Last Light

JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Choco Canyon is a location I have been on every side of literally, but had just never made it to there. I have made many trips to Bisti Badlands, King of Wings, Valley of Dreams but had just never made it to Chaco. Part of the reason was that the only photos I had really seen of it, where literally all the same spot I think. So I figured that Chaco was just a small little set of Indian Ruins. I never realized or had any clue that it was a large expansive area with multitudes, literally hundreds of rooms of ruins.

On my last trip to New Mexico to deliver a car to my hard working Grandson there, I made lot's of detours. In this case the I-40 was showing more construction work and was routing me around it. And I decided you know, if I have to detour anyway, why not detour a few more miles and finally get to Chaco Canyon? It was a really rough road for the last 25 miles or so, and in a Toyota Corolla. I had to drive carefully in a few spots as obviously a Corolla doesn't have a lot of ground clearance. But I made it and was blown away by how large Chaco Canyon was. I am definitely going back!

This was at sunset. I had thought I would only be there 2 hours, but was there 5 hours, and got to the last main ruin on the scenic loop road just as the sun was setting. Not a block buster of a sunset, but it had been raining and completely overcast, so even a little bit of color was a nice surprise.

This is from the Casa Rinconada Communitty in Chaco Canyon.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

_D854492_dw.jpg
 
BlackRockArt

BlackRockArt

Staff
JimFox said:
Choco Canyon is a location I have been on every side of literally, but had just never made it to there. I have made many trips to Bisti Badlands, King of Wings, Valley of Dreams but had just never made it to Chaco. Part of the reason was that the only photos I had really seen of it, where literally all the same spot I think. So I figured that Chaco was just a small little set of Indian Ruins. I never realized or had any clue that it was a large expansive area with multitudes, literally hundreds of rooms of ruins.

On my last trip to New Mexico to deliver a car to my hard working Grandson there, I made lot's of detours. In this case the I-40 was showing more construction work and was routing me around it. And I decided you know, if I have to detour anyway, why not detour a few more miles and finally get to Chaco Canyon? It was a really rough road for the last 25 miles or so, and in a Toyota Corolla. I had to drive carefully in a few spots as obviously a Corolla doesn't have a lot of ground clearance. But I made it and was blown away by how large Chaco Canyon was. I am definitely going back!

This was at sunset. I had thought I would only be there 2 hours, but was there 5 hours, and got to the last main ruin on the scenic loop road just as the sun was setting. Not a block buster of a sunset, but it had been raining and completely overcast, so even a little bit of color was a nice surprise.

This is from the Casa Rinconada Communitty in Chaco Canyon.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

View attachment 53059
Click to expand...
Jim.

Wow, this is a great shot .

You really made an effort to get there, love the take of this photo. To be honest Ihave never heard of this place, this is on my to-go-list now. If anything, I would take a pano shot of the area. I am definitely piqued, it sounds like a less traveled road.

Oliver
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
BlackRockArt said:
Jim.

Wow, this is a great shot .

You really made an effort to get there, love the take of this photo. To be honest Ihave never heard of this place, this is on my to-go-list now. If anything, I would take a pano shot of the area. I am definitely piqued, it sounds like a less traveled road.

Oliver
Click to expand...
Thanks so much Oliver! A huge portion of the images I have seen from here have been Milky Way images, and almost all of them originate from one of the round ceremonial Kiva's. I want to go back and capture this with a timelapse at night.

Your idea of a pano is a sound one, and I will need to do a pano anyway as I am assembling the travel guide and I usually have a pano or two to use in it for the intro.
 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
Nice shot of a sunset from there. Most of the imagery I have seen from Chaco was more oriented towards documenting the site rather than using it as a backdrop for landscape photography. Many of the layout lines of the structures are aligned with solar and astronomical events so there should be some fun opportunities to take advantage of that.

Chaco is a place I wanted to visit but never made it down there. I did look long and hard at the access roads but decided there was no way I could go out there when I had my RV down in New Mexico. Your description of the road tells me I did the right thing by not even trying.
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Ben Egbert said:
Great picture Jim did you wash your Four Runner and it shrank?
Click to expand...
Ha ha, thanks Ben! The 4Runner got unshrunk. I am loading it up as we speak to get on the road today.

I tell you though, it got 40mpg on the freeway, it felt so weird to drive for hours and hours and only need 4 gallons of gas. It felt like I was getting 1000 miles to the gallon. :)
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
AlanLichty said:
Nice shot of a sunset from there. Most of the imagery I have seen from Chaco was more oriented towards documenting the site rather than using it as a backdrop for landscape photography. Many of the layout lines of the structures are aligned with solar and astronomical events so there should be some fun opportunities to take advantage of that.

Chaco is a place I wanted to visit but never made it down there. I did look long and hard at the access roads but decided there was no way I could go out there when I had my RV down in New Mexico. Your description of the road tells me I did the right thing by not even trying.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you would have seen it from a totally different viewpoint. But for me, I had never seen the archeology or the history of it. I had only seen photos from landscape photographers shooting the Milky Way at night.

Now it was fun to learn a lot of what you discussed while I was exploring there.

I think your RV would have been okay. The worse part for me was being in a car with only 5" of clearance. I saw some Sprinter vans back in there, I wasn't paying attention though.
 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
JimFox said:
Yeah, you would have seen it from a totally different viewpoint. But for me, I had never seen the archeology or the history of it. I had only seen photos from landscape photographers shooting the Milky Way at night.

Now it was fun to learn a lot of what you discussed while I was exploring there.

I think your RV would have been okay. The worse part for me was being in a car with only 5" of clearance. I saw some Sprinter vans back in there, I wasn't paying attention though.
Click to expand...
There is a huge difference between having the clearance to drive on a dirt road and a vehicle that is suited for the task. One of the issues with an RV like the one I had is the fact that you are a rolling hotel room with ceiling to floor wooden cabinets and full electrical/plumbing inside. What might be comfortable for you in the driver's seat is torquing and twisting all of the cabinet fasteners and joinery and is slowly destroying the interior. They are not automobiles that can handle the bumps.

This was just as true for my old VW buses as it was for the 25' motorhome in spite of the huge differences in how much cabinetry is installed. By the time we got rid of our old 80's era Vanagon the cabinets had taken a serious beating from the places I took it and that included several trips per summer to various archaeological digs that were in progress in the Great Basin and SW.

When I sold my RV this last spring it was just starting to get to the point where the downhill slide for the cabinet work was about to start if I kept trying to get back into places on unpaved roads. The access roads into Chaco would have been too much IMHO. Taking it into Bodie back in 2015 was not a Good Idea(TM) in hindsight although I had fun shooting in that place.
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Yep, the bumping around could be a problem. There were no pots and pans or cabinets in the Corolla. :)
 
Douglas Sherman

Douglas Sherman

Staff
JimFox said:
Choco Canyon is a location I have been on every side of literally, but had just never made it to there. I have made many trips to Bisti Badlands, King of Wings, Valley of Dreams but had just never made it to Chaco. Part of the reason was that the only photos I had really seen of it, where literally all the same spot I think. So I figured that Chaco was just a small little set of Indian Ruins. I never realized or had any clue that it was a large expansive area with multitudes, literally hundreds of rooms of ruins.

On my last trip to New Mexico to deliver a car to my hard working Grandson there, I made lot's of detours. In this case the I-40 was showing more construction work and was routing me around it. And I decided you know, if I have to detour anyway, why not detour a few more miles and finally get to Chaco Canyon? It was a really rough road for the last 25 miles or so, and in a Toyota Corolla. I had to drive carefully in a few spots as obviously a Corolla doesn't have a lot of ground clearance. But I made it and was blown away by how large Chaco Canyon was. I am definitely going back!

This was at sunset. I had thought I would only be there 2 hours, but was there 5 hours, and got to the last main ruin on the scenic loop road just as the sun was setting. Not a block buster of a sunset, but it had been raining and completely overcast, so even a little bit of color was a nice surprise.

This is from the Casa Rinconada Communitty in Chaco Canyon.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

View attachment 53059
Click to expand...
That ais an impressive image in all respects, Jim. This has been on my bucket list for a long time. Now it is more urgent.
 
Jameel Hyder

Jameel Hyder

Moderator
Staff member
Nice view. I had not heard of this place before. Looks like a place where a drone will be useful in getting interesting perspectives.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom