Paul Gardner

After 3 weeks of more or less not leaving the house, Lindsay and I were starting to get a little stir crazy. Our original plan was to go up to Kings Canyon and Sequoia for the weekend but the weather had other plans. The forecast was calling for rain and snow all weekend almost everywhere in California. On top of that we were unable to find a campsite anywhere from Point Reyes to San Diego that had sites available at the last minute. So on Thursday night we were without much of a plan. We had been wanting to go to Zion National Park for some time and the idea kept coming up in conversation about places to go soon. With that in mind we made the last minute decision, 7pm on Thursday night, to go to Zion National Park for the 3 day weekend. We had no campground picked out and just decided to wing it and try to get in the South Campground which is first come first serve. Within a couple hours we had packed up all of our camping and hiking gear into Lindsay's Toyota Scion (My Jeep is about dead and taking the smaller car saved a TON of money on gas 30mpg vs 12-15mpg) and went to bed for a few hours. The alarm went off at 330am on Friday morning and we were out the door by 345am. We decided to skip breakfast so we could get some miles behind us and eventually stopped for a healthy meal on the road at McDonalds. Seven hours later and a few switches of drivers we were in Zion National Park

I had two immediate goals upon arriving in the park; one was to try to get a campsite at the South Campground and the second was to try to get a permit to hike the Subway. We managed to easily get a campsite but the permits were already taken for the next day by 10am. No worries though, turned out we wouldn't have had the energy to hike Angles Landing, The Narrows and the Subway in the same weekend. The original idea was to hike Angels Landing immediately after getting to the park and setting up camp, but after the 330am wakeup call and seven hour car drive we were more in the mood for a nap.  After sleeping for a few hours in our tent with a nice cool breeze we decided to hike around the visitors center and campground. It made for a very relaxing late afternoon and evening.

Lindsay and I hiked along the Virgin River in the evening to try to find a nice view for sunset. The colors in the water from the red cliffs and green trees reflecting were fascinating and really beautiful. Unfortunately I had a harder time than usual capturing what I was seeing and feeling at the time. Being inside such a steep canyon makes for huge extremes of light. Once the sun had set behind the mountains it was either really bright cliffs across from the sun or near complete darkness down around the river. Even a strong split gradient couldn't handle the extremes; especially with lots of trees in the scene that went black with the filter. I took a few shots but called it quits after not really getting what I wanted. There were no clouds at sunset either which made for a pretty quick and dull sunset. I was hoping for some nice color and ambient glow from the clouds after sunset. I did manage to get one ok panoramic as the last bit of light played on the canyon walls. I setup in the middle of the river and took a few shots and the sun was gone. I hurried back to camp where Lindsay was already cooking up a storm. We had a great dinner, nice fire and passed out.

In early May Lindsay and I went down to San Diego, California for the 2009 Red Bull Air Races. We had been down the year before and loved it so headed south again this year. My friends Camilo and Karina came out to shoot the races with us. Overall a great weekend of photos and fun. The lighting was not the best with constant fog keeping the sun hidden away. Last year I shot witha  300mm f/2.8 and various teleconverters and this year I opted for a 200-400 f/4. It was nice to have the versatility of one zoom lens but the quality was a bit below the faster 300mm.

On April 18th, 2009 I got married to the love of my life. We had an incredible wedding in Homosassa, Florida (north of Tampa by an hour). The wedding was held on the 8th tee of the World Woods Golf Course overlooking a beautiful par 3. I think it was one of the most photographed weddings in history with over 3000 photos without the hired photographers photographs. Before we left for our honeymoon I managed to grab our parents grandparents and siblings cameras and download their photos to my laptop. I think my parents managed to grab some other family member's photos as well. In total I have photos from 9 cameras; which wasn't even half the number of cameras at the wedding. There are almost too many photos to pick out the best. So here are just a couple of me and Lindsay that I enjoyed.



I will be posting more photos as soon as I sort through the thousands of them.

The shoot that I did back in December down in Mexico for Windsurfing Magazine yielded my first cover shot. Needless to say I am pretty stoked. This issue also features a four page editorial featuring my photos. All totaled I have 9 other photos in the magazine plus the cover.

On March 13th my Fiance Lindsay and I decided to head south to the Anza-Borrego Desert in search of wildflowers. We left on Thursday evening and arrived at Palm Canyon campground later in the evening to setup camp.  By the time we showed up and setup camp it was too late to start a fire so we just decided to try and get some sleep so we could be up early for sunrise. Just a few short hours into our sleep 3 people in other campsites started snoring louder than I have ever heard anyone snore in my life. Needless to say it kep both Lindsay and I up all night long. We  evenutally ended up sleeping in the front two seats of the car to try to get away from the non-stop, sychronized snorring. After only two hours of what we can hardly call sleep, the sky was starting to lighten up as the sun got closer to rising. Our first planned stop for wildflowers was Coyote Canyon, which was just northeast of where we were camping. The drive only took a few minutes and I am not sure if it was really worth waking up. There were a few flowers but I found it really hard to find exactly what I had in mind. I am not sure exactly what I was looking for but I know I didn't find it there. The sun came up and with it came some pretty nasty wind that made macro shots virtually impossible. Lindsay and I decided to call it quits on the morning and go back to camp for a great camp breakfast. Lindsay cooked up some great eggs and sausage. After breakfast we decided to hike to the Palm Canyon Oasis. The entire hike was a few miles round trip and well worth the effort. At the end of the hike was an incredible oasis complete with a stand of palm trees and several waterfalls with ice cold water falling over the rocks; a welcome sight after hiking through the hot desert. The best part of a decent hike is the nap afterwards. we slept more or less the entire afternoon since we didn't get any sleep the night before. Around 3:30 we got up and out of the tent and decided to head to Fon'ts Point and see what the view looked like. It took a little off highway driving to get to but the jeep made it through and the view didn't disapoint. Font's Point overlooks an area of the park called The Badlands. It was kind of like a cross between Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Death Valley all rolled into one. Lindsay sat on the cliff overlooking the badlands and read a book while I took advantage of some nice late afternoon light to work on some huge mosaic shots. I was trying to cross over the gigapixel threshold but only managed to come away with a 750 megapixel photo; which by most standards is still pretty big. I think it will make a quality print. As the started  setting the crowds started showing up. For hours we had been the only people there. But at the last minute hoards of people started showing up, complete with dinner tables, wine and chesse. There were at least 5 groups of people that setup small tables and broke out the champagne. I couldnt believe it. I love wine and cheese and all that jazz but I thought it was a little bit too much considering where we were in the middle of nowhere. I guess that is the reality of having such a nice place with super easy access to all the people that are camped out in their RV's living the high life. Once sunset was over we debated on staying another night in the camp or just packing up and going home. The choice was pretty easy; the snorers at the camp were still there and there was no way we would get any sleep again. After having to deal with so much stupid stuff there we were pretty disenchanted with the place and got out as fast as we could. We did manage to get away with a few decent photos.

Wyatt and I started day 4 just before sunrise. We watched the sun come up from the roof of his parent's house and then decided to hop on the the ATV and dirt bike and make a quick run to the premier wave sailing spot in La Ventana called The Buffador. Buffador in Spanish means blow hole. At the Buff, as the locals call it, there are rock shelves that stick out into the water and when there is surf the surge blows through holes in the stone ledges spraying water way up in the air. Unfortunately the surf wasn't big enough to cause the spray to blow up. We made it down to the Buff just in time for the sunrise to get really good.



We rode back to town, grabbed a quick breakfast and went on another tour of the town to try to get some photos of the local color. The photos we wanted most were of Pablo and his family as well as his store.



As expected the wind started to kick up pretty strong just before lunch. We were all looking to get some unique shots from some less popular areas. Tyson and I decided to zip down the beach to check on The Buffador to see if the wind and waves were coming together for a good wave sailing session. When we got down there it was pretty clear that we needed to go back to camp and gear up. The wind was cranking and the waves were decent. Tyson and I raced back to camp, the guys all geared up and did a big reach from camp all the way to The Buffador. By the time we all got down to the buff and started the shoot and lighting got kind of crummy. A thick layer of clouds had moved in and there wasn't a lot of sunshine. The resulting shots were a little lackluster. The area really shines when the sun is out; most of the color of the natural landscape disappears without the sunlight. These shots were my least favorite from the weekend.



This evening everyone was pretty exhausted from the long day of sailing so there was no party. The guys pretty much got back to camp and passed out after dinner. I took a few sunset photos and called it a night myself. I headed back to the house to go through photos from the past few days and make sure I had backed up all my photos.

Day 3 started out with much more promise of wind. We woke up to small swell coming in from the North which meant that there was wind on its way much earlier than the day before. Before the wind showed up I had to get a few other shots. Josh wanted some overview shots of the camp. Just above the camp was a really high bluff that gave a commanding view of the entire sailing area. I was able to get up there just after sunrise and also right as the wind picked up. Being up there as the wind picked up was great because there were already a lot of windsurfers and kiters out which really gave an idea of how much sailing goes on there. The water was jam packed with peopleriding.



I decided that today would be an in your face action shot day. Wyatt had lined up a jet ski for me to ride on later in the afternoon so that I could get some action shots with the beach and camp in the background. The wind picked up right after breakfast and we all took to the water as quickly as possible. I geared up my water housing and swam out and pushed the guys to get as close to me as possible without hitting me. Wyatt took the prize and missed hitting me by a split second. He did a trick just upwind of me and crashed. His mast came flying down, headed straight for my head. I managed to duck underwater at the last second to avoid getting hit. The camera was shooting away during the entire sequence well past when I went underwater. It was pretty funny to look at back and see the look at Wyatt's face as he realized what was about to happen. The rest of the day was spent shooting the action from as many different angles as possible; from the water, from the jet ski, from the top of a ladder, laying down in the sand for more foreground. All that we needed was a helicopter. That didn't happen...unfortunately.



After a long day of shooting and sailing it was party time. We all headed over to Pablo's Bar for some drinks and to look over the shots from the day. After raiding the bar across the street from the camp we headed back to where the real party was on the beach. The firewood collected the night before was already setup for a big bonfire. One interesting thing I learned about making a fire from dead cactus is that when you light the dead wood on fire, scorpions come pouring out of the wood and into the sand around the fire. Standard practice down there is to rake a nice smooth area around the bonfire so you can watch for scorpions and kill them before they crawl into your lap or your shoes. Luckily I only saw one scorpion and it was promptly picked up and eaten by Jay. On top of the bonfire we also had an assortment of illegal Mexican fireworks to set off. I stayed as far away from those as possible. Jay was the local pyrotechnic and put on a show with some big balls of steel wool attached to a wire. He torched the steel wool and swung the balls of fire around in circles creating a huge pinwheel of sparks.

Day two in La Ventana arrived with little hope for wind. Supposedly there had not been wind for over a week prior to me arriving. That information was not good news for the shoot. The guys all seemed to be going a little stir crazy from having no wind and too much beer around. We were all hoping for a good Norte to fill in and bring us great wind and possibly some wave action. We were up at sunrise and there was no hope for wind anytime before lunch; so to kill time we took to the preferred mode of transportation, ATV, for a quick tour around the town. After the quick ATV tour and breakfast at one of the local hangouts Wyatt and Tyson decided to take me down to one of the natural wonders of the area, a hot spring that bubbled up right on the beach and in the water. We drove down several miles of empty beach until we reached the spot. I couldn't believe it; in the middle of nowhere on the beach I could drive my feet a few inches under the sand and hit 140+ degree water. I could also stand out in the water and feel the heat coming out of the sand. My comment was "why is there nothing here and why aren't we taking advantage of this!" That was my elitist side coming out, any kind of fancy resort for a hot spring there would totally kill the vibe of the entire place. I was told that on occasion the guys will bring tarps down to this place, dig a hole, line the hole with the tarps and fill it with hot water coming out of the sand. The sand underneath the tarp is also heated so they end up with a hot tub literally right at the waters edge.



The hot spring got pretty boring after about 5 minutes so we high tailed it back to camp to gear up for some spear fishing. The guys said they knew a great spot fish at a place called Bay of the Dead which, for tourism reasons, had been renamed to Paradise Cove or something fun and inviting like that. Made me real comfortable about diving in the water there. On the way down we made the morning beer run. The guys always made sure to keep their Ballena bottles so that they could bring them into the shop the next day to get cheaper beer. I think the Ballena's were $1.60 or something cheap like that but when you bring the empty bottle back they trade you for a new, full bottle for only $0.60. Needless to say a lot of beer was consumed; its safer, cheaper and more readily available than the water there. The drive down to the Bay of the Dead was a little hairy with the mandatory broken down van. I am not sure what adventure would be complete without some kind of serious automotive failure. Luckily Wyatt knows his van really well and assured us this had happened before and he knew exactly how to fix it. He managed to get the van going again and we kept on to the Bay of the Dead. We really didn't spear anything, I think Wyatt managed to get one small fish that wasn't even a keeper. I managed to get a few cool photos despite a small leak in my housing that caused my port to fog up everytime I went in the water.



After a couple hours of swimming around we were all kind of chilled down and ready to get out of the water; plus the wind was starting to fill in. I am not sure what was more motivating, the cold or the wind. We raced back to camp watching the white caps pick up far to the north and slowly fill in towards the sailing area. I think its safe for me to speak for everyone when I say we were all pretty stoked that there was finally some wind. Lucky for the guys all their gear is rigged 24/7 in their camp. All they had to do was pull up, park the van, grab a board and sail and hit the water. Earlier in the morning I had scouted a couple of shots for when the wind picked up. I grabbed my camera and started taking photos. I focused almost entirely on the pulled back scenics with the exception of one or two attempts at trying to get a shot that might be cover worthy.



The day ended with a trip to gather some dead cactus for firewood for the next night and a good sunset.

On the weekend before Christmas I took a very quick trip down to La Ventana, Mexico for a Windsurfing Magazine photo shoot. Josh Sampiero, the editor at Windsurfing, had called me up a few weeks prior needing someone to go down last minute to shoot pro windsurfers Tyson Poor and Wyatt Miller. After a little fussing around with dates and times and budget I was finally able to clear some time and pin down some dates that would work out for the shoot. The plan was to have Wyatt and Tyson pick me up from the airport and I would start shooting photos 24/7 from the time they picked me up until the time I left. I think I managed to meet that requirement. My assignment for the shoot was not to get really close up crazy action shots but to focus more on the town and the environment that the guys were living and sailing in. Most of the action shots were to be pulled out and more  scenic; which just happens to be more my style. The first day was pretty low key. The guys picked me up at the La Paz Airport with Pacifico Ballena's in hand and took me immediately to one of the best Mexican restaurants I have ever been to (what do you expect in Mexico). After dinner we started the short drive down to La Ventana with a quick pit stop at a Mexican fireworks store. I think the fireworks are illegal because they seemed pretty sketched out by me having my camera in the store. Apparently in the past the police have cracked down hard on the fireworks stands. We got into La Ventana a little later in the evening and pretty much sat around camp, drank some beer and hung out with all the various characters that seemed to gravitate towards the 5-piece sectional that Wyatt and Tyson had setup in their camp on the beach. Their camp was the place to be most nights. I decided to not sleep down at the beach but to enjoy the good life a little bit and stay in Wyatt's parent's house with a nice tempurpedic mattress and a hot shower. The following morning I was treated to a great sunrise from the roof of the house I was staying in. Seeing a great sunrise was such a nice change of pace from LA. We just don't get that many great sunrises in LA; or maybe I am just never up early enough to see them.

I had seen photos of smoke many times before and had always wanted to try it. My friend Oscar had just tried it and said it was really easy to get good results; as his photos showed. Having spent most of the day doing taxes I decided to take a break and have some fun with smoke. Lindsay and I both took these shots. The hardest part was trying to get the smoke to rise where we wanted it. The setup was simple: Incense burning on a table, A black background (back of a diffuser cover) 2-3 feet behind the smoke, Nikon SB800 speedlight 90 degrees to the camera as close to the smoke as possible at full power. A snoot can also be helpful to reduce light spill onto the black background. I had one on originally but found I didn't need it. Not having the snoot let me move around a lot more to follow the smoke and not have to constantly adjust the camera. Camera settings were 1/250th, f/8 ISO100 with a 24-70mm lens. Manual focus was the most efficient way to follow the ever changing smoke. We just let our imaginations do the work and pressed the shutter when something looked cool; never really knowing exactly what we were going to get.

With all the recent snowfall up in the mountains just about everywhere in California over the past couple weeks I decided to get out of Los Angeles and make a very quick trip up to Lone Pine to see the Sierras covered in Snow. Having only lived in California for 2 years this would be my first trip up there in the winter. I only had one day to go up there and get some shots so I had to make the most of it. After work on Friday I zipped up to Lone Pine, arrived around 7pm, and setup a quick camp at Tuttle Creek Campground just to the south of Alabama Hills. My main objective for this trip was to get a star trails shot at Alabama Arch. On my previous visit to the Arch back in September I got a really great sunrise photo that I don't think I could ever recreate or do much better; so I wasn't too concerned with the sunrise. I still shot it in hopes of a similar shot with snow on the mountains. So, back at camp I set my alarm for 3am and slept for a solid 7 hours. The weather forecast said the temperatures were going to be in the low 20's at night but luckily it didn't get much below 30, which made camping a lot more bearable.

I got up at 3am and was out of the tent and driving to the Arch which is only a few minutes away. I hiked down the short trail from the parking lot located at the first fork in Movie Road and setup camp on the larger rock to the East of the Arch that gives a commanding overview of the Arch, Mt. Whitney and everything else surrounding the Arch. I didn't have an ultra wide lens with me on this trip so I couldn't get a really good shot through the Arch framing Mt. Whitney and the stars so I settled for my commanding overview. All the better; I was able to get more sky in the photo; which, after all was the purpose of this entire trip. I quickly got setup, focused the lens on the arch using my headlamp to provide some illumination, framed the shot using 10 second exposures at ISO 25,600, set my remote for 15 minutes and let it rip. The temperature was hovering around 28-30 degrees and I was pretty toasty from the short hike in with base layer, conduit shell and a big down jacket on but I knew that warm fuzzy feeling would go away fast as I sat on a rock, in the dark, in the winter. I let the camera run and I hiked back to my car and grabbed my down sleeping bag so I could bundle up and sleep/stargaze while the camera did its thing. I also grabbed a pair of binoculars so I could get a glimpse of Comet Lulin off to the southwest in the constellation Virgo. The comet was a nice sight both naked eye and with binoculars. I thought about trying to get it in the shot but it was too small in a wide lens to really be effective in the shot.

The exposure that I had started prior to heading back  to my car was supposed to be 15 minutes long, but right as I got back to my car I realized I hadn't turned on my noise reduction feature on the camera. The results of an exposure that long at ISO800 without noise reduction, even on my Nikon D3, would have been less than desirable. I had set a 5 minute delay on the timer to give me some time to walk out of the scene so my headlamp would not leave a trail through my perfect photo. By the time I went to the car and walked back the delay was still going so I was able to stop the timer and set the noise reduction and try again. With the camera setup properly and some means of staying warm until sunrise I started the camera for take two and jumped in my sleeping back to wait for the shot to finish. A 20 minute exposure actually takes 40 minutes when you account for the dark frame so I had plenty of time to sleep and star gaze. The meteorites were out in full force; I counted around 25 in the couple hours prior to sunrise.

My first 20 minute shot was more than I could have asked for. The framing, focus, lighting and star trails were just as I had envisioned them to be. That morning a very thin crescent moon was rising in the East through some very high cirrus clouds and was glowing orange. That small bit of orange glow was enough to add a hint of color to the moon facing parts of the mountains as well as provide some much needed foreground illumination. The moonlight combined with the ambient sky glow made for a shot that looks like it was taken during the day, except with stars visible. Also adding to the light on the mountains was the sun itself. The shear altitude of the mountains means that sunrise starts much earlier at 14,000 feet than it does at 4,000 feet. At two hours from sunrise the highest peaks were showing color in the long exposure.

In total I took two framing shots at ISO 25,600, one 15 minute shot at ISO800 that was cut short to 8 minutes by a random truck driving east of the Arch that cast its headlights all over my scenery, a solid 20 minute exposure with my 28mm lens at f/4, ISO800 and a 20 minute exposure with my 10.5mm fisheye at f/4, ISO 800. The last two shots were the best and after the fisheye shot the sky was starting to brighten up and the stars were starting to fade. I decided I wanted to try to do a time lapse series of the sunrise and got everything setup for that but the exposures were all over the place so I canceled that idea and just watched the sunrise with my eyes and snapped a few shots along the way. There were no clouds in the sky so it made for a beautiful but really boring sunrise.

Up until mid sunrise I was the only person there and then right before the sun crested the mountains to the East, 4-5 people showed up and it became a little more difficult to get my shot with 5 other people trying to get up close to the arch for the typical Whitney through the Arch shot. Since I already have that shot and other sunrise photos I just decided to pack it up and move on to somewhere else. I got in my car and started driving up I395 hoping to find a nice scene to shoot a big panoramic but the high cirrus clouds moved in fast and the sky became a big gray, dull mess. I played around with some self portraits using my new umbrella and flash and then called it quits and drove home.

I was not too disappointed with the weather going south; I got the shot I was looking for and was more eager to get home and see how it looked and to start processing. I tried to do as little processing as possible on the night shots. To get them to where they are now I used Adobe Lightroom 2.0 to apply a digital split gradient filter (-0.60 stops) to bring the sky under control as it was a bit bright from sky glow after 20 minutes and put another reverse split gradient (+1.33 stops) to the foreground to bring it just slightly out of the shadows. I also adjusted the white balance to get the sky to be more to my liking of black/blue (instead of a drab brown/orange) and added some clarity to make the star trails pop. What really made this photos exciting for me was that there were no airplane trails. One of the absolute killers of a shot like this is plane trails; they are next to impossible to really remove in Photoshop and in some places there can be dozens of them in a single shot.

Taking photos of the stars is what got me into photography of all subjects and to this day it still makes me incredibly satisfied to point my camera at the sky.

This weekend was supposed to be a weekend of warm weather and epic surf. While the weather lived up to the hype the swell did not. Overhead surf turned out to be more like waist to chest with maybe a head high set here and there. I finally had the opportunity to get out and shoot just plain old surfing from the water. Typically I shoot windsurfing and kitesurfing; rarely surfing since I don't know too many pro surfers on the west coast. I was pretty stoked with a few of the shots I took but wish I had spent more time in the water. Bigger surf also would have been good but the smaller surf gave me a good opportunity to work on my placement in the lineup and timing with some good surfers. All in all it was a gorgeous weekend for hanging out in the ocean and taking photos. The morning/afternoon photos were taken at Cardiff Reef down near San Diego and the sunset photos were taken at a break called Pipes which is just a few hundred yards North of Cardiff Reef.



My Beautiful Fiance Lindsay was also out on the beach taking photos. I set her up with a 400mm f/2.8,  2X Teleconverter and my Nikon D3 for some super telephoto fun from the beach. By the end of the weekend she was really getting into and and was taking some really incredible and professional photographs. She was able to capture a lot of stuff going on in the water and on the beach. Some of Lindsay's shots are my favorite shots of the weekend. Pretty soon it will be her name in the magazines.

I know I posted a lot of writing and a lot of photos that were of adventures so I wanted to recap with the best landscape photos from the trip. The few great landscapes I captured were well worth the hardships of the trip.

Our third day in Death Valley National Park started with a great sunrise out on Racetrack Playa. Unlike the previous evening's sunset we were the only people on the playa for sunrise. It was so nice to be the only two people for miles and miles. Our plan after sunrise was to go back to camp, pack up and then head to the south end of the park to see Zabriskie Point, Stovepipe Wells Sand Dunes, Badwater Salt Flats etc. We got back to camp, had a quick breakfast and got on the road. We started driving the 27 mile washboard road back to the paved road and about 5 miles into the drive we came across a truck coming the other direction on one of the more narrow sections of road. I pulled over as far as I could and slightly up the gravel embankment and the other car did the same on the opposite side. I thought nothing of this kind of move; after all, I have a lifted jeep, big tires and plenty of ground clearance. We let the other car pass and I came down off the gravel and immediately after we started moving forward again Lindsay says to me, "It sounds like there is a tree or something stuck under the car". I stopped the car and got out, not knowing what to expect (there aren't many trees in the desert). When I looked under the front of my Jeep my heart sank. Hanging down from the underside of my Jeep was the front steering tie rod. This rod connects the two tires so that they steer together. The drivers side tie rod end had stripped its threads and pulled completely out of the tie rod. This actually explained quite a few other weird problems I had been having on the washboard road with my steering seeming a little loose. Normally I would be pretty upset or angry about the situation. But when you are in the middle of  nowhere around solid 70 miles from the nearest service station there is no time at all to be angry. My only response to the problem was "well I guess I need to figure out how to fix this".

With Lindsay's help I was able to get the tie rod end back into the tie rod but not tightened up. The threads had been stripped completely off so I had to come up with a way to connect the two pieces together. My first and best and only idea for the moment was........you guessed it.....Duct Tape! (with a side order of electrical tape). Normally I carry a full roll of duct tape in the car with me but due to some household repairs the full roll was several hundred miles away in Pasadena. All I had with me was a 5 foot piece of folded up duct tape that I keep in my backpacking survival kit for this very reason. I also happened to have an entire roll of electrical tape; which, while not the strongest tape on the planet helped beef up the repair a lot. I got my tape and laid out my sleeping pad under the car and got to work. I eyeballed the tire alignment and got to work strategically wrapping my five feet of duct tape in a figure eight pattern between the tie rod and tie rod end. The entire time I was praying that the fix would be just enough to get us to a paved road. Turns out it was more than enough. We very slowly made our way up 25 more miles of the worst washboard road on the planet and  to a paved road with no problems. The paved road felt great to drive on after two days of nothing but dirt and gravel.

Upon arriving at the ranger station at the north entrance to the park we asked how long it would take to get a tow truck to come pick us up. The park ranger said a minimum of 6 hours to get a tow truck. I quickly did the math: 6 hours to get here, 1 hour to get the truck loaded, 6 hours to get out, 3 hours to find a rental car....in the middle of nowhere, 6 hours to get back to LA, grand total somewhere around another full day of dealing with problems. After pondering the thought of another 12 hours in Death Valley with a broken car for about 10 seconds we kindly thanked the ranger, paid for our park fee and decided to try and drive another 40 miles to Stovepipe Wells Service Station where there was a gas station and supplies, namely a full roll of duct tape. Amazingly enough the car was driving pretty good; better aligned tires than before. Every 10-20 minutes or so I pulled over the car and checked on my repair job. The tape didnt tear, stretch, bend or fall apart the entire time. Lindsay and I made it to the service station, doing the speed limit, with no problems. While I checked on the repair job at the service station Lindsay went in and bought some ice cold sodas and a full roll of duct tape. I got right to work beefing up my repair job for the next leg of our adventure. After a short discussion of our options we decided to try to make it to Lone Pine. Lone Pine was only 70 miles away and would take a little over an hour to get there. Once there we would have cell phone reception and access to tow trucks at a moments notice. It made a lot more since to try and drive an hour and a half to the tow truck instead of wait 6 hours for the tow truck to get to us.

With fresh duct tape on the car and some caffiene and in blood we set off for Panamint Valley and then Lone Pine: another 70 miles. We both agreed that we were a little crazy in attempting to drive town to town all the way back to LA but in the end it would save us hundredsif not thousands of dollars. Luckily we found comfort in knowing that our friend Marc Allen was on his way home heading south on 395 just a few hours north of us and could help us if something happened and also our friend Josh Grahm down in Lancaster could have helped us. Our plan in fact was to make it to Lancaster and if we couldnt go any farther try to get Josh to drive us the rest of the way home, which would have only been an hour and a half. In the end we had no problems. The car drove wonderfully at highway speeds, we stopped often enough to make sure the repair was holding up, drove in the slow lane, tried our best not to make any sudden direction changes and took any and all turns really wide. We made it back to Pasadena safe and sound in less time than it would have taken a tow truck to even get to us in the Valley. The drive home on 395 was one of the quietest most intense drives of my life; no music, no talking. My ears were tuned into the car and my hands were locked on the steering wheel feeling every bump on the road. It was an epic end to an epic adventure. I can't wait for the next one.



Trip to Death Valley: Finished