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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

…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.

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.