Winter hike: Ten Mile River to Bulls Bridge
Friday, January 8th, 2010
Hiking the beginning of the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut: Ten Mile River to Bull’s Bridge. This is a nice, 4 mile hike that’s not hard and can be done in snow (like this day).
Me, Loren, and Dave on top of Ten Mile Hill. I used an ultrapod to velcro the G11 to a tree to take this. Of course, the wind picked up and the tree started moving.
Looking north up the Housatonic River to Kent. This is a great overlook and the ridge on the left is the last hike that Dave and I did which was very tough and wiped us out. At the end of that hike is Kent and past that is Caleb’s Peak which is another great hike on the AT.
Ice and reflection on Ten Mile River.
This was my last picture of the day. Right after taking it, camera still turned on with lens extended and LCD folded out, I tripped over a rock buried in deep snow and did a face/camera plant in a snow drift. The Canon G11 was completely covered with snow and ice and while I wasn’t physically hurt in the fall, I was totally humiliated.
I got cleaned up and did a bit of cleaning on the camera, turned it off and wrapped it in clean paper towels left over from lunch and put it in my pack.
When I got home I put a clean towel on a table, took camera out of bag, took card and battery out of camera, wiped everything down with a micro fiber cloth and put an over head lamp on it to slowly dry it out.
I left it like this all night and resisted the urge to check it out until this morning. This morning I wiped everythign down again, charged up the battery, unloaded the card onto my computer, put battery and card back in camera and turned it on.
With lens extended I used some lens cleaning solution to clean it up, a micro fiber cloth to clean up the extended lens barrel and LCD screen and erased the card.
I took a few pictures, the camera seems to work fine, so far.
I’m quite amazed as the camera was completely covered with wet snow and ice. I thank my lucky stars this was the G11 and not the 5D although I think the DSLR might have stood up to it even better. Still, Canon made the G11 sturdier than I thought and add to that I’m extremely lucky and you have a nice end to what was potentially an expensive outing.
Karma being what it is, I almost killed myself this morning clearing snow off our driveway. I hope that’s all the Karmic feedback I’ll get from this "event."
Wow, are you lucky… about the G11, snow and ice! Not so lucky about the snow on your driveway. Take it easy, Richard, you don’t have to prove anything; the snow will still be there another day. ;-)
Here here Diane! Take it easy young man ;-)
Good to hear you were not hurt and the G11 survived. We have had another 15 cm of snow here today, so it is looking like a winter wonderland. There was a satellite image of the Uk released yesterday and it really does look the ice age!
Best,
Jon
Diane and Jon: Yes, I’m very lucky my camera survived and it’s a useful thing to keep in mind on both Canon and the G11 (sturdier than I thought).
As far as my face getting hit by a snow shovel: it’s hurting pretty good right now but Anne says she thinks the swelling will go down in a day or two. I hope so, I feel like I’ve been in a boxing match with a shovel!
Richard, my Canon G11 slipped out of a small camera bag today that was strapped to my backpack. I was at the end of a hike, swinging the pack into the trunk of the car. I’d forgotten that I’d left the camera bag open. I left it open in case I stopped to take some more photos on the trail, on the way back to the car. The G11 hit the asphalt very hard; it really shot out of the open bag. Fortunately, it landed on the G11′s closed LCD swivel screen. I heard it hit and was shocked, but looked it over, saw no damage, and took a couple of quick photos. I took more photos back home, and everything, as far as I can tell, works fine. The amazing thing is that there’s not even a scratch on the camera! The G11 is built like a tank.
Gary, I guess these little cameras are sturdier than we thought they might be. And good thing too.
I too thought about the possibility of leaving those small LowePro bags open and each time I put the camera back in I zip the bag up, no matter what. However, a better alternative would be a flap with velcro on it. That way even absent minded librarians can’t lose!