Monday, July 26, 2010

Don't Try This at Home -- Or Anywhere



So check this out. I was coming down from Paradise Divide near Crested Butte last week and happened on this scene. I have NO idea how this lady ended up like this (maybe Carl Edwards had gone "through" earlier), but it took two trucks and three brains to get her out. I was second on scene, but the first with a tow strap. I tried to pull her out, but there wasn't enough road width to pull her straight back and I just managed to pull the back end around more, threatening to complete the job she started, putting her over the edge. Then a guy (in the red SUV) had the idea of using his trailer hitch like a pulley to pull her straight back (think of my tow strap in the shape of an "L,", with one end hooked to my hook and me pulling straight up the road, and the strap making a 90-degree turn around his trailer ball to pull her straight back), so we tried that way, and it worked! Until my tow strap snapped. Damn! I really liked that tow strap. It didn't bust a few months ago, when my little Nissan Frontier and I pulled a gal in a full-sized Dodge Ram pick-up hauling three horses in a horse trailer partway up Monarch Pass on a sheet of ice. Apparently a Buick LeSabre was just too much to handle. Oh well.

A third guy, who had a bunch of chains in his truck (I think he was the ghost of Christmas Past) suggested we hook one chain up front and pull one way, hook the other up at the back and pull the back end around at the same time, basically yank her back onto the road. BINGO!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Workshops!

For anyone interested in some field instruction, I'll be joining my buddy and photographer extraordinaire, Bret Edge, to co-lead two workshops. For the first one, we'll be shooting fall colors in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado from September 30th to October 3rd. Then, from November 4th through 7th, we'll be doing an encore workshop on Bret's home turf of Moab, Utah. Bret and I did this workshop last year, and it was GREAT fun!

You can find out about all of Bret's workshops at this link: http://www.moabphotoworkshops.com/#goto=workshop-calendar

There's even an early sign-up discount, so check it out soon!