Friday’s Hike started at the Wagner Trailhead. We hiked Wagner to Granite, Granite to the Bluff Trail Wash, the wash to Pemberton, Pemberton to Delsie, Delsie back to Granite, Granite to Wagner, and Wagner to the Trailhead. Total distance was 9.75 miles.
We encountered this wash on the Wagner Trail. This wash sometimes has deep sand in it. When I started mountain biking, I fell while crossing it at least once.
Bob and Sarge:
Approaching the scramble for the Bluff Wash. (That’s not an official name.)
Jerry, Joe, Nancy, Sarge (in front), Bob, and Janet. Tom and Michelle hiked partway with us, but continued their hike on the Granite at the point where we turned into the wash.
A view of the McDowells from the Pemberton Trail.
Saguaros on the Delsie Trail.
A small portion of a buckhorn cholla:
We saw a tarantula while hiking back on the Delsie Trail. I took a lot of photos, but these were the only ones which were close to being in focus. Clearly, I need to work on my technique – I think I’m taking to long to frame the shot after acquiring focus. This works for static scenes, but not very well for moving subjects.
A mountain biker on the Delsie Trail.
Susan says:
A great-looking hike! Not-so-fond memories of my nemesis — the scramble on the Bluff trail:) And I love the “eye of the tarantula”. I have to crop mine to get the detail I want. You did good:)
October 14, 2013 — 10:31 am
Kevin says:
Don’t feel bad about the scramble up the rocky section. You’re not the only one I’ve had to help through that section.
With regard to getting the shot of the tarantula, another mistake that I made was to widen the aperture. I did this to increase the shutter speed so that my moving subject wouldn’t be as blurry. But this also decreases the depth of field, leading to less of the spider being in focus. Next time, I’m going to make the aperture smaller – maybe go up to f/11 or f/14. In order to keep the shutter speed fast, I’ll raise the ISO to 400 or 800. I don’t want to go much above this though due to increased noise. I’ve had some good experiences with using DMF for flowers and things; perhaps I should use this for spiders too. (DMF does autofocus for you, but then allows you to tweak the focus manually.)
October 14, 2013 — 4:17 pm