great mental ones on my part, either). I was up at Rainier, and since it was one of the few overcast days I had been up there, I was finally going to get a full-on picture of Lower Ruby Falls (every other time I'd been there, it had been sunny out, and I'd had to content myself with semi-abstract shots of bits and pieces). Anyway, I walk down the trail, take a few fair-to-middling shots, then start heading down the slope from the vantage point. I decide to put the tripod down so I can put the lens cap back on and, since it will only take a moment, don't care that the place where I'm putting it down is not level. I'm just taking the cap out of my pocket when my daughter calls me, so I turn around and take one half-step...right into a patch of slick mud. My foot flies out from under me, and I make a spectacular landing on my gluteus maximus in the mud...and, of course, as I'm going down, my other leg brushes the tripod, and all I can do is watch helplessly as the tripod topples in slow-motion and my A100 comes down hard in the mud.

After I drag myself out of the mud and retrieve the tripod...well, I wish I had a camera to take a picture of the camera. The left side had about a half-centimeter coating of mud over the entire body and lens. I drag the whole thing up to the road and, with much effort, manage to get the lion's share of the mud off...and then realize the camera is still on! Well, as long as that's the case, I might as well take a few test shots of the upper falls...and, to my surprise, they turn out great. (I checked them at 1:1 in LR, and can't find any damage to the focus or anything else.) Looks like I dodged a bullet -- especially since I have to leave in a few hours for the Oregon Coast, and would have to have bought a new body (the A700) at full-boat price at a bricks'n'mortar store, since I would have no way to mail order it from B&H in time.

And I know some people who think that photography is boring. Go figure! Great stories, guys, and glad nobody is too much the worse for wear.