Grandeur Peak - December 24, 2024

scatman

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After hiking Dale Peak on the 21st, my wife and I donated a pint of blood with ARUP, so the hike up Grandeur today was mighty slow, even by Scat standards. You might say that I was a bit low on oxygen and iron. :)

I headed up Grandeur with my 50mm lens on the camera. I haven't shot with the 50mm in a long time and it took me some time to get use to the coverage of the lens again. I'm so used to having a lens where I can zoom in and out without thinking too much. Along with the 50mm, I brought a Sigma 100-400mm zoom and a Canon 8-15mm fisheye for some fun effects when I got to the summit. I also packed away a Sigma 1.4x teleconverter and a Sigma 2.0x one also.

I reached the trailhead up Millcreek Canyon about 7:25 am, and after getting ready I went to take a picture of the Subaru before hitting the trail. When I went to take the picture, the camera told me that It had no memory card (compact flash in this case). What? Now the reason for this is because the night before I took a picture of a cranberry tart and had put the CF card in the reader to load the shot onto my computer. I had to send the shot to @TractorDoc and forgot to then put the compact flash card back in the camera - typical Scatman stuff. So I hopped back in the car and headed home to retrieve the card. By the time I got back to the trailhead it was roughly 8:20 am. I know that Tractordoc was chuckling to himself back in Ohio, even if he didn't know exactly why he was. Now you know Dave. :D

So I was off at long last. I didn't put on my microspikes which turned out to be a mistake because the trail was as icy as any trail I have been on before. I wasn't to far up the trail before I fell forward heading uphill. Luckily I didn't hurt anything, but I did scrape up my fingers a bit as I slid back down the hill a few feet. Needless to say, I got myself up and put on the spikes. :)

As I said before, it took me awhile to get to the top, but once there I got to play around with the lenses that I had packed up. After taking a bunch of pictures from the summit, I sat and ate my lunch enjoying the views to the east. There were some thin clouds that covered the sun most of the hike and when I was eating lunch the cloud cover thickened and I started to get chilled so I packed up and headed back down.

Here are some shots of the hike today:

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Walking up the road through the picnic area to get to the official trailhead.

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Guess I'm heading the right way.

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Nasty trail for the first third of the hike

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Grandeur Peak from the Church Fork side

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Those rocks above are actually red.

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I thought this bunch of curved oak leaves were kind of cool

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Nice contrast between the oak leaves and the Oregon grape in the first shot, and the grape and the dirt in the second

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Looking back east at Church Fork Peak

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The switchbacks didn't have a lot of ice on them. The summit of Grandeur above.

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Deer tracks in the trail where the ridge coming over from Church Fork Peak meets the trail up Grandeur

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First view of the northern end of the Salt Lake Valley - still some crud in the air today.

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Still some fading fall red in these maple leaves that were being protected by a conifer.

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View up Millcreek Canyon and Porter's Fork

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Rounded the corner to this view of Mount Olympus

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I have ditched the 50mm at this point and put on the fisheye. This view to the east takes in from Mount Aire all the way to Wildcat
Ridge

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360 view from the summit

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I then popped on the 100-400mm zoom to get the summit of Triangle Peak

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And the summit of Mount Olympus

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And Olympus with the 1.4x converter

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Grandview to the north, again with the 1.4x converter

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The Church Fork Peak yurt with the zoom lens

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And the zoom with the converter

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Lone peak beyond the ridge of Triangle Peak

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Summit shot

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My lunch spot

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Some aspen on my way down

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View down into Church Fork

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A look back at Grandeur

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Church Fork and the trail

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Switchback

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Small falls on Church Fork

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Millcreek

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Back at the Sube.


Wishing everyone here on BCP a Merry X-Moose just in case I can't do it tomorrow. Happy Holidays!



The End.
 
I don't do it often these days, but shooting with prime lenses is one of my favorite things in photography. Especially if they have a very wide aperture. F/1.8 is so much fun.
 
Chuckle Chuckle Chuckle. :)

I think you learned that forgotten SD card move from me.

I had to put an extra layer on reading this report. . . it has a cool/frigid vibe that made me shiver.

The picture of Grandview to the North with 1.4X converter was the winner of the trip for me. . . excepting those featuring the Scatman himself of course.
 
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