Iron Creek Photography®: On the road (again) with the Leica M9

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

On the road (again) with the Leica M9

Cron 35mm f/6.7 1/1500 ISO 160

Chiricahua National Monument is located approximately 2 1/2 hours East of Tucson; I know this as I drove here today. This is a more of a "do" than a "see" place in that while you can see some of the area fro the comforts of a vehicle, you really must get out and walk to see the beauty.

Driving to the end of the scenic road leads you to Massai Point and several trailheads. These trails all lead down into the either Echo Canyon, Toten Canyon, or Hunt Canyon; I decided to walk into Toten Canyon taking a combination of the Ed Riggs Trail as well as Mushroom Rock Trail that leads to Inspiration Point Trail.

I've never been here before however I've seen some good images coming out of the area and decided this was ready made for the M9. So armed with my M9, the trio of lenses, spare battery, sat phone, water and a monopod off I went on what turned out to be 3 1/2 hours. The walk into the canyons was typical in that it was all down hill till I decided to call it quits and turned around. I start out tomorrow with the Heart of Rocks loop in mind. Getting back to the jeep was a welcome event as I was soon running short of water (my mistake); it's now several hours since climbing out of the canyons and while my legs and knees ache (slightly) my shoulders feel fine which is what I expected from carrying such a light load.

Tomorrow will bring Heart of Rocks Loop where "Punch and Judy" and "Duck on a Rock" are found. Looking at the map I'll start off at 5400' (1646m) and climb up to around 6860' (2091m) which is different from today where I descended from 6870' (2094m) down to around 6400' (1951m) before turning around so it looks like the hard part will be going out while the easy part will be heading back to the jeep. Looks like a 8 mile round trip day tomorrow.