Duplo's blog

Hi All,

And welcome to another Duploworld update:)

Well the tittle kind of says it all, Utah was the destination, I have come to love this state.
It has mountains and some areas are almost as desolate as what we have where I live.
The upside, especially in August is some very pleasant temperatures in the high +90F range once you reach the desert:)

Well on this trip I flew in to Denver CO where I met up with a very good friend of mine.
B had driven his truck all the way from Baltimore just for us to have the chance to hang out and have fun.
From Denver we followed the Colorado River west and then South.

Highway 128

The trip from Denver and until we hit Highway 128 was great, but Hwy 128 was where we truly started to feel at home, we made numerous stops on the way, such as the one depicted above, but also got a chance to stop by the Old Dewey Bridge
Anyway Hwy 128 took as all the way to Moab and well it is no surprise that Moad is located right south of one of the many scenic National Parks in Utah.
Sunflower

A thing that surprised me the amount of flowers we saw along the way, the sunflower above was one of many we drove past and I guess there is little surprise in the fact that I had to grab a shot of it:)

Delicate Arch

The image above, while I guess a standard shot, spells out where we spend most of our time - "Arches National Park"
The image is from our first evening outing, after having spend a day scouting around Delicate Arch and Skyline Arch, we decided that weather looked about right for a good sunset outing near Delicate Arch and why not grab the chance to catch our own versions of this classic and very beautifully located arch.
Only downside was the huge amount of people present there, but I managed a few without people spoiling my image and above is probably the best of them.

Skyline Arch

We hiked pretty much every every trail in the park, managed to do half a day worth of 4x4 off road fun and Arches is one photogenic National Park. The images presented in this post are shot in the golden hour around sunset or dusk, but the Park is actually quite amazing at any time a day or night.
There is one big downside to the place though. It is a park where the hiking opportunities are pedestrian at best, we did not manage to find a single trail that too even a small amount of effort to complete.
This becomes a downside as the park becomes rather crowded at all times a day, so if you are in for a silent walk in amazing nature this is just not the place to go. The nature is amazing but you will see plenty of other people no matter where you go.
Now the upside is that this park is nearly perfect if travelling with children, just remember to bring plenty of water as the desert is hot and dry, I consumed an average around 6-8 liters while outdoors and my body needed it.

Now as said we saw most of the park and pretty much all the arches in it and it was a real photographers paradise to hike and drive. B and I had plenty of time to both scout location and wait for the right moments.
The images below concluding this post is to me a perfect example of what preparation, timing and a touch of luck will do for you. There are plenty of additional images from the trip HERE and one of the really cool upsides to travel with a professional photo journalist is that this time around there are images with me in them:)

Skyline Arch at dusk


Thanks for reading, your compliments and patience with my irregular posting pattern:)
Do take care you all:)

Thomas

HI All,

Duploworld is back after more than a week without updates.

I am currently in SLC, UT and it is an amazing place, beautiful and amazing, have not had any chance to take any real pictures yet, at least not one where I would consider bringing my big camera. But as you have already guessed this post is not entirely without pictures, they have been taken with my trusted weather sealed Olumpus 4MP point and shoot. but more on this a little later.
The reason for the lack of updates and me being around here has been all work, no need to go into any details on that... Pretty boring stuff and why waste this place on that, when I have had the most amazing (and painful:D) weekend for a long long time:yes:
All the pictures can be found HERE, there are a few in the post below, but the album is worth it.

Saturday
Well it has been a snowboarding weekend in Utah and it all started this beautiful Saturday morning at the skibus pickup zone in Cottonwood Canyon. Target of the day was Snowbird, told to be a snowboarders paradise. Not exactly my view on it. It might be due to bad skiing conditions and the fact that snow canons were making visibility really bad (at times we litterally had no visibility at all). I give that the runs are steep enough and could be fun, but I think there were too many connecting runs with nothing but a path leading from one place to another. We did however have an OK day as the next picture will show
What really saved the day might have been the fact that it was the day where I were breaking in my all new RIDE and what a sweet one, fast, snappy, edgy and flexible, It performs excellent on anything from hard groomed slopes to powdery runs. Did I mention that I like how she looks too(No unfortunately she does not make coffee or serve breakfast in the bed on her own:D:D)
The Picture, by the way, was taken at the peak of Snowbird (3300 meters above sea level)
All in all not a bad day at all... only downside was that one really bad (read: hard and Painful) hit I took on a run just off from the peak, I got slammed into the snow tumbled over a few times. I only got an almost black left buttock and lower back plus a giant head ache to show for it... not exatly fun:(

Sunday
Woke up at 6 o'clock, had an early breakfast got dressed up for some real winter fun and made the first bus from the pick up zone to another resort called Solitude and wow:eyes: what a place, we were among the first on the tram and arrived at a multitude of freshly groomed slopes a pleasant mix of really wide and really narrow slopes, plus a good mix of really steep and moderately so slopes. what added to the positive were that it has been a really sunny day and that we basically were alone out there most of the time. One might say they just lives up to their reputation:D
My colleague (yeah he is just a skier:D) and I had an amazing day, heavily marked by saturday we started off easy, but gave quickly in to som serious fun on the slopes.

One of these things were to ride a slope steep enough to cause a blackout (or so the guy said) A blackout is riding a slope steep enough to actually make it impossible to see the slope as you ride it, now that was fun:yes:
Another great thing were to carve such ultrawide hard packed runs:up:
No day with out a down side, tried to make a toeside 270 (A spin in the air) off the edge of a bowllike connector and onto a slope.
Not much to tell aside from that it went all wrong and I ended up hurting the same parts of my body as yesterday:(
That aside it has been an amazing day, one of the best for a loong time:)


Lastly I want to share my favourite picture from the last two days with you all, they say snowboarding is all about attitude, well the picture below has tons of it to me.


I will be reading up on a lot of blogs this comming week, I have not forgotten you all:)

Take good care:)

Thomas