So, Dirk had a day off over the 4th so we headed up to the Crest trail. Since it was an odd numbered day, we avoided Mill Creek and went down to the Mill D trailhead. This was my first time on this somewhat technical downhill trail, but that didn’t keep me from trying to bomb it the whole way. I had 3 pretty gnarly crashes, one in to a substantial aspen tree. My ribs are feeling good enough now that I think they are just bruised, hopefully not cracked. Dirk put this video together from his GoPro Hero helmet cam. Good job Dirk. I’ll be ready for another in 2-3 weeks.

So for day 2 we made out for Calf Creek Falls. With 4 kids in tow, this is an all day hike. It is about 6 miles round trip, and there are large sections that are very sandy, making difficult to hike. Luckily it’s flat and you can find some shade along the way. We left at about 8:30 am, brought lunches, and didn’t plan on getting back until about 5:00 pm. We probably spent 4 hours at the falls, which was the highlight of the trip. There’s great swimming, an awesome beach, shade, cool mist, and the view. There was also about 100 other people there throughout the 4 hours that we stayed, so we had to share.

Again, this hike is very hot in the summer. We went through quite a bit of water, luckily most of the kids carried their own. Berkley got to ride most of the way in the kid carrier backpack, but he still insisted on hiking over 2 miles of the trail. Pretty good for a 2 year old. In the photo on the left he was pouting and refusing to decide to hike or ride in the backpack. He actually did most of his hiking on the way back, and he wouldn’t let me carry his water bottle either. He’s a funny little kid.

The hike was beautiful this time of year. Everything was green, even in the hot canyon. The cactus was blooming in purple and yellow flowers. This is probably the greenest and most colorful I’ve ever seen this canyon.

Once you finally reach the falls, it’s all about playing in the water. If you read the post about day 1, you know that Berkley got stitches right next to his eye about 36 hours before. His face sure looked dirty, but luckily his stitches healed up nicely with no infection. It probably helped that he didn’t want to swim much. The other kids were all over it though.

A visit to Calf Creek falls would have warranted a trip to Southern Utah for that alone, but luckily we managed to get a few more days in with the kids, and I got to see the upper falls for the first time.

So this year we decided to hurry and get a trip at the beginning of summer, before things get too crazy with the pregnancy (Kristin was 7 months along already in June). We decided to go to one of my favorite places that we used to visit often as a kid, Calf Creek falls. It’s a pretty awesome place, no matter how old you are. The falls are spectacular, and well worth the 3+ mile hike to get in there. That’s probably why the place is so crowded. Escalante is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so I was surprised that the campground was already full when we pulled in a 2:00 pm on a Monday. Luckily someone was just leaving and we were able to sneak in. We set up camp and got situated, and within an hour we were ready to go on a hike. Unfortunately, just as we were getting ready to leave, Berkley took a spill on the campground steps and ended up needing stitches. We are pros at recognizing when a kid needs stitches, it seems like. Luckily the cut (which was right next to his eye) didn’t connect with the eyelid. We would have had to drive to Panguitch if that was the case so that they could sedate him. It was still a battle to hold him still enough to get the 5 or 6 stitches in.

Anyway, we decided to stick around and try to have fun and avoid nasty eye infections. I’m glad we did. So even though that was our real first day, we didn’t get much done except for go to the clinic in Escalante.

So Tuesday morning we decided to go to the Escalante Natural Bridge, instead of Calf Creek, since we wanted to keep Berkley out of the water for a day. I’m glad we did, because we saw a giant group of Young Women heading up to the falls as we left. To get to the bridge, you just start hiking up the Escalante river, starting at the trailhead near the Calf Creek campground. It was only 2 miles, but it is sandy and really hot in June. Luckily, you cross the river a few times along the way, so we just stopped and played in the river to cool down.

When we were there the river was warm and nice for wading. Our kids could have just played in the river the whole time.

As you come up to the natural bridge, it doesn’t look like much. It is kind of hidden in the cliffs. It was nice though that we had the place basically to ourselves. We passed a few people and only saw one couple at the bridge. Anyway, you really have to climb up under the bridge to appreciate how beautiful it is.

This is the view from behind the bridge. While we were there, the couple that we met told us about a place outside of Escalante that sounded cool, so we hiked out and headed there next. 9 miles south of Escalante on Center street is a little place that you wouldn’t expect to find. The scenery up to the trailhead is pretty desolate, but in the little wash is a carved out tunnel that is pretty sweet. It was a good place to hang out on a hot afternoon.

There is a large undercut cliff and it is as as smooth as can be. Here are the rugrats hanging out in the tunnel. It was easily 20 degrees cooler in there. The tunnel makes an arc and is only about 100 feet long, but it’s still a fun side trip, especially since it’s only about .25 miles to get there.

Inside was this important statement: SUWA SUX. Man, whoever wrote that really showed the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance a thing or two. They are probably still feeling the effects of that libelous statement. I mean, I bet there is easily 500 people that visit this place a year, and I’m sure it got each one of them thinking. A message important enough to carve in stone must be true. And just think, now the 100 people that read this blog in a year will see it too, so think about that.

Anyway, just before you get to the tunnel is this sweet little natural bridge.

Day 1 of the trip was awesome, but the best part was waiting for us on Day 2.

So, for my May mountain bike ride I went for an early morning excursion with Dirk, Casey, and Cam up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We got off early and had enough cars to shuttle it twice for extra downhill goodness. The small uphill we did up to the ruins actually was nice. I used to look for any way I could to shuttle a ride, but now that I ride daily to work, I don’t mind some nice climbs now and again. The video is Cam jumping over Dirk on one of the side trails. Not quite Nitro Circus level, but still awesome in it’s own lame kind of way.

One of my favorite things about conference is meeting new people. I’m naturally shy, so it’s great to have something like a camera to break the ice and be able to interface with people. People just open up and I love that. Maybe it’s just because some people think I have something to do with getting their photo in the Ensign. Who knows. I actually like it when people ask me to take their picture, as long as they are willing to work a little. I’ll usually take 10-20 photos of them and if we aren’t in a good spot, I’ll make them walk a little. Contrary to popular belief, just because I take your picture, it doesn’t mean that your photo will be in the Ensign. But there are some things you can do to improve your chances!

If you really want to be in the Ensign or Liahona, it’s not hard. If you are the right kind of subject you will most likely have your photo taken. If no one takes your photo, you can always ask. I know I don’t mind at least. Here’s a few tips:

• Be in the right place at the right time. The photographers hang out where there is good light and good background scenery. The photographers keep shooting during conference, and there are usually few people outside on Temple Square during a session. If you have tickets for the morning session, stick around for the afternoon session and listen to it outside. There will be even fewer people outside when it’s cold or bad weather.

• Represent a faithful Latter-day Saint. Remember your photo will be accompanying the words of the prophets, so if you are dressed immodestly or you have a big scraggly beard or haircut, your chances are slim. You’ll do best if you are wearing a suit, white shirt and tie, or a nice skirt or dress. Forget the flip flops.

• Be diverse in age, or ethnicity. Remember that the church wants to represent it’s worldwide membership in these photos of people that show up to a meeting in Utah. They want old and young, white and black, and everything in between.

• Be a family, or at least a group of clean cut youth. Don’t leave mom and dad home. Many of the messages are about families, and surprisingly few families are willing to drag everyone downtown in their church clothes for a meeting that they could watch on TV. If you get your family down there, hang out for a while instead of rushing to your car. One of the photographers will probably find you.

Here’s some people that asked me to take their picture this time. I loved the family. They told me that they forgot their camera and wanted a picture of them at conference. I loved how they all gathered around their autistic son/brother and tried to get him interested in having his picture taken. I think this is the only photo that he peeked out from his blanket. Mom was excited to tell me that he was quiet and relaxed during the session, a miracle since he is usually restless. In the other photo, the guy was really funny. He was outside between sessions on Saturday with a few friends and they asked me to take their photo. I ended up asking him to step out for a photo, because he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and I thought he looked a little scraggly. Well sure enough, he tracked me down after a session the next day, on Sunday. I don’t know how he even found me because I’m usually all over the place. Anyway he was there, with his mom, and he had shaven and had a suit on. Anyway, I thought that was pretty hilarious.

So there you go. Next conference, get your family together, bring your scriptures and come hang out on temple square for a session. At least you know the talks will be good, even if you don’t get your photo in the Ensign.

So the Conference report Ensign is out, and if you have seen it, you have noticed that all of the photos are in color instead of the traditional black and white. I wondered how it would come out, but I have to admit I like the change. I especially liked shooting with color in mind. It was always disappointing when an awesome color photo became a mediocre black and white photo while editing the shoot. Now I can be disappointed when I can’t simply desaturate a mediocre color photo to a black and white image. Anyway, I love the blue sky over the conference center at twilight (seen on pg. 113).

Descending and ascending stairs. There are no shortage of stairs around the conference center (pages 13 and 39).

Don’t worry, you don’t have to take the stairs if you don’t want to (pages 107 and 84).

(pages 81 and 90)

I started photographing these cute girls (unpublished) and decided to get the whole family in there just in case (page 22).

The Christus statue in the North Visitor Center, using the tilt-shift lens to set the focus on the nail prints and the face (page 76).

Inside the conference center (page 3).

* Edit: So I was looking through the printed Ensign and I noticed that this photo of the First Presidency was actually used on page 9. I originally put this as one of my favorite unpublished photos.

All in all, it was a good conference. I’m still making my way through the talks, trying to catch what I missed. I have a few other favorite photos that didn’t get published that I’ll try to throw up in the next few days.

Here is the trailhead, looking up at the canyon where the trail starts. It was about 40 degrees, cows were grazing, and it looked like the start of a great ride.

Here is the same spot, after we finished. It only took about 2 hours to ride the 10 mile loop.

This is the climb at the start of the ride. It’s about a mile, steep and rocky. It almost killed me. I ride a recumbent to work every day, but there was a whole new muscle group at work here. This made the rest of the ride, including the snow, seem easy. When we reached the saddle, a light sprinkle started to fall, it was actually kind of refreshing.

Then the heavy clouds and snow rolled in. It just got worse from here. I can’t believe how narrow the trail is. It is only about a foot wide and you don’t ever dare get up too much speed since there are quite a few rocks embedded in the trail. It’s a pretty technical ride, just because there isn’t a lot of room to maneuver and the rocks surprise you along the way. It would have actually been a lot of fun to hang out and enjoy the views of the Great Salt Lake if we weren’t in a hurry to get back to a dry car.

You might think we had a bad case of explosive diarrhea, but that was just the mud.

The super-v was properly inaugurated on it’s first ride. My GT was a hardtail, and I can say I definitely liked the full suspension. It did well for a 10 year old bike. Hopefully this is the first of many rides we go on together. Oh, and thanks Sam for not calling it off, even though we knew we were in for nasty weather.

So we spent Christmas in the Historic Land of Four Seasons (a.k.a. Beaver, UT) with my wife’s family. She has a big family and Grandma wanted to get a new family photo of the whole gang. This group doesn’t all get together in one place very often so we only had two days to choose from, and those two days happened to be absolutely freezing cold. Normally getting a group of 35 adults to look at a camera at the same time can be a challenge, even in warm weather. It is also a known fact that kids hate looking at cameras. I had 19 kids in this shot, and I had to be in it too. I used my radio slaves (cyber commanders from white lightning) to trigger the camera and strobes while I was in the shot. It worked pretty well, but I really could have used someone like my buddy Dirk to try and get the kids (and adults) to look towards the camera. Anyway, we stayed out just long enough to get about 15 shots off and then high-tailed it back to the house before frostbite set in. That didn’t give me much to work with, but after swapping 25 of the 35 heads from other shots, we get what you have here. Parker never warmed up to the camera unfortunately, so he’s the only one you can’t see very well. Anyway, it goes without saying, don’t try this at home.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Above: The Salt Lake Temple and fountains early Sunday morning.

Left: I loved everything about this kid. I was shooting this with the 600 mm lens after the Sunday morning session, so I was probably 100 feet away from these guys as I was shooting. I loved the smirk he made as he realized that I was taking photos of him. The loose tie, the suit, wind blown hair, and dad’s hand on his shoulder. Awesome.

I liked the little moment the father and son are having in this shot of the crowds entering the conference center for the Priesthood session. Maybe someday that will be me and one of my boys, except, maybe my boy can be schlepping some of my heavy camera gear.

I’ve been taking photos for the church at the last 11 general conferences. I usually don’t see a lot of things that I haven’t tried shooting before, but this conference I was pleased to find for the first time these compass tiles on the main street plaza. I really like how this shot came out. I locked down the camera on a tripod and shot with a 16-35 mm lens. I easily have over 100 frames of people walking by here to get the blur and grouping of people just right. I’m really glad this one got published. Hopefully there are a lot more hidden gems out there waiting for me.

P.S. the talks were really good too, so don’t just get distracted by the awesome photos!