RE: [Leica] More Leica Adventures

["Tom Finnegan" <tomf@piengr.com>]

Well, I've survived my latest little Leica adventure and I thought I'd
relate it to the group instead of getting drawn into one of the various
silly arguments that seem to consume the group. This particular adventure
did not involve bicycling in any way like my last trip, to the relief of
many readers I'm sure, but instead was a little mountaineering adventure.
Washington State in the northwest corner of the U.S. has a range of rugged
mountains (the Cascades) running north-south through it and hiking and
climbing are popular pastimes. The goal for this trip was to climb Mt.
Shuskan, which is located near the Washington-British Columbia border. Mt
Shuskan is a rugged glaciated peak that stands 9,127 feet tall (2782m), and
is adjacent to the heavily glaciated volcano Mt. Baker. The route we chose
was the Fisher Chimneys which starts from the parking lot of the Mt. Baker
ski area at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. The first part of the route is
a 5 mile hike into a lake at the base of the mountain where we made our
camp.

The primary photo equipment I took along consited of two M's, a M6 with
35/1.4 (pre-asph) and Rapidwinder, and a M3 with 50/1.4. In addition to the
M's I brought along a R7 with 90/2.0 and 180/3.4 apo, Bogen 3205g tripod,
and Luna-Pro digital lightmeter. Additional Leica equipment included a pair
of 8x20 binoculars which I borrowed from my wife. The R7 and lenses, and the
tripod were added at the last minute and were only used at the base camp
area.

The two M's were carried in small nylon padded bags made by Sundog. The bags
were, I'm sure, designed to carry typical point and shoot cameras while
hiking or traveling, but the M's just fit inside. The bag with the M3 and 50
had a shoulder strap that went around my neck and across my right shoulder.
The bag with the M6 and 35 was threaded onto my pack's waist harness strap,
or clipped onto my climbing harness. I shot Ektachrome 100 SW in the M6 and
PanF+/HP5+ in the M3. The binoculars and lightmeter were carried in a mini
bag strapped on my pack's shoulder harness.

We took the hike in at a relaxing pace (at least as relaxing as one can be
with a 70 pound pack!) and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and sunshine. Later
in the day, after camp had been set up, I pulled out the R7 and tripod and
shot off a roll of film. I figured I had hauled all that extra weight in, I
had better get some use out of it. I considered staying up and taking some
sunset pictures, but the mosquitoes were coming out in force, and since we
were planning an early start the next morning, I hit the sack early. We woke
up at 2am the next morning and were greeted by a blazing sky full of stars.
After getting dressed, a bite to eat and getting our packs in order, we set
off at 3am by headlamp light. Photo opportunities were somewhat limited for
the first couple of hours, and I was beginning to regret not bringing along
some Delta 3200. Halfway up the Fisher Chimneys we were greeted with a
glorious sunrise and I was finally able to start taking pictures. I shot off
a bunch of pictures during the sunrise and then regulary pulled out one
camera or the other whenever we were stopped for a minute. We made it to the
base of the summit pyramid in 6.5 hours where we removed our packs and
scambled to the top for more pictures.

After everyone had made it to the top and had a welcome rest, we scambled
back down to the glacier and set off for the chimneys. At the top of the
chimneys we unroped and took another break before starting the long scamble
down. At this point one member of the party was beginning to really slow
down. The combination of fatigue, altitude, dehydration and low blood sugar
was beginning to take it's toll. We took the descent of the chimneys very
slowly as he was nursed along. I took more pictures as we slowly descended,
but it was mid afternoon now under a blazing sun and the lighting wasn't the
best. At one point I pulled out the M6 and discovered that my clip on hood
had taken on an unusual ovoid shape, and the face of the light meter had a
nice crack. Both still seem to be functioning fine though, just a bit more
weathered in appearance.  At the base of the chimneys two of us set off for
camp where we filtered some water and started packing up. An hour later the
other two arrived and after some food and rest we got everyone packed up and
set off for the car. It was early evening now and while the light for
picture taking was better I was too focused on making it back to the car to
pull out the cameras. The last mile and a half we ended up doing by headlamp
and pale moonlight. I ended up shooting 4 rolls of color slide and 3 rolls
of b&w. Not a huge amount by any means, but a fair bit for me.

A sampling of the first three rolls of color film can be seen at the
following link. A few of the pictures didn't seem to want to load properly
and also seem to have some kind of odd digital artifact inserted by the
site. I'll try and fix those later, but you can still get a fair idea of
what it all looks like.

Best of light,

Tom Finnegan
Seattle

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=49745