Bisti Badlands Ain’t Bad

In the Navajo language, Bisti means badlands. I spent a week here for another Pilgrimage of Light. I’ve photographed badlands before, but Bisti Badlands surprised me, taught me lessons, and gave me the backdrops of some of the most exciting images in and beyond the series.

The Middle of Nowhere

The nearest airport is ABQ, from where there’s a 3 hours’ drive to Farmington the base camp, then there is another 50 mile’s drive with a stretch of dirt road. All teal color dots are points of interest for Pilgrimage of Light.

Under the Bureau of Land Management and right next to Navajoland, Bisti is not easy to access. This is no National Park with rangers, maps, well paved roads that’s hard not to speed. Here, you can ruin the trip easily by not negotiating dirt roads carefully, or getting lost if you do not match your physical steps to that arrow on AllTrails for just 10 seconds. It’s no joke.

Warming Up

Arriving at 2pm at Farmington, I checked in the hotel, dropped the luggage and came right back out with the gears. It’s not because I rush for the sunset at 4:30 in this winter time. In fact, I don’t want daylight, because I deliver my own light! But my routine is to hike in during the day, scout the spot(1, or at most 2), set up, choose projection and photographing spot, previsualize projection and choose slides, and prefocus. These will take an hour when the ambient light dims.

When do I know it’s dark enough? When the proper exposure setting for the projection is at least two stops over the ambient light.

I arrived at the parking area fenced with barbed wires. The national park style restroom and a picnic table were much more civilized than anticipated. Little did I know what’s coming in the other part of this wilderness area, though.

I hiked in fading light and quickly reached the first photogenic formation, setting up my projection apparatus for the first time since Death Valley without much rustiness, and took this image as an opening to a new adventure:

NGC 3318 at 115 million light years away is a good match for Bisti’s geologic age.

Nothing fancy on the terrestrial side, but a subtle silhouette of the formation bordering the starry sky and the projected galaxy gives it a rightful place in the series. Phew! Kicking off with this shot, I know my equipment is in good order, I’m in good order, and superstition is in good order.

Negotiating The Badlands

After a good night sleep, a morning’s planning and a nap to fully recharge myself, I drove to the same parking area, had my lunch at the picnic table before I swung the 55-pound camera bag with two tripods on my shoulders and headed back out to the trail. I had no idea how much time it will require to get to any of the sites, but I thought I had plenty of daylight ahead.

So many attractions, so little time, according to AllTrails.

I went straight for Chocolate Hoodoos. Very soon, I realized how difficult it was to navigate badlands. There’s no distinctive landmarks; on the contrary, similar features pop up here and there, serving nothing else but to confuse. The terrain’s elevation changes are mild, but enough to block sights. The washes are not deep, but many of them are deep enough to keep me from crossing. My 55-pounds burden did not allow jumping: a twisted ankle in such isolation would be disastrous. Every 20 feet there’s a left or right decision to make, like this:

I did this numerous times in this trip

I can’t imagine how people hiked unmarked trails before AllTrails’ time.

Chocolate Hoodoo turned out to be not worthy of a night’s work, and in the same time too rugged for me to cut through. I chose to back out.

The green line indicates my recorded hiking route. My navigation was nothing to write home about.

With the diversions, by the time I reached Flat Tops, I had to settle. This is a site, flat with many small mushroom-like features.

Flat Tops

I went for an immersive approach, having the projector higher and behind the camera, also projecting twice, panning between two slides which split NGC 2236 to left and right.

NGC 2236 on Bisti

This technique is for creating large projection without using wide angle lens on the projector, hence maintaining brightness by directing the energy to a smaller area at a time.

Phantoms of The Great Dying

On this pilgrimage, I brought with me not just slides of galaxies. Colleen Maynard, an immensely talented painter with deep interests in paleontological subjects, have been planning with me for a project, and produced an exquisite drawing of trilobites and crinoids. This is the first time I have her drawings ready to be projected.

These vivid drawings were digitized and made into slides prior to my trip. Now I was ready to project them onto the exotic formations of Bisti. Scientifically, the period of these creatures actually do not match with Bisti’s geologic age. Will they work?

I found Colleen’s strokes in harmony with Bisti’s forms. I was also very pleased with the crispness of the projections. Clearly, these are characters that differ greatly from the galaxies and nebulae. I was very excited to explore.

These two first attempts also scream for the beginning of a new series. What should it be titled?

Crinoids and trilobites, along with many other species, went extinct during the Permian Extinctions in which 90% of the species died out, hence the term The Great Dying. These projections are ghosts of the dead. They are the phantoms.

That’s it, the Phantoms of The Great Dying. Colleen liked the title wholeheartedly.

Taking off on Stone Wings

Despite many more unexplored sites on the same trail, I opted for a different trail that would lead to Stone Wings.

My hiking route to and back from Stone Wings. I chose to back out the same way. It’s not a good idea to explore an unfamiliar trail in the dark.

This northern entrance had nothing but barbed wires and a little gap to squeeze through.

The parking area for the northern entrance. The posts to the right has a tiny gap.

The trail that leads to Stone Wings posed no greater challenge and the hike to the site was non-eventful. I reached the destination with plenty of time left to set up before sunset.

I even had time to sit down to drink hot chocolate and chew on a Cliff bar. What a luxury!

The shadowy side of this Stone Wing was a great spot to lay NGC 7098.

NGC 7098 and Stone Wings

The formations at Bisti are intricate and rather small. This resulted in bright projections in close proximities. They were so bright I could produce images before the sunset. The bright sky in this one shows just that.

This slope then struck me as a great resting place for the phantom of crinoid.

Crinoids under Stone Wings

The flower-like part of the crinoid, called pinnules, were so perfectly matched with the exotic looking formations. The stalks were gently cradled on the slope. I love this image. High 5 Colleen!

Turning around to look westward, I noticed a rare opportunity to use dusk as the backdrop of a POL image, armed with bright projections. To pair with the fantastic Stone Wing, I needed a galaxy with strong personality. I knew just the one.

Stone Wing, NGC 3314 and a Busy Sky

With Los Angeles and Las Vegas to my west, it was no surprises to have captured this many airplane trails. Their directions nicely matched the shape of the Stone Wing, radiating from the pointy formation.

I was happy to call it a night with these three images under my belt.

The Misadventure to Mesa Verde

Only after I arrived in Farmington did I realize that Mesa Verde National Park was only over an hour’s drive away. Having listed it as point of interest for Pilgrimage of Light, and after three nights of successful shoots, I’ve decide to make an excursion to check out this unique park where the natives lived in dwellings in perfect symbiotic coexistence with nature.

At the entrance, I proudly presented my annual pass to the ranger. From there, there was another 40 minutes of drive to the site. I whistled, enjoyed the scenic drive and arrived at Navajo Canyon Overview.

Bang!

The smart feature of Hyundai Tucson quickly informed me low tire pressure in the front right. I parked to check and saw a complete flat.

“Need help there?” A nice gentleman rolled down the window and asked.

“Oh I’m fine. I will just put on the spare.”

The would-be good Samaritan waved bye and drove away, leaving me in total solidarity. I opened the floor below the cargo area.

No spare tire.

Not even the space for a spare tire. Instead, a “tire mobility kit” that was totally useless for a hole on the tire’s side wall. Evidently, this car model was by design without a spare. This was the first time I know such a possibility, and such a shitty time to learn it.

No cellphone signal, no one around. I sat down and waited.

The following 9 hours was a mix of kind people and shitty cellphone signals, their assistance and miscommunications. By the time I returned to the hotel in a drivable car, it was dinner time.

I washed away a day’s bad luck with Dos Equis and Tacos.

Grand Finale at Alien’s Throne

Having lost a day and knowing rain was coming on my last day, I wanted to go for the best. Alien Throne it was.

My hiking route to and from Alien Throne

Valley of Dreams trail’s parking area was completely unmarked except tire marks on the dirt that suggested cars’ turning and backing. A few hundred feet away from the car, the trail dipped and the car was instantly out of sight. This gave me an uneasy feeling that the reflectors on the car wouldn’t be welcoming beacons when I hike back in the dark. I was right. On the way back to the car, I circled around and hiked 20 extra minute, basically a marathoner that couldn’t get to the finish line, before I finally got this:

It’s funny that the sight of cows and their poops provided some comfort as reminders of proximity to civilizations. If I were lost or stranded, at least I could get help from the cows? But how? Would they lead the way? Or would they let me drink from their udders? That’s silly, I thought, what’s more likely to happen is to be charged at by them. My mind was wandering while I approached Three Wise Men. The gray terrain around them looked rock solid. I confidently stepped on it and…

Wham!

I fell. For a moment I couldn’t understand what happened. I struggled to stand up with 55 pounds on my back, trying to regain my verticality and realized I wasn’t on solid ground at all. The gray color rock turned out to be wet clays. When I stepped on was now a impressive, 2 feet long skid mark. 3 hours later, with the help of AllTrails, I actually found that skid mark and made this video:

When I finally stood up and retreated to safety, I looked again at the death trap that failed to kill me and was amazed how it looked like solid sedimentary rocks, then I realized that what I was looking at will probably become rock solid in, what, 1 million years? My skid mark might be preserved and becomes a record of ancient (clumsy) human activities.

The Alien Throne area was truly impressive. I quickly set up and was ready for a night’s work.

The alien looking Alien Throne inspired another projection for the Phantom of The Great Dying. The shape of rocks at its base looked like a perfect fit for Colleen’s vivid depiction of a trilobite with an arching back!

The ghost of the trilobite’s crawling off Alien Throne

I loved this one! A trilobite’s getting off a throne is so symbolic of the species’ abdicating their world dominance 500 millions years ago. The arched back of the ancient bug fits the contour of the rocks organically.

Phantoms is off to a good start, I need to take care of Pilgrimage. What to project? The Pillars of Creation’s shape should be compatible to Alien Throne…

Pillars of Creation on Alien Throne

…and I was right!

Tribute to Elliott Erwitt

One secret mission I have kept to myself so far was to pay tribute to the recently deceased master Elliott Erwitt, whose humorous look at urbanites are unparalleled. I had in my slide box two of his iconic images that depict dogs and their owners. One hundred feet from Alien Throne, a cluster of mushroom shaped formation looked, somehow, funny to me. With a bit of comedic staging in mind, I brought EE’s city scene to wildness.

Tribute to Elliott Erwitt

For the first time in my arduous projection tasks, I laughed out loud when the dogs’ projections emerges. It felt less alone when I was working on this image. Somehow, this quiet little corner in Bisti was made rowdy by EE’s images.

With this unusual projection, I declare the completion of another successful Pilgrimage of Light.

Pilgrimage to The Fire and Ice

Yellowstone is a package of excitement: geothermal features with half of the world’s geysers and Old Faithful where Mother Nature hosts a water dance show (almost) every 1.5 hour; wildlife so abundant that when I took my friend, painter Gao Hang there he went into an uncontrollable laugher seeing a bison doing a sand bath, 5 minutes into our visit. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is no Grand Canyon, but its upper and lower falls flanked by the yellow stones, the park’s trademark from the rusting iron-rich rocks, has its own grandeur.

I’ve visited this favorite Nation Park of mine 3 times, but I’ve never been there in the winter. Yellowstone, unlike other NPs that are either open year-round, or closed for winter, closes its door by November and reopens in December to present an entirely different season of wintery wonder. With feet of snows on its caldera, 5 miles above the molten magma, and the hot and cold’s clashes at the pools, mud pots and geysers, Yellowstone in the winter is a duel of ice and fire, and a must for my Pilgrimage of Light.

The Plans

The geothermal features are not just stunning, their periods in hours presents an unique opportunity. Instead of thousands, millions or billions of light-year-away galaxies, I get to project objects of our solar system, at distances the light can travel to us in hours. Do we have a match? Yes! Saturn’s 1.5 light hours away in average, that’s also the average interval of Old Faithful’s eruptions.

While I got busy collecting NASA’s Saturn images, my wife/travel companion/assistant Olive, has made her plans as well. Winter visit to Yellowstone presents a logistic challenge, as most park roads are closed to private automobile traffic. All movements in the park are either on foot, on snowshoes, cross-country skis, snowmobiles, or, on snow coaches.

All I cared was that Old Faithful will be only a 10-minute walk for Old Faithful Snow Lodge. I want that unlimited access in case we need multiple night visits to the geyser for any success. Olive, on the other hand, wants to see something during the day. Oh, right, most people do want to see something during the day in a national park. I’m the weird one that forgets about normal sightseeings.

The Arrival

Olive’s itinerary was designed with relaxation in mind. We would arrive at Bozeman, MT on plane, stay a night, then we would take a shuttle bus to enter the park and stay another night at Mammoth Hot Spring’s historic hotel. The latter couldn’t happen because of the damage caused by the great flood at Yellowstone in June. Instead, we would have Gardiner, the gateway to Yellowstone, as the stop for another night before we enter the park.

And finally, we were on the snow coach, inching towards Old Faithful in single digit temperature in Fahrenheit in an otherwordly landscape.

Old Faithful

The routine of surveying during the day and projecting during the night brought us to the predicted 4pm eruption. And Old Faithful delivered.

For those who knows Mandarin, you can eavesdrop the discussion for projection between Olive and I. The eruptions in winter were rather different to the ones in warm days. The mix of hot water and cold air produced much more and higher flying, “solid” steams. For those who wanted the water dance, it might be a bit disappointing that the fountain of nature is veiled. For me, however, Mother Nature’s oversized steamy projection screen provided excellent opportunities.

Here is another great reason to visit Yellowstone in the winter. At this boardwalk surrounding Old Faithful, there were just a few dozens spectators. In the summer time? Thousands. If you are shorter than 5’6”, you would have to crawl through spaces in a forest of legs to get yourself a front row view, unless you can settle for just the sound effects.

The Frigid

Forgive us, vegan friends. but we did try bison short ribs before braving single digit temperature. The tasty meat cooked in red wine provided energies and kept us going, like what they did for the natives.

We made our first attempt at the 7:30 eruption. The stiff fingers and the short duration of event proved to be too challenging for my method, so far designed for formations that remains unchanged for a few million years. The steam dissipates in a matter of seconds. I had to adapt.

“I’m going to have you fully in charge of the composition of the projection,” I said. “We can’t respond to the shaping of the steam fast enough if I give you instructions.”

Olive remained silent, which translated to she did not object but she was thinking whether she would agree or not, but at the moment she couldn’t voice her objection effectively and she might do it later.

Back in the hotel room for a break from the cold, I asked her to practice a bit of quick actions on the Manfrotto geared tripod head. This is a great piece of equipment for nuanced composition. But to make it respond quickly, one needs to make it an extension of one’s fingers.

Surely, a musician can agree with the importance of practice.

In the meantime, I swapped the slide with a color image of the Saturn which not just shows its signature orange hue, but also a rare, blue Saturnian aurora.

Once again we put on layers and layers or clothes, adding the scarves, the caps, the gloves, attaching the crampons to the shoes, carrying the gears, and finally, we made it to Old Faithful before the eruption window. We set up, then we waited.

And thank you, Old Faithful, for another punctual delivery. Olive and I took our stations and executed the plan. She aimed, I clicked. And it worked.

Not only we got Old Faithful and Saturn nicely juxtaposed, we also had Big Dipper’s cameo appearance, to the right of the steam.

High 5, Olive!

The Hike to Morning Glory

The success of the very first night gave me a shot in the arm. Strategically, this would be the time to do something harder and veering off the main path, technically, aesthetically and/or content wise. I’ve been drooling over Yellowstone’s many colorful thermo pools, not literally, as I don’t want them to be contaminated by my personal organism. This is Grand Prismatic Pool, taken by me in summer 2017.

My current projection capacity has way exceeded this geothermo feature’s diameter at 300 feet. What will keep me from attempting this site will be the inaccessibility during winter time. We will need to do cross country skiing or to ride snowmobile, and like always, the return trip will be in total darkness. There’s also the uncertainty of how projection would work on a body of water.

Making Grand Prismatic a reason for another pilgrimage, I chose a less ambitious site at Morning Glory Pool.

This is a time-lapse video on the hike from Old Faithful Snow Lodge to Morning Glory. This was on the day prior to the actual projection.

When we went for the shot, it wasn’t such a pleasant hike at all. The sky was overcast, the wind blew and the snow fell. The last thing one would do was to take out a cellphone to do such a video.

Morning Glory might be much smaller than Grand Prismatic, but’s full of intricacies. The fading cloudy daylight could barely bring out any discernible colors from it, but I brought my own light to reveal the hidden beauty.

Liller 1 star cluster’s image by Hubble wasn’t so colorful. The colors we see in this photo are reflected by the the pool’s living organisms. Yes! Projection into the thermo pool is not only possible, it presents a rare opportunity for the terrestrial feature to provide the colors.

Grand Prismatic, you will be the next.

I am Thankful

Day 1, November 24, 2022

Thanksgiving night in an AirBNB in Terlingua, TX. I heated up a package of coconut chicken from Costco, poured it over rice and served them in two plates, one for me and one for my daughter, Marcia. To say that our Thanksgiving dinner was modest was an understatement, especially after seeing photos of delicacies texted from wife on her gastronomic trip in Taiwan.

3 hours ago, after a day’s drive from Houston, we arrived at the site near the west entrance of Big Bend NP. Here, the Black Peak Formation is laden with K-Pg boundaries, a band in the strata that marked the meteor strike which wiped out most of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.

Marcia and I in front of a formation with K-Pg boundary

Marcia was there to assist as a substitute. My student Gustavo’s new job as a high school photo teacher did not afford him a break. I wasn’t sure how this photo assistant/daughter dynamic would pan out. I remembered vividly that she freaked out in the dark on a family trip, when I was trying to photograph the milky way.

But she was 10 at the time. And we had no better plan for Thanksgiving without my wife, her mom in town. And she had recently broken up with an asshole after 6 years of relationship. The in-family assignment came quite naturally on multiple fronts.

Minutes into her first day at job, she was assembling equipment, communicating through walkie talkies and helping me to refine compositions, hundreds of feet away and operating the projector on her own. It’s so nice to have a grown-up, capable, quick-to-learn daughter! 2 hours , 2 galactic slides and 2 compositions later, we got this:

NGC 1232 and K-Pg boundary

This image is more than a keeper; it definitely makes the cut into the portfolio.

7 months into the inception of Pilgrimage of Light, I’ve experimented through 3 versions of projector, each improved certain aspects of the projection and opened up new possibilities. My compositional approach has involved, too. I came to realize that a key to create the sense of a heavenly body descent on Earth is through separation of projection and photographing points. This one, for example, put a distance of 300 feet between Marcia and I.

With the instant success for the father-daughter team, Costco coconut chicken could hardly dampen the celebratory mood. We toasted with water. We chatted about dodging bullets: her escape from a pathological lier who would certainly make a husband from hell and mine many rubbing shoulders with disasters during on my Pilgrimages of Light. This one promises to be a breeze, with one good image under my belt and 2 more days of sunny weather in store for us. She pick up her cell to check on the weather.

“Uh, Dad, the weather forecast now calls for all rainy, windy and cold tomorrow.”

Damn. There would be no breeze.

Day 2, November 25, 2022

Our day started with surveying the sites. Santa Elena Canyon was the subject on my plan. Back in May, I photographed in Big Bend, but found Santa Elena Canyon’s unique structure in need of separated projection and photographing. Here is an illustration of the plan:

The most exciting plan calls for a hike across the river, which was walking over dried, hardened riverbed back in May, then hiking up the cliff of the Mexican side, and project and photograph down in to the river. Rio Grande wasn’t dry this time. Though we did manage to cross, the alternate route took us up a precarious climb, too risky for repeating in the darkness. Our survey gave us nothing but muddy boots twice as heavy as they used to be.

Even our attempt to have a leisurely lunch was proven too much on the day after Thanksgiving. In the Tex-Mex place next to our AirBNB, the waiting staff looked overwhelmed and the customers cold and hungry. Abandoning our table, we had steaming instant Ramen with eggs. It’s good to be Asian and prepared, and not picky.

But there are things that can’t be defended with frugality and adaptability . Things like a toilet that wouldn’t flush down. The AirBNB owners was on top of it, literally, trying to unclog it with a snake and a plunger, to no avail.

Skipping the shitty situation and fast forward to the twilight hours. We had to give up even the second choice of spot because of the muddiness. From the 3rd choice, the “meh” point, we set up the equipment according to the revised scheme for the large projections.

With clumsy cold fingers, unfamiliarity to the different scheme, and a quarter coin to tighten the tripod adapters nowhere to be found, this set up was slow and untidy. But we did it eventually: a 30-burst multiple exposure of Andromeda Galaxy on the rocky wall of Santa Elena. The Packard shutter in front of the camera lens got stock during one of the exposures and ruined the shot. But, the projection’s exposure appeared to be all correct, despite the misty air’s interference.

I would find out later that the width of the projection was at a whopping 2000 feet, and the slide was completely unharmed by the heat of the flash. Our shoot failed, but the new scheme was a success that will open up possibilities that I couldn’t even fathom.

“We will put this to work tomorrow,” I told Marcia. But what shall we project on?

We returned to the AirBNB room to find a toilet that was still clogged.

Day 3, November 26, 2022

I started the day with a frantic text exchange with the AirBNB owner. Despite her effort, she couldn’t find us a replacement room other than a teepee, which is basically the equivalent of having no toilet. No matter, by the time she gave up, I have booked a room in Fort Stockton. The plan is to make a 3 hour dash to comfortable beds and a functional toilet.

After a survey, we have decided on Cerro Castolon.

Marcia seemed to be not entirely impressed. But being a seasoned Junior Ranger that toured innumerable national parks, she was, if I may say so with some irony, spoiled.

Cerro Castolon is no match to Half Dome or Old Faithful, of course! But it is nonetheless a 2000 feet towering volcanic formation dated back 30 million years. I have just the right galaxy in my archive to go with it. Just you wait, now-senior junior ranger!

We arrived at the site early to make sure all is set up and focused when there was still light.

The large projection scheme calls for improvements on both the projection and the photographing. For the latter, the limit of 10 multiple exposures(why why why? Canon and Nikon!?) imposed by current digital cameras have to be circumvented. Simply keep the shutter open at B setting and fire away the projector won’t work, because too much ambient light would accumulate, overwhelming the projection. My solution is to use the B shutter in conjunction with an external shutter from a century-old brand Packard. This contraption is no stranger to wet plates enthusiasts such as my friend Japheth Storlie, who generously loaned me one from his collection for experiment. Without an onsite documentation, this video is an reenactment at home to show how it’s set up and functions:

Old and new: a Packard mechanical shutter in front of a Canon 5D.

The mechanical shutter has a PC cord port, which is here connected to wireless trigger which gives order to the flash on the projector. The shutter speed is around 1/30, which, after, say, 30 exposures, would only have accumulated ambient exposure for 1 second—no biggie, as long as the moon is not shining bright.

The squeeze bulb is a real good workout for the forearm. I expect to have improved muscle tones after many more shots. Or my assistant will.

On the side of the projector, this is what we have:

Projector 2.1 with air cooling: the air mattress pump send air through the silicon hose into the slide chamber to keep the temperature from rising.

Projector 2.1 added air cooling to 2.0. It comprises an air mattress pump and a silicon hose. When activated, the pump sends cool air, especially in a cold place like winter in Big Bend, into the chamber of the camera(a stupid sentence, because camera is chamber in latin!) to cool off.

After an hours of trial-n-err on exposures and composition, I settle on a scheme with 500 feet between us with the projection directly in the line of site, to be cropped out. From where I stood, I could see her red head light:

Through walkie talkies, we coordinated a shot with 30 bursts of projection. She did the count, I did the workout by squeezing the bulb.

And this is what we got, after overlaying the projection exposure and ambient exposure:

The Javelina

We high 5ed, we packed and hiked back to the car. Marcia later told me she had the bear horn and spray ready all these times. So, no wild life encounter?

I drove, we listen to audio book, chat and with the happy thought of a clean toilet, on the throughly deserted state highway 385. It must be near Marathon, when all of a sudden, the road ahead had an impression like this.

Pardon me for the drawing. Rescind my MFA if you want, U of H.

A javelina, leisurely crossing the road without a car perhaps for hours, was merely 30 feet away from the bumper of my Prius. I cursed and swerved to the opposite traffic lanes, sparing the life of the pig, then I swerved back, avoiding a high speed rollover to spare ours.

Hours later, lying in darkness bed of the La Quinta Inn. I realized that the view of the above illustration could have been the last thing Marcia and I saw. I’m thankful that I’m still here to make this crappy drawing.

And I’m thankful to have a clean toilet.

And I’m thankful that Marcia dodged a bullet by breaking up with the asshole.

And I’m thankful that our first Pilgrimage of Light was a success.

And I’m thankful for Olive’s support.

And I’m thankful to be alive and given the opportunity to do what I love and sharing my work with people I love.

Journeys, not Made

When I was 12, my violin teacher entered me to a competition. I was required to play an etude, a 10 minutes, non-stop entanglement of 16th notes. I worked my ass off for months, but it was beyond me. I’ve never, ever, finished it without a stop.

The challenge came at a very bad time. I was in the middle school for the first year. My long hair was practically shaved off to a crewcut, as required for all boys at that age in Taiwan under martial law. I was depressed, and I was constantly sick, and my stomach ulcer was about to be diagnosed in a few months. I shouldn’t be loaded with another mission impossible. But what was a meek 12-year-old to say about his fate?

The day of the competition was approaching and my hopeless practices went on. Did my teacher give me tips to practice, like what Olive gave to her cello students? Slow down, or placing emphasis on different notes? The hopeless attempts turned mindless. I was so, so fucked.

And then, a miracle.

I suddenly came down with something nasty. High fever, body ache. Eyes felt like popping out from their sockets. Coughing my lungs out. Nose running 100m dash. I was a poster child of influenza.

And I didn’t have to play. Instead, I was hospitalized for a week.

…like I didn’t have to present my work in Cincinnati, right at this moment, at Society for Photographic Education. Well, not entirely like it, because one came with a sigh of relief and the other is an utter disappointment.

“It was good that you didn’t play,” the teacher told me afterward. “It was soooo scary. So and so(my friend who was lucky to be taught by him, too) almost peed in his pants.” Wow, and he was talking about the guys that played well; better than I, I think.

I dodged a bullet.

Strangely, as years went by, this competition which I did not play in, formed a memory in me. I could clearly see the spotlights, so strong on the young musicians, that the beads of sweat on their forehead glistened. They played, some well and some lousily and they were applauded, enthusiastically or doubtfully. They came down the stage, greeted by nodding parents or chilling silence. I have had these visuals in my head, as if I was there.

But I wasn’t.

Like right now, I’m picturing the hotel conference room in which I’m projecting images of Pilgrimage of Light. I explain how my projector was designed and put together. I demo a projection by enveloping my audience in Andromeda galaxy, and I take a photo of that. I thank the crowd and offered all of them this image. They applaud.

But this is not happening, because I’m Covid positive.

I’m barely coughing. No fever. No bone crashing ache. No eye trying to pop out of the eye sockets and my nose’ staying put. Not like the horrible flu I had 46 years ago. Maybe there is such a thing as pay back time. Dodging a bullet. Taking a bullet. Forgoing an opportunity. Dodging another bullet.

The emotion, the situation that I didn’t get to experience. The people, the exchange with whom that didn’t happen. The names that I won’t know and the stories that I can’t tell. Or maybe I still can.

The journeys that weren’t made.

An Alpine Lake in the Sierras

1 month into the inception of project Light/Year (later renamed as Pilgrimage of Light) and I was ready for an adventure.

The destination was Pear Lake, deep in the Sierras Nevada in the boundary of Sequoia National Park. The trail led to it was rated hard for elevation gain and length. I’ve never been a hiker. I walked, I played tennis and I was reasonably fit for my age, but, carrying a backpack and walking with trek poles in hands was something that did not occurred to me that I would do.

There is nothing I would not do for photography. Well, I probably still wouldn’t jump out of an airplane for it. Not yet.

The Planning

The pristine alpine lakes were calling me—I’ve never been to these hard-to-access destinations, but I could see how stunning they were on Google image search. My experience from Glen Rose, Big Bend and White Sands told me this one needs careful planning.

On Google Earth, I found scenes like this

When were these lakes carved out by glaciers? The glaciation in Sierra Nevada took place during the Paleocene, as early as 2.5 million years ago, a number that did not match many galaxies in terms of distances in light years. But, there is one rock star galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, right in our Local Group: Andromeda, or M31. What else can I ask for?

I had the matching subjects. The next question was: how do I get there?

This was when Google’s power disappear: it didn’t know much about trails. Time to expand my horizon, a bit literally. I found this app called AllTrails. On it, I found this trail that will bring me to the lakes.

It was rated “hard”; it had 3000 feet elevation gain and it might have ice hazard. If you are a season hiker, this might sound like a stroll in the neighborhood. Not for me, I’ve never backpacked. Should I go?

I looked at the lake again, closely.

Imagine the Andromeda projected on the granite, it’s reflection on the mirror-like lake.

Fuck it. I’m going.

The Preparation

I had a new pair of boots and comfy wool socks. Oh yes, I had a pair of trek poles I bought at slippery icy Grand Canyon after my butt was seriously bruised. I had a nice Manfrotto camera backpack that could tie two tripod, but it looked a bit…huh, stretched, with the load. And if it became fully loaded with photo stuff, where was I going to put my sleeping bag, tent, food, first aide, and yes, bear repellent?

“You need a serious backpack,” says Liz, my niece who lives in the Bay Area and the most seasoned backpacker in the family, “and we should have a visit at REI when you are in town.” I didn’t know what REI was, but quickly remembered Reese Witherspoon mentioned it in her movie Wild, the quintessential hiking movie. Yes, it must be serious.

We visited REI 2 days before my hike, when most other stuffs were bought piecemeal from here and there. I brought all the photo equipment, packed nicely in protective inner cases. “I need a backpack that can hold all these,” I say, and Jenna the nice REI consultant measures me, and brought a gargantuan bag. It’s fancy with many compartments and fully compatible with a hydration bladder.

At Liz’s home, I loaded everything in it and lift it with a grunt. The bag was well designed. The weight distributed evenly mostly on the hip, and the contour of the frame hugged my back. Nonetheless, it was quite an effort just to put it on. I struggled and I looked at Liz and Olive.

We Chinese don’t do verbal tsunami. But their expressions said they were worried.

The Rock on The Road

I cut the shoot at General Sherman tree short the night before, so I may have plenty of sleep. Tips to avoid altitude sickness say that I should east lots of carb. So, in the national park cafe, I garbled up potatoes. No cellphone signal means no saying goodbye. I wondered into the gift shop and bought Olive and Marcia matching Sequoia NP shirts(Olive says to me afterward “these shirts are damn expensive!”). I didn’t pay attention at the time. I was thinking if I never come back, people would find these shirts in my car and give to them. If I have to go, I want to leave something nice behind.

On the drive to the trail head, I ran into this

My car was the third in the line, which means this might have happened minutes before I passed it.

“Somebody is trying to stop me,” I thought. Strangely, this idea made me more determined.

One side of the road is cleared pretty quickly. And I arrived at the trail head.

The Hike

At the Lake Trailhead, hikers sat on the opened trunk of their cars, putting on boots and eating banana. A couple women passed me by, clinkity clunkity with their trek poles doing part of the walking. They all seemed knowing what they were doing. I, on the other hand, struggled to keep balance with my backpack, now with the additional 5 pounds of bear canister which the NP required. But there I went, leaving my rental car and civilization behind.

The first couple hours was a breeze, without much elevation gain, and with lots of shade, thanks to the sequoia giants. A few creeks cut the trail. Hopping on the rocks were much easier with the trek pole, which helped me to balance with a much elevated center of gravity.

1/3 of the way into the trail, the going got tough when I started to ascend on the Hump.

The ascent was steep and continuous, which quickly overload the muscles of the leg and the heart. Every single step was a struggle aggravated by rugged rocks and fallen trees. I put one foot in front of—and above—the other as many times as I can, until I needed to stop and let the drumming heart quiet down.

“If I can make one more step, and another one after that, I will get to Pear Lake”. I told myself over and over again.

The Glacial Water

Heather is the name of my favorite student and the lake that greeted me after the torturous Hump. My hydration bladder was emptied at the time, so a pool of turquoise water below was most encouraging, and drinking filtered water from it was most refreshing. From here on, a string of lakes awaits, with Pear Lake at the every end.

I must have ascended to elevation where the trees disliked. The terrain is now even more rugged. The shades were gone, but the spring breeze spared me from sweats. Heather, Aster, Emerald and Pear sits at the bottom of cirques, amphitheater like terrain carved by the glacier. Between each cirque there was sky-piercing peaks, which I had to negotiate.

Pear Lake

Pear Lake as seen from my tent

Just like what Google Earth showed, only 100 times more impressive.

The Shoot

A rule has presented itself during this project’s shoots: the first few shots always suck.

And of course, what did I expect to make any kind of nice exposure at ISO 204800? Well, these were just tests to see how viable it was to project Andromeda 400 feet across, on granite darker that a 18% gray card. It was horribly grainy, but it overexposed. At ISO 102400, a correct exposure was achieved.

That meant, I could expose at ISO 16000, with 10 multiple exposures set at ADD mode, to accumulate enough exposure and avoid excessive grains.

The very faint exposures of the galaxy were accumulated to _DSC5226 to a perfect exposure. Then with the confidence on a tightly locked Manfrotto tripod head, I made an exposure for the ambient light without the projection at the luxury of ISO 800. It was moonless, so the ambient light was from astronomical twilight.

These all sound easy when I write about it. At the moment, it was two hours’ work at the end of a day’s hike. Did I get what I set out to do? Without a laptop, I zoomed in on the camera’s review, checked and rechecked to make sure no mistakes were made. Everything looked fine. Time to call it a day!

The threat from bear was not as real as the threat from marmot. A fellow hiker told me that they eat up everything slightly salty, so clothings or gears that touched our sweat were in danger. I kept the two tripod standing, and hung my stuff like a hammock between them, so these fat and cute rodents wouldn’t get to them. I did not take a photo when it swaggered by my foot, but this is how they looked:

I squished myself into the single person tent, took my clothes off and slipped into the sleeping bag.

The Encounters

A brief moment of snow made me worried. It was beautiful in the dawn, but I got my beauty last night and I didn’t need a challenge to keep me from delivering that beauty to civilization.

Soon after I departed Pear Lake, a young woman walked towards me on the trail. It was still early, so she much have started early, or she must have been walking fast. Her face gradually resolved into a brilliant smile as we approached. She was there for a day hike to Heather Lake. Lightly equipped and looking fit, I didn’t have a doubt that she would accomplish her plan. We parted in opposite direction.

Going down on the Hump was not much better than going up. The heart didn’t strain as much; that’s physics: if I wasn’t gaining potential energy by going up, my heart didn’t have to pump that much fuel to the muscles. But the fact that I didn’t shape like a ball, rolling down the hill freely, hence I had to brake my fall by fighting the downward momentum, was also physics. Very quickly the muscles on the legs got fatigued, while I smiled and cheered on the upward hikers, who must have thought that I had such a great time going downward.

Soon after the Hump and the easy flat walk turned soporific, I thought of the young lady fast on feet. She must have turned back, and she might be passing me, the old man with two tripods and a huge backpack, soon. And there she was! Whizzing me by. Hmm, not even saying bye?

Minutes after that a man in the opposite direction approached me with a concerned look.

“There are a couple bears, one brown and one black. They are right around the trail. I told the young woman to wait for you so you two can handle this together.”

I sped up and saw her crouching on a piece of rock.

“Oh, hi there,” she said. “So the bears are right there” she pointed. “One black and one brown. That’s tricky, you know, because we are supposed to scare the black ones away and play dead to the brown. What should we do?”

Hell would I know. But I did have a bear horn.

The bears, either an interracial couple, or adoption, or whatever, were moving away from the trails. So we walked, slowly and observantly. More hikers joined up with us.

“There’s no brown bear in California,” one hiker said. “I’ve just talked to a rangers about this.”

I suggested we all gang up and walk pass the bears together. We made noises. I had the bear horn in my hand, ready to blow out some bear, and human ear drums.

Black and Fake Brown were not a bit interested in us. They pushed the trees, rolled on the ground and yawned. All of us lived to tell the tale.

Andromeda and Pear Lake

In a hotel room in Fresno, CA, where tap water tasted like sewage water in comparison to Pear Lake’s, I fired up my laptop and edited my shots from the night before.

I smiled and I started looking for the local 5 star restaurant on Yelp.