543 - Cave Tower
It was time to go back into the deep end.
Today’s adventure involved a midnight hike into the desert, guided by nothing but a GPS. You might be noticing a trend here. This GPS shit keeps getting crazier.
And you’d be right. After my easy-breezy shoot at Butler Wash, my adrenaline glands had finally drifted back to ground zero. Not much more than a day later, it was time to crank them back up again.
Because life’s a highway- and I want to ride it all night long.
I skidded onto a dirt road on the outskirts of Bluff, Utah, and walked over to a rusty gate. I’d been given an insider tip that the beyond land was public… if you knew about it.
Kind of like one of those speak-easy bars that are popping up in every city with a population greater than 20k. Secret, but not really.
I unraveled the chain, squeezed my Prius through, and promptly locked the gate behind me. I didn’t want any unsuspecting tourists following me on my midnight excursion. Not that normal people do night hikes anyway. It was the un-normal people I was worried about.
My goal here was to find a 700+ year old set of Pueblo ruins known as the Cave Tower. And judging by the photos online, it wasn’t exactly a cave or a tower. It was a shabby three and a half foot tall pile of rocks on a cliff. But hey, it was 700 years old. So it was special.
Since there wasn’t a moon in the sky that night, I wanted to get a shot of the Milky Way aligned with it- and make it look like some kind of ancient Bat Signal.
It would be my first astro shot in almost three years. The last time I shot the Milky Way was at Alien Throne in the Bisti Badlands. I almost can’t believe it. Three years? Holy Pueblo. Time flies.
I loaded up my external light, packed my camera bag with gummy worms, and headed off.
It wasn’t so much of a frightening hike, but more of an uncomfortable one. No matter how much mental strength you have, if you’re alone in the wilderness at night, you feel that razor edge of uncertainty.
The good thing was that there was a relative trail, and my new GPS had proved to be reliable. I simply had to follow the path for 1.5 miles and hope a monster didn’t eat me alive.
That’d actually be a great movie plot. A photographer goes hiking at night and stumbles upon a freak species that’s never been documented before... He’s hunting the shot, and the monster’s hunting him. Then they meet at the end and have a fantastic standoff, lit entirely by the flash of his camera.
I fleshed out the plot details for another 25 minutes or so when the tower suddenly emerged in my flashlight. And what a cutie this tower was. It was 700+ years old, but it didn't look like a day over 30.
I unloaded my chunk of a light and flooded the scene with orange illumination. Spiders desperately scrambled into crevasses as the light invaded their ancient home. “Who’s the monster now?” I slyly thought to myself.
I got right to it.
Overall, it took me about 45 minutes to get the shot worked out. I took a few test photos, and got the Milky Way perfectly aligned. Then I set my camera on timelapse mode so it would take a photo every second for 60 seconds. During this timer, I moved my light source around the tower in a variety of positions. Then I picked the best lit angle and combined it with the original Milky Way shot in Photoshop.
Here’s the result:
“The Bat Signal”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 12-24mm f/4
[ISO 2550 ~ 12mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/120s] + [20s] [Exposure Blend]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
What a beauty.
If you want to learn the super nerdy details of how to get that shot, you can get my full adventure photography course Explorer University. You’ll learn more about astrophotography than you’ll ever need to know in your life.
I flicked off the light and looked around. Pure black in every direction. My excitement for the photo was suddenly replaced by the soft tingle of fear. Sometimes I wonder what the fuck I’m doing with my life.
20 minutes later I was back at the Prius, safe and sound.
Looking back, I’ve definitely gotten better at this whole “hike in the dark alone” thing. I thought this time would be particularly brutal because the entire hike was in the dark.
But this full immersion wasn’t too bad. One step at a time, stay focused on the goal, and distract yourself with pleasant thoughts.
It used to absolutely terrify me. I distinctly remember one time in my early photography career where I literally ran back in the dark because I got so in my head. Full panic, heart pumping, running through the woods alone, thinking I was being chased.
Look at me now. Out here solo for hours.
Then I had a realization. The ancient Bat Signal I’d conjured up wasn’t only a symbol for Batman. It was a metaphor for me learning to deal with the dark for the past three years like a man. Like the BATMAN.
Whoa.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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