Behind the Shots: Victorious Climb
Luke, Leo, and Mango have an epic view of the moon emerging from the clouds after scaling one of Moab’s rock towers.
Back in May I was hiking in an area near Moab that I hadn’t yet explored. For much of the hike, I could see a large rock tower in the distance which was already on my list of potential subjects for a moon photo. Now that I was there and had it in sight, I could make some calculations to be able to start planning a moon alignment. The main piece of information I needed was the height of the pillar. While photography planning apps do have terrain data, it is for what would be considered “ground level”, and rarely includes rock formations such as this one. Sometimes, the height can be obtained easily enough in Google Earth, however this particular area lacked the detailed 3D terrain. I get the height of features in the field by using an app called Clinometer, which allows you to point your phone at any object and obtain the angle of elevation, and from that I can input the feature into my primary planning app, Planit Pro.
Within the photography app Planit Pro, you can add terrain features that aren’t part of the existing data. Here is what I planned for the moon alignment with the rock tower.
After the hike, I began researching when a good alignment would occur with the pillar, and it just so happened that I could do a line up in just 2 days. Of course, a photograph of the moon with this tower would be even more captivating with some people up on top. I reached out to my friend Luke, who I had collaborated previously with for a similar concept at a different location. His brother Leo had also expressed interest in being involved in a project like this. I crossed my fingers things would work out on such short notice. As it turned out, Leo and Mango, who had also been part of our previous climbing photo shoot, had just returned to town from a big ascent of El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park. All 3 of them were on board. We drove out together and they dropped me off on the side of the dirt road at a place that nobody would normally have any business stopping at otherwise. They continued farther down the road for where they’d access the climb.
With less than 5 minutes until the moon alignment occurred, it still wasn’t looking good with the clouds.
For these types of photos with the “big moon” effect, you need to be a good distance away from any subject on the ground. In this case I was positioned about a half mile away from the tower. I often rely on 2-way radios for communication, especially when we are far from reliable cell service. As I setup my gear and observed them climbing in the distance, I updated them on our prospects of a successful shoot, given the current conditions in the sky. Just as it happened last time with Luke and Mango, the clouds were not looking favorable for the mission. The entire horizon in the direction the moon would be rising was completely covered by clouds. We all knew it wasn’t looking good, but we wanted to try anyway. Even if the clouds did clear at the last moment, that presents an added challenge - with clear skies, I’d be able to see the moon several minutes before it reached the top of the tower, giving me plenty of time to make adjustments to my position so the ensure a good alignment. If the moon is only visible emerging from behind the clouds at the last second though, it would leave little to no time for repositioning. As the time approached, the clouds did start to break up a little bit, but not enough to where I thought the moon would make a grand appearance. I was wrong though, the moon did start to peek out. I had to just roll with my current position as the moon would be at the top of the tower in quick order. We had originally talked about one of them hanging off the side of the tower, how cool would that be? When the time came though, I realized it probably wouldn’t work out with the position of the clouds and the moon, so we called that off. The moon peeked out only briefly a few times, probably totalling about 15 seconds with a good view. Once again, despite unpromising skies, things worked out in our favor in the end. I think we should take care when using the word “epic”, lest its meaning be diminished. Here though, I feel completely comfortable saying that this was most definitely an epic moon mission.
As the moon passed by the tower, it only peeked out from behind the clouds for a matter of seconds. Fortunately, that was enough to snag some cool photos.
