Going Out a Winner

Gary Hart Photography: Milky Way Reflection, Rattlesnake Camp, Grand Canyon

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There was nothing easy about this picture. Milky Way photography in general is a challenge, but trying it at the bottom of Grand Canyon is especially harrowing. In addition to the standard Milky Way photography difficulties like insufficient light essential for composition and focus, any kind of night photography at the bottom of a mile-deep hole adds another level of dark.

In this kind of darkness, navigating to this spot in particular was slightly outside my normal safety comfort zone. Not only did getting here require a longer than usual walk on uneven, rocky, and sometimes trailless (is that a word?) terrain, the last section was along a series of narrow ledges where a single misstep could result in a sudden plunge into the Colorado River. Oh, and as if all that wasn’t enough to give me pause, on the entire walk out here this night, I couldn’t excise the thought that the name of this particular camp is Rattlesnake.

But I was especially motivated to make this shoot work, because…

I knew before the trip started that this, my tenth Grand Canyon raft trip, would be my last one. Rafting Grand Canyon had been a bucket-list item for as long as I could remember, but when I scheduled my first trip in 2014, I had no plans to continue once it was it off my list. But, for many reasons, that initial experience so far exceeded expectations, I vowed to continue doing it until people stopped showing up. Fast forward nine more trips: turns out, I’m the person who will stop showing up…

Let me explain. The trip still fills, but not nearly as quickly as it did the first few years, when I already had a waiting list for the next year before the current year’s trip even pushed off. And with costs rising faster than I’ve been able increase the price (see slowing enrollment reference in the previous sentence), and understanding that I’m on the financial hook for a full trip whether or not it fills, somehow my the Grand Canyon raft trip had become the most stress-inducing workshop on my schedule. So, while I still love the whole rafting experience as much as ever, when I decided to pare a few workshops from that schedule, it seemed like ten Grand Canyon raft trips was a nice round number to go out on.

Between the sights, the rapids, the guides, and the fantastic people I got to share it all with, it would be pretty difficult to single out the thing I’ll miss most about rafting Grand Canyon. But hold a gun to my head, and I’d have to cite the unparalleled night sky. Or more specifically, the Milky Way (and when I say Milky Way, I refer specifically to our galactic core).

As desperately as I craved a good Milky Way experience on this farewell trip, I knew that, for many reasons, success is far from a sure thing. Despite Grand Canyon’s usually clear skies, clouds do happen. But even when the sky is clear, at most campsites the canyon’s general east/west orientation put views of the southern horizon, where the Milky Way hovers in May, behind the towering south wall. It helps that over the years, I’ve been able to identify a handful of campsites that are either on the north/south trending Marble Canyon section of the canyon (where we spend our first two nights), or (more rarely) on a south-facing river bend.

Since all Colorado River campsites in Grand Canyon are first-come, first-served, I can never count on getting one with a Milky Way view. Since the Colorado River is unforgivingly one-way—if your first choice campsite is taken, there’s no way to return to the wide open second choice campsite you passed two miles back. But with a schedule to maintain, even finding an ideally oriented empty campsite doesn’t do much good if we’re floating past it at 11 a.m., because where we camp tonight creates a domino effect on every subsequent day’s shooting schedule and that night’s campsite.

With this in mind, at the start of each trip I powwow with the guides to explain (emphasize) my Milky Way and other photography priorities (for example, if it’s sunny, there are several key locations I only want to photograph in the full shade of early morning or late afternoon). We come up with the framework of a plan that by Day-2 is usually out the window, or at least is significantly renegotiated, as things invariably don’t go exactly as planned. And each plan change factors in downstream Milky Way possibilities.

The first thing I do when arriving at a new camp is check its Milky Way opportunities—specifically, I identify south and whether we have a view between the walls in that direction. But even a clear southern exposure doesn’t ensure success—I can think of one campsite with a great view of the southern sky, but it’s so overgrown along the river that all we’d get is a foreground of scruffy shrubs. And there are several campsites where the only place to park the boats is smack in the middle of the only open view of the southern sky.

If I identify a good spot for the Milky Way that night, at some point (usually at dinner) I tell the group the Milky Way plan: where it will appear, when it will appear, and the best place to photograph it. I also give everyone a Milky Way photography primer, then make myself available for the inevitable, “Which lens…?,” “How do I get my camera to…?” questions.

All of my Grand Canyon night shoots are no-host: I tell people where I’ll be and roughly when I’ll be there—I don’t set an alarm because it might disturb those nearby who would rather sleep, and I don’t have any problem waking myself up in a 15 or so minute window—but they’re welcome to do whatever works best for the (join me, do their own thing, sleep…).

That this was my final trip wasn’t lost on me with each mile navigated, each campsite packed up, each image clicked. On our first night we didn’t get a good Milky Way spot, but I think most of my group appreciated getting a full night’s sleep after a 4:30 a.m. departure from our Las Vegas hotel. The first night we ended up at a spot beneath a wall that blocked the lower half of the Milky Way, but the few of us who went for it did okay, but I knew we could do much better.

The way everything was playing out schedule-wise, I knew if we didn’t get something on our second night, our only other shot would be night four, at a very popular campsite that’s usually taken by the time we get there. So I was really motivated to make night two work. But as the afternoon wore on and we continued to encounter candidate campsites that were already taken, we just floated on.

There comes a point where you just have to take whatever is available and start getting about the business of setting up camp and making dinner before it gets too dark. So the guides were actually relieved as we floated up to Rattlesnake and found it open. The first thing I did when we landed was pull out my phone and check the compass to find south. As feared, the S-needle pointed right at a towering wall. Oh well…

But after setting up my campsite I got my (iPhone) compass out and went exploring. My eye was on a bend in the river a few hundred yards downstream, and I wondered if it might bend far enough to the south, before downstream foot access disappeared, to provide a look to the southern sky.

As I moved downstream, the route along the river got rockier, eventually turning into a series of sandstone ledges with a steep drop straight to the water. Each time it looked like I couldn’t go any farther, I found a I found a route that got me a little farther, until about a quarter mile downstream I could go no farther without any climbing. (A quarter mile doesn’t sound long, but in total darkness without a trail, it feels like forever.) Looking downstream, I saw that this vantage point still didn’t face due south as I’d hoped, but it did provide a clear view southwest horizon. Hmmm—not ideal, but… maybe?

Checking (and re-checking) my astronomy app, I guessed (crossed my fingers) that we might have about a 45-minute window from the time the Milky Way rotated out from behind the canyon wall, until the sky started to brighten enough that we’d start losing essential contrast. And the longer I stood there, the more I like the entire view that we’d be able to put with the Milky Way.

Walking back to camp, I took special note of the route, identifying distinctive landmarks I could use in the dark. I told my group what I’d found, and that the window of opportunity is very small (even the slightest miscalculation on my part could make a difference). I also warned everyone that the route, that’s only slightly treacherous in daylight, would be exponentially more-so in near complete darkness. I also told them I’d be going for it. Before sending them on their way, I encouraged anyone even considering going out there in the dark to scout it now.

Before crawling into my sleeping bag, I got my camera and lens combo set up on my tripod next to my cot, then set my mental alarm clock for 3 a.m. I woke up a little before 3:00, grabbed my tripod, and made my way out. Whenever other people might be shooting, I don’t use any kind of flashlight or headlamp, but I didn’t really have much trouble finding the way using my cell phone screen to illuminate my next step, one step after another, all the way out.

I was very surprised, and pleased, to see how many people were already out there—on this trip I have a lot of non-photographers who join photographer friends and loved-ones, but I’d guess at least a third of the group was there already, and a few more joined shortly thereafter. I poked around a bit without any light, waiting for my eyes to completely adjust, eventually edging my way out to the farthest ledge. Then I went to work.

I did my usual vertical (first) and horizontal composition mix, and trying different ISO and shutter speed settings to give myself more processing options. I also moved around a little, eventually photographing from three different positions within about a 30-foot radius. From my first frame to my last only took 25 minutes, but by the time I was finished, I knew I’d had a Milky Way success I wanted so much on my final trip.