Durgi's photo blog

Chicago, 10-12-2008, 0800, 26.2, 5:45:32, Whew!!

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:08:00 +0000

After almost 6 months of training… the Chicago Marathon day was just 2 days away when I have to fly there from California. TeamAsha operations team did a great job of compiling a list of everything which we'd need. I packed everything on Thursday night. Printed my boarding pass at work and then Deepa dropped me at the San Jose airport around Noon for my 1:45 American flight.

At the security check, I realized that I'm missing my driver's license. Not knowing what to do, I told the security officer that I have forgotten it at home and had only my work Id on me. He let me in after thoroughly checking me & my bag. Whew!!

One of my coaches, Coach Raman was on the same flight as mine… flight was full but luckily we managed to get side by side seats. I got some last minute tips and chatted about his Power of the mind retreats. Our flight reached ahead of time.

My friend Basha & his wife Jeeshan picked us up from the airport; we went to Devon St for some desi food. He dropped us at the hotel Asha gang was staying in. Swamy, my running buddy & roommate at the hotel had already reached. Our program coordinators Ram & Gurpreet who also traveled to Chicago to ensure everything was taken care of were also there. I went to sleep after some chit-chat.

~~ flashback shuru ~~

Last year while training for the Silicon Valley Marathon, I had run into few knee related issues :). Though I completed the SV full marathon without anything major, I had kinda figured out that a full marathon is out of my league. Back in April '08 when both Deepa & I did the Asha spring 10K run, my plan for this year was to only do San Francisco Half Marathon and maybe Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon. It was more about running with the awesome Asha folks and raising the funds which help the kids. I had heard a lot about Chicago Marathon last year from Chakri (my mentor both of the years) and others who had run the course. I had also seen the 2006 Chicago marathon video; it looked way cool & motivating. So, at the time of re-commitment, I signed up for Chicago full. With that I also setup a goal to have an injury free and fun filled season this year.

~~ flashback khatam ~~

On Saturday morning we got ready early to catch the shuttle @9:30 AM to the Expo at McCormick Center. Our shuttle guy probably forgot about the deal; Ram & Gurpreet had to make tens of calls before they got hold of him & he finally showed up around 10:30AM.

Expo was like a big Gaon ka mela in which one could get lost very easily.

We got our bib packets & t-shirts; The t-shirt size was screwed up; the small was a large. Some of us tried to exchange their "medium & large" size shirts for a small but not many succeeded. We took some pictures, went to a few more booths, had some light lunch & headed back to the shuttle.

While most of the folks retired in the hotel for the afternoon or went out to get "real" desi style lunch, my friends, Venky & Anita picked me up from the hotel. We were meeting after 3 years or so, we went looking around for a Starbucks. Later in the evening Venky & Anita dropped me off at the Little Italy's restaurant where TeamAsha was having the carbo load.

What seemed like would be a nice evening started to show some colors :)
The restaurant owner refused to serve us dinner unless we paid for 60 people not counting the fact that we were only 27 and had reserved the place for 30 people only. After some healthy arguments we decided to walk out of the restaurant.

While we waited outside and Ram booked another Pasta place for us, the restaurant owner called the Police. Ram & Grrrrpreet handled the situation very well. The restaurant owner finally agreed to charge only for 27 people, though we were wondering real hard whether to eat in this place. In the end we decide to eat there.... food turned out to be decent. Any other day I would have called that food great but with the situation we were in, I was only glad that food didn't smell weird.

After the dinner we got back to the hotel & got our running gear ready for the next day; gu gels pinned to the shorts, Asha SmartId & the timing chip on the shoes, Bib on the shirt.. the whole shebang. My return flight was 6 PM, so I had to pack my bag also. Swamy decided to change his flight to Monday morning. We put the alarm for 3 AM, so that we could get ready by 4:30, have breakfast by 5 and leave to the race start line by 5:30.

Asha folks back at home took some pictures and sent to us for cheering.

After so much of interesting events most of us were confident that everything will go right on the race day. Luckily in the morning the shuttle was there on time. We got to the downtown around 6:00 or so. We had a Asha tent in the Charity Village. I left my bag there and had some bananas & gatorade in the tent. We started the warm up around 6:45. There was a lot of photu taking done as well.

With Coach Char & Praveen

Around 7:15 or so, most of started to walk towards the start line; once we came out of the charity tent and on the main road, it was an amazing sight. You could see runners as far as your eyes would see. There were approx 32,000 people running that day. Swamy, Praveen, Ganesh, Raju & me were together and decided to walk up a bit closer to start line. We managed to get to 11 min pace line or so. Swamy decided to take it easy as he had been getting pains during the past long runs. Last week I felt I was having some knee or feet or calf pains (probably psychological), but on the race day I felt great as never before. I had trained all season long with a 5/6 min Run, 1 min Walk strategy; Ganesh was also planning on doing the same, so I decided to run with him. It took us around 15 min or so by the time we crossed the start line.

The excitement of being there was overpowering. So many people just waiting to start the run.... Back at home, on a regular Saturday long run, when we have 100+ folks that itself feels quite good.... with this kind of crowd it was a commotion out there. I had the Garmin Forerunner 305 with the HR monitor which measured my heart rate consistently around 109. I realized I was too anxious; I decided to take the monitor off my chest. We were then headed to a good start. Temperature was around 70 degrees and it was going to get hotter.

First few miles we couldn't strictly follow 6/1 rule. Tonnes of people there cheering also made us forget about the run-walk. Since we were running in the middle, we had to move towards the side to start walking. We came around to the 1st water stop. It seemed a bit too big... later I realized all the water stops were that big. I guess, learning from the last year's fiasco the Chicago Marathon organizers made sure there was double/triple the amount of water/gatorade available.

Ganesh's pace turned out to be faster than mine, we split around mile 3. I continued at my regular 12 min pace. Time to time, I would hear some folks shouting "Go Asha!!"... all the time there were people cheering.. giving high fives etc. I was feeling good, enjoying the cheering, the music, the noise and the course. After 10 miles or so, it was getting pretty hot and I decided to take it easy, break at every water stop, drink gatorade & pour water on myself. Saw Ram, Gurpreet & other Asha folks at around 13 miles....

Around 15 miles or so, I saw Raju, he told he got some cramps earlier and had taken salt tablets. We ran together for few miles. Like all the long runs, I was sweating quite a lot, so I decided to pop in the salt tablets as well just as a precaution. I continued to hydrate extra & pour water on myself as well. Slowly, it was getting hotter; temperatures were probably touching 90 or so yet every yard of the course there were still large groups of people cheering; playing music, pouring water on runners and generally having good time. The organizers were announcing to slow down or walk. It was seeming like history repeating itself just with one difference; this time they were ready for it.

At the beginning of the race, I had hoped to finish in less than 5:30. Through 30K, I was still on time to meet that goal although I realized that I was slowing down; stopping at every water stop, having gatorade or the Gu gel and drenching myself. At this time I was very conscious about 3 things: i) Remembered my mentor Chakri saying, keep the shoulders down & relaxed, ii) Coach Harry's advice of landing on mid-foot for better efficiency & less chance of injury, and iii) 5:30 seems bleak, so try not to sweat about it.

At around 23 miles I saw Ram & the gang again.

Soon I was crossing 24, 25 mile markers. While on Michigan Ave, I even looked around to see if my friend's Harsha's mother was there (long shot). I can't remember now clearly but I think I saw a 25.2 mile sign too... and that meant just the last mile to go. I felt pretty good at this time and started looking forward to the last hill at 26 mile. Soon I saw the 26 mile mark and then turn to go over the bridge... the only mentionable uphill on the course. Once I turn from there, I could see the finish line. At this time adrenaline just rushed through and I ran as fast & strong as I could. Probably the only portion during the race when I tried to run faster than my comfortable pace. Gladly finished very strong... the typical hands high in the air style. Got the medal, a bagel & a finisher's photo & headed towards the charity village. I ended up finishing in 5:45.

Got back to the tent, Asha Chicago chapter had arranged for awesome food. Both Ganesh & I had evening flights back to home, so we decided to head off to airport as soon as possible.

Ganesh & I at the tent

Once I got to the airport, I again managed to pass through the security with no issues. Soon, I was on the plane back to San Jose.

Like this sign @ the expo... Sunday did turn out to be a victory lap.

Checkout this video from Runner's world coverage of Chicago Marathon

Thanks to my mentor Chakri, Coaches, TeamAsha operations, Coords and my running buddies Swamy & Somnath for all the support during last 6 months. I hope to train through the winter and run Big Sur marathon early next year. It was a memorable season. Now, I'm looking forward to running with my Sillicon Valley marathoners-to-be coming Sunday.

Special thanks to all the donors whose generous support is helping the noble cause and providing the children the much needed education. If you can, please use the following link and donate.

http://www.tinyurl.com/durgiForAsha

August 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:24:00 +0000

August 2008 was a fun filled & exciting month for me.

It started with the San Francisco Half Marathon

More photos here

Next week... Half Dome with Anastasios, Radu & Gargi

More photos here

Next day, Mt Dana.. er.. half of it anyways. By the time we got up & got ready to get to Mt Dana trailhead, other hikers were already half way down. We decided to get to the plateau at 11,600 ft and call it a day.

More photos here

17 miler at Sawyer camp

With my running buddies - Swamy & Somnath

More photos here

Mt Whitney with Anastasios, Radu, Gargi, Padma & Vikas. It was an interesting experience than last time in 2006. Somehow felt harder this time :)

A climber coming up the Mountaineer's route

Gargi on the John Muir Trail

More photos here

Finishing off the month with relaxing Camping at Tuolumne Meadows at 8600 ft in Yosemite NP.

A side trip to Mono Lake

Relaxing at Tuolumne river

She had the most fun in this trip

God beams

An attempt to capture the amazing Milky way

More photos here

Ohlone Wilderness Trail

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:04:00 +0000

It has been sometime since I blogged here.... several things happened this last year. I trained to run a Marathon with Asha For Education & raised money to help poor children in India get basic education.
I ran San Francisco half marathon & Silicon Valley full marathon in 2007.
For someone who had never run more than 30 minutes on a treadmill, this was a big accomplishment for me. I tried backapacking for the first time; went to wild cat camp in Point Reyes area with few Sierra Club members.

During my last Mt Whitney hike, I had thought about doing it again... so applied for the day hike permit. A few of my fellow co-workers decided to come also.

Last week Radu (one of my co-worker), who's also coming to Whitney asked me if I wanted to go for Ohlone Wilderness 50K run happening on Sunday May 18th. Radu runs 30-40 miles almost every weekend, so it would have been a piece of cake for him. I was definite that I am not ready for this, given that I'm running not more than 5 miles at a stretch these days.

It had been a month since we got the permit & it was about time I started practice hikes. Last time, I did it with Srikanth & we did gradually increasing hikes. This time since I was already running and more active, I wanted to do the bigger hikes. I told Radu that I can do 20 miles hike from Sunol to Rose Peak & back. Radu was ok with that & we decided to do it on Sunday starting from Sunol @ 9AM.

Both of us packed 2.5 lt water & some enery gels, salt tablets, power bars and reached Sunol around 9AM. I bought the Ohlone Wilderness Hiking permit at the gate. Radu decided to leave his cell phone in the car, I decided to carry it - it'll prove to be worth more than anything later in the day.

It was a hot day, we decided to take it slow, conserve our energy and hope to make it to Rose peak. We were passed by Jean Pommier (Radu recognized him) around 9:45 AM or so; he'd win the race in less than 5 hours.

We reached Backpack camp soon; stopped there to have some energy gels.
Good view of Mission Peak from here.

Backpack camp has a water faucet; although it says it's not pottable, we drank it and poured tons of it on our heads & legs. Once we started the climb again, next half mile was probably the steepest uphill on the entire trail. We kept talking about the the clock time we'd be able to make it to Rose Peak... it was moving slowly.. 12PM, 1PM, 2PM.... Sun was not helping, temperature would have been in 90s; whenever we were on the ridge, wind made it a bit easier, for the rest of the time, it was pretty open; there were a few trees providing the shade. We would take occasional breaks under the trees. Around noon or so, I saw Rajeev Patel coming by... he's been Marathon coach with team Asha several years ago. I recognized him as he shows up sometimes on our Saturday long runs. I introduced myself, he mentioned that another Asha runner, Arun Sharma is also coming behind.

It was around 1 PM, we had gone down a pretty steep downhill and stopped in the shade to take some gels. We started the climb again, around the turn we saw the Regional Parks Police truck come by. We gave him the way & continued forward. We were hoping to get to next Aid station soon; just after a few minutes we saw 4-5 people standing together, I told Radu looks like it's the aid station. Very next minutes it didn't feel right as they were standing under the open Sun.

Once we got a bit closer, one of the woman seems like was trying to ask us something. We soon figured she was asking if we had a cell phone; luckily I did. They were not on the trail, but between trail in the middle of the hill. Another guy, I think his name was Bill shouted to me to call 911. Not knowing what's going on, Radu & I started to climb towards them. In the meantime, I also took out my phone from my pack & called 911. I gave the phone to Bill and continued to see what was going on.

There was a race participant lying down and groaning, he seemed semi-concious. There were about 7-8 of us now surrounding the runner; using scarves & bandanas to keep him in shade from Sun; trying to keep his body cool by putting water on his head & core.

Bill was explaining the 911 guy what had happened & asked them to inform the Sunol Regional Parks Police guy who passed by 10 minutes ago. After about 15-20 minutes, I saw Arun Sharma coming by. As soon as he came he did something, we should've done long ago... he took out the shoes & socks of the guy & poured water on his feet & legs. Then we soaked our bandanas & put it under his feet & massaged his legs to increase the blood circulation.

Soon Regional Park Police chopper came by with the medic.

Medic started working on the runner by providing him oxygen bag & taking his vitals. Everyone was helping as needed & asked. We were trying to talk to the runner but he wasn't reposnding. Although he was unconcious, he kept on trying to vomit something; there was some water or something which was coming out. We helped put him on the stretcher. The Park Ranger also came by. It seemed like runner's condition was not improving; his pulse was ranging between 155-170.

Soon Stanford Life Flight crew came in another helicopter. They started working on him. They put in some drugs in him. He started to vomit again & might have swollowed his tongue. The nurses were able to get him in better condition before readying to take him to the hospital.

All of us helped carry him to the chopper.

It was 2:45 PM already, we had spent more than an hour and a half here, we decided to turn around and hike back to Sunol. It was late for us to continue on to Rose peak. Ravi, who was volunteering at the Race Aid stations was there and he decided on hike back with us. We took a few water bottles from the Parks Police and headed back.

Now, I was trying to be more than cautious. Anytime, my head or legs felt hot, I poured water on it. Ravi & I even filled water from this pond on the way to cool us off. It was really dirty.. but at that time I didn't want to run out of drinking water, Backpacker camp was still good 4 miles or so. We stopped at every 15-30 min when we got crossed some shaded area.

At backpacker camp all of us generously used faucet water to soak ourselves. My shoes & socks were filled with water. We sat the table & tried to dry 'em & clean off the all the prickly stuff. My head had started to hurt by now as I skipped on eating anything solid till now. Radu gave me a power bar which helped some. We decided to start and take the road to Sunol via Little Yosemite instead of the trail which we had come by.

Soon, we reached the waterfall; we went down and soaked our feet in the water and enjoyed it like a good day's end.

Ravi had biked from Sunnyvale to Sunol in the morning. So, we gave him a ride. When we reached Fremont, we decided to go by Chaat Cafe & have some good & real food. I enjoyed Samosa & Garam Chai. Now that was the real good end to the day like this for us.

I hope the runner is alright now.

Yosemite in winter

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:24:00 +0000

This blog was also published here at NWP Photo forum.

I've been living in SF Bay Area for several years and have visited Yosemite NP about a dozen times. Yosemite has never stopped fascinating me with it's widespread natural beauty so much that it has become one of my favorite places in the world. This was my 3rd or 4th trip in winter, I had never seen snow on the valley floor. Since the big storm had come last week in the area, I was very hopeful of seeing tons of snow this time. So, another photographer friend, Anand and I decided to go to the valley for the weekend.

We started from bay area late afternoon and managed to reach the valley by evening. The drive was long due to traffic but it went by in a jiffy chatting about pictures we are going to take, plans for more trips, photo techniques, workflow, Galen Rowell, Thom Hogan, yada yada yada...

Woke up early to shoot the sunrise from Cathedral beach. There are not many good points in Yosemite valley to shoot sunrise from (or at least we didn't scout many), by the time light hits the cliffs, sun is quite up so usually there's nothing magical left in the light.

Some of these shots we were standing in the middle of the frozen Merced river, which for us was a surreal experience.

After breakfast we decided to take a short walk to Lower Yosemite falls.

Gates of the Valley is a beautiful spot towards the end of Northside drive in the valley where you can see El Capitan and Bridal Veil Falls, El Cap gets good light during the sunset. We talked about shooting the sunset from there, but soon we found out that the road the this spot was closed. So I talked to Ranger at visitor's center to find out how to get to that spot. He explained me about an inconspicuous spot on the Southside drive where I could park and walk about a quarter mile to get there; it sounded very simple.

After lunch, we stopped in cook's meadow. It was completely covered in snow.

We had couple hours before sunset so we decided to stop at the El Cap meadow and take some shots.
As soon as we got down from the car, we spotted a little puddle and El Cap's reflection.

We saw this Coyote happily roaming around there; apparently it was looking for a place to relieve himself.

Both Anand & I got so engrossed at taking pictures of the El Cap here that we kind of lost track of time…. Realizing this, we decided to hurry to our sunset spot. What seemed very simple when the ranger told, was seemingly difficult to find… (or we thought we found), we parked the car & ran with our gear. We were losing good light minute by minute; now is when I started to curse myself. Apparently this was not the way to the gates of the valley spot; we were in the middle of trees, not even able to see El Cap. We hurriedly decided to just drive back and hoped to reach Sentinel Bridge before the light was completely gone. Something should be better than nothing.

That 3 miles drive seemed like an eternity… when we reached the bridge, there were at least 20+ photographers with tripod, shooting the sunset.

Fairly disappointed with the sunset mishap, we went back to curry village. We wanted to do star trails with Half Dome in the night, so we went scouting for a good spot in the meadow in front of Curry Village.

Later that night after dinner we headed back to the same spot. Temperature was in the teens and despite multiple layers for our protection, we were shivering a lot. We were standing in the middle of the mist. To setup the tripod we went pretty far into the meadow, hoping to avoid any stray lights from the village during the exposure. Somehow managing to setup the camera with the composition I wanted, it was shutter time. Started the exposure and moved towards the trail side, shivering and talking about how crazy we had to be to be doing this. Despite it being past 11 PM, there were just too many cars & buses going around Curry Village to have gotten into our exposure due to which I ended up cropping this shot. Here I also learned that my Feisol tripod is not "that" great in very cold conditions. I had hard time folding it back as the knobs kept turning (this continued to happen next day as well). Most of my other gear seemed to have handled the cold well.

With the plan to wake up early and head to Tunnel View, we went to sleep. This day's sunrise didn't bring much good light, so was not really expecting much next day as well. I was not wrong.

On the way to breakfast I spotted morning mist floating in the meadows

After breakfast we decided to just hang out at the visitor's center, checked out Ansel Adams Gallery and watched the movie "Spirit of Yosemite" which turned out be very nice.

Yesterday when we had reached Sentinel Bridge at sunset, I met the same ranger who had told me the way to get to Gates of the Valley spot. I think luck was on my side, so I told him my sob story how I couldn't find it and so. He, very patiently explained to me again… this time I was sure I got it. Since I really wanted to shoot the sunset from there, both Anand & I decided to get there couple hours early, just in case.

This time, we found the parking spot easily; we had gotten our lunch packed; so we parked and had few bites and then lugged our gear. There was no clear access to get close to the river, so we got into bit of snow to get there. Once there all looked cool, El cap in the background, mist was forming above the water to add interesting center , snow covered rocks seemed perfect near subject for wide angle shots.

I just got a 20x30 metallic print of the last shot and it IS going on the wall :)

I had recently purchased Singh Ray's Gold & Blue Polarizer which I got to use here. After looking at these shots, I think the price was justified.

Well, the sun was down, the light was gone and it was late… that meant, we were headed back home.
Anand & I chatted about Life, Photography & Everything on this trip and had good time.

Thanks buddy.

Checkout Anand's pictures from this trip here.

Check out my pictures of Yosemite from some of the previous trips here, here and here.

To see more of my work you can checkout my photo galleries here.

Bristlecone Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 06:04:00 +0000

Some shots from my last year photography workshop by Steve Kiser at the Ancient Bristlecone Forest.

Sunrise from Patriarch Grove

Patriarch Grove

Tree Bark

Patriarch Grove at night

Hiking to the roof of Continental USA

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:27:00 +0000

Labor Day - September 4th 2006

So the day had finally come. After several changes in the list of people signed up for doing the day hike to the tallest mountain in the continental USA; four of us, Pradeep (who just came from India, 2 weeks ago), CK, Srikanth & I were the final four going to attempt the Big One; hiking Mt Whitney to the top via the Mt. Whitney Trail.

The access to Whitney trailhead is from the town of Lone Pine on Hwy 395 in the eastern sierra region of California. We started from Bay Area at about 10:30 AM on Saturday Sep 2nd; after several hours of boring driving through US-101, Pacheco Pass & I-5 we hit the interesting highway US-178. Passing through the beautiful Kern Canyons and crossing over the Coso range, we reach the most beautiful highway in the US, I-395. The afternoon clouds were superb.

We were in no time at our motel - The Mt. Whitney Motel; had dinner at Pizza Factory. We packed the mini-refrigerator in the motel room with water & gatorade for the hike.

I met with another bay area group who were climbing their sixth time in six years. They gave me advice to go slow to help with elevation gain related issues like AMS.

We didn't want to take any chances when it came to acclimatization/AMS as according to NPS records only 33% of the people attempting make it all the way to the summit.
We were also advised of taking the aspirin to fight the elevation; I didn't want to take any chances so, I took the prescription for Diamox too. It has some side effects like more frequent urination, tingling in palm/feet; but it usually works so who cares if you have to take a leak couple times more.

I had also decided to take a smaller pack this time (compared to the Half Dome, where my Marmot pack almost killed my shoulders by the time I was down at Curry Village). I took my regular 2 liter hydration pack and bought another 3 liter water reservoir; I stuffed both of them it the pack; filling 3 ltr with water & 2 ltr with gatorade. With the food, medical supplies and the fluids my pack was ready to burst anytime but I decided to take the chance :) I was also carrying my small Galen Rowell-Photoflex hip pack for my camera.

We went to bed soon so we could catch the sunrise next morning and do some short practice hike at Horseshow meadow (elevation close to 10,000 ft) to acclimatize.
The sunrise was beautiful; I have previously witnessed the 'Alpenglow' seen at higher elevations so it was nothing new but it was anyways beautiful.

Alpenglow on Mt Whitney -

Mt Langley - another of California's 14er

After the sunrise we drove to Horseshoe meadows which is at ~9,500 ft and we hiked on the Cottonwood Pass trail to about 10,000 ft; we were all feeling ok in terms of breathing and no one felt the elevation. We came back to the town to have a good Mexican lunch and pick up our permits from the visitor center. CK decided to rest and the rest of us decided to go to Whitney Portal to checkout the store/trailhead.

CK brought puliodhare mix and rice; we bought some plain yogurt and had the best dinner. Before going to bed we updated our goals for the next day.
Pradeep was going to go up to Trail camp, shoot some nice vistas and then head back.
Srikanth, CK & I decided that if any bodily injury happens or we get AMS issues, we'll turn back else we are going all the way up. Yeah, another thing… if rain or thunder storms come we were turning back.

The hike to the Whitney summit via the main trail is 22 miles round trip. Whitney Portal trailhead is at around 8,300 ft and Summit is 14,497 ft, so the elevation gain is about 6200 ft. We went to sleep by 7:30-8 PM and planned to wake up at 12:30 in the night and start the hike by 2:30-3:00 early morning.

We all easily got up as the alarm sounded at 12:30; I don't think any of us got any decent sleep; other guys had slept in the afternoon, but I didn't - so it was going to be tough on me; long hike with not much sleep. Surprisingly, after the bath I was feeling quite fresh.
We all got ready, had Horlicks and couple of bread with jam for breakfast; and headed towards Whitney Portal.

CK was driving but I was nervous; not about his driving but whether I was up for the task of completing. Just last weekend I had problems on Henry Coe Park Hike to Mt. Sizer; I didn't complete it and now I was having some doubts about Whitney but didn't really say anything.

We reached to the portal soon; there were a few other groups getting ready. By now I had forgotten about those doubts and it was feeling like just another hike (although I can't remember any other hike I started at 3AM). We set off soon; covering ourselves in 3-4 layers of clothing. I ensured my Nikon D50 with 18-200 lens was with me & I didn't forget my poles (I did forget 'em on the Half Dome hike and had to resort to wooden stick on the way down).

The trail is not very steep but I think we had just started and were just getting warmed up. Very soon we were all panting and wanted to get rid of our jackets; we stopped and took off our jackets. Couple of groups were passing us. We seemed to be going quite slow.
Looking up we could see fireflies (basically hikers with headlamps) along the trail up to quite far. We were thinking we got quite late start. About an hour into the hike, we entered special Mount Whitney zone of John Muir Wilderness area where entry is allowed only for the permit holders. Although, there's no one there to stop you but I have heard random permit checks are done during the day on the main trail and one could be turned around and/or get fined if found in Mt. Whitney zone without permit.

About two hours and fifteen mins later we found ourselves at the Lone Pine Lake mark (about 2.8 miles from the trailhead). We're indeed going slow; of course we didn't want to go to the lake at such hour.

We wanted to get to Mirror Lake by sunrise so we started again soon and tried to fast pace ourselves a bit. We crossed Outpost camp (3.8 miles mark) soon and reached Mirror Lake (4.3 miles mark) just before the sunrise. We rested there for a while and then CK & Srikanth moved ahead. Pradeep & I stopped at Mirror Lake anticipating the alpenglow on the needles. We were not disappointed. We took several shots and spent good 20-30 minutes there.

Thor Peak just before sunrise

Alpenglow on the needles

I can't tell if the right most peak here is Whitney (someone more knowledgeable please let me know)

After enjoying the sunrise, we sped a bit and headed on the switchbacks towards Trail camp. No one talks about these switchbacks but they felt strenuous and never ending.
Next 2 miles we would take about an hour and half to reach Trail Camp (6.3 miles mark) at 12,235 ft elevation. CK & Srikanth were resting there and probably waiting for us as Pradeep was to turn back from here.

We rested there for a while, had some snack and then Pradeep decided he wanted to continue. It didn't seem a bad decision at the time but we got a bit worried as he was not really prepared for this. Srikanth & CK decided to move ahead to the infamous 99 switchbacks; I decided to stay with Pradeep and hike together.

The switchbacks looked daunting from the trail camp. We decided to take one step at a time; met another group there; they were already descending; the lady advised us to pick our rock and move to that & then pick another; sounded like a strategy. By the time Pradeep & I started, Srikanth radioed us he was already on 33rd switchback; counting them made easier it seems.

So, we started counting too. CK radioed there that he's starting to get some hips pain and was wondering if he should continue; he was nearing sb20 or so.
Pradeep and I were going pretty slow up on the switchbacks; we made a target of reaching the Trail Crest by 11:00 AM.

Looking towards Trail Camp from the switchbacks

Pradeep was going a bit slower as his back had started hurting; his backpack didn't have any waist belt; and his shoulders were feeling the pain. He started to slow down. Soon CK radioed that he's waiting for us at the switchback 47 near the cables. We soon reached the cables and there CK said he's turning back as his pain was becoming worse; and anyways he'd crossed 13,000 ft mark by now :)

While we were trying to convince CK, we saw a park ranger came by; he checked our permits. It seems that it's his part of job to daily climb the main trail although he doesn't go to summit everyday. He warned us of the forming clouds as there were warnings of thunder showers in the Sierra Nevada range. The darkening clouds were worrying me too.

Mt Whitney from the switchbacks

Pradeep asked me to move ahead as he'll be coming slow. The switchbacks were getting harder & harder to climb. When I was around 60th sb, Srikanth radioed that he'd just reached the trail crest.

I would stop every few minutes and ask how long more to everyone descending. Everyone will have a different answer - someone says just 30 minutes more; someone said you are almost half way there (yeah, right… I having been walking for last 2 hours); finally someone said you are just 5 more switchbacks away & it will take only 30 minutes.

Damn!!! That was all I could say.

As it turned out… the last 9/10 switchbacks are really long; but they do end. I finally finished it at 11:50AM in about 2 and half hours.

Finally….. Trail Crest (8.5 miles mark) at 13,600 ft.

After reaching the Trail Crest, one can see the Sequoia National Park on the other side; the view from there is just awesome and the feeling of finishing the switchbacks make it even better.

Mt Hitchcock and Hitchcock Lakes in the background

According to the Whitney guide I was following; the most difficult part of the hike was over. I rested at the trail crest for a while before descending on to the next half mile to meet John Muir Trail to the Summit. I started very enthusiastically to finish the next 2 miles in one hour and hoping to reach the summit by 1:00 PM; but I was in for a big surprise.

Looking at the top of the needles

Looking down to Upper Boy Scout lake from the side of the Third Needle

The next two miles were really long… may be longer than any other 2 miles I ever walked on a mountain; they just didn't want to finish; the trail was very rocky and one needs to be really careful where you put your feet. My trekking pole got stuck between the rocks and I almost slipped. Srikanth radioed that he just reached the summit; I told him that I could see the Summit Hut now and I shall be there in half hour. Later Srikanth told me he didn't want to disappoint me so he didn't tell, but it was not going to be half hour :)

John Muir Trail to the Summit

Mt Whitney (summit hut can be seen) and Keeler Needle from the west slope

The minutes seem to be just passing by and the summit was still far; now I was targeting to summit by 2:00 PM. Someone descending told me once I am pass those snow patch, it's pretty easy walk from there. The snow patch looked quite far and the rate at I was going 2 o'clock also looked like a far fetched goal. I didn't have any other option at this point; I just had to take one step at a time and be there.

Finally at about 2:05 PM, I reached the summit (11.o miles mark); saw Srikanth there; signed the register; took some photos; had some lunch(sandwiches we packed). It was a happy moment; at this point I said to myself, I am gonna do it better next time :)

A bird's eye view from 14,497 ft the top of Mt Whitney (shot using a fish eye lens; a very nice guy lent it to me without me even asking; you can tell he knew the best shots are from the fish eye at such heights)

Srikanth & I with the Summit Hut in the background (I don't know what happened to the door there; anyone knows?)

Looking Southeast (needles in the close background, Inyo range in the far)

Victorious on the top :)

My alti-meter watch showing the 14,497 ft reading

We spent until about 3PM before starting our descend. To our greatest surprise we saw Pradeep on John Muir trail proceeding towards the summit

He was too close to go back, now but the day was closing and it was sure that we'll be descending in the dark. We asked him to start descending soon and wished him good luck.

The descend was not very easy as I had thought; although it was a bit faster.

One of the Hitchcock lakes in different light

We met few guys who were backpacking in the region for couple of days and had just started descending

We filled some water from the stream on the switchbacks; we had water purifier & odor removing tablets; it worked like a charm and the water was as sweet as one would expect alpine water to be.

Soon we were down from the switchbacks.

As we started descending from the Trail Camp, Pradeep radioed us that he's reached Trail Crest. It was already 6 o'clock; we had 6.3 miles to descend, it was putting us at about 8:30-9PM at trailhead. Pradeep had 8.5 miles to descend; we were a bit worried about his radio & torch batteries. We told him we'll keep in touch every mile and we started descending.

The descent was taking longer than what we previously thought. We were just trying to reach Mirror Lake before HE puts the light out. The sun was going down faster than we were.
Sunset clouds over Thor Peak

Inyo range at Sunset

By the time we reached Mirror Lake it was already dark; we were continuously trying to radio Pradeep but couldn't reach him. We just hoped that he was alright.

We could now talk to CK who was waiting for us at the trailhead. I slipped again and my ankle started aching a bit this time. We slowed down and finally made it to the trailhead by 10. It was a long day after 22 miles, 19 hours and about 6,200 ft of elevation gain (and loss); it was great to be back - I was looking forward to the pizza in the motel room.

After having few slices of Pizza & Beer, Srikanth & CK went back to the portal to wait for Pradeep. He finally came down by 2:30 AM with help of two guys he met at the summit. He has an interesting story there but I will let him word it himself; I'll put a link here once he's published it.

Next day, before starting out back to home; we went back to portal store to buy our rightfully earned "I Climbed Mt Whitney" T-shirts :)

One last look at the Mt Whitney from Lone Pine; buh-bye Whitney.

More pictures from the hike here

I am going to be in the area again end of September to do some photo shoot in Bristlecone Pine Forests.

Hiking in Henry Coe State Park

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:25:00 +0000

August 26th 2006

To the top of Half Dome

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:24:00 +0000

Completed the half dome hike on July 3rd 2006. Some shots from the hike:

Half Dome the evening before ..

Vernal Falls

Vernal Falls Steps

The cables

Finally at the top

Half Dome from Glacier Point (next day)

Black Mountain Trail

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sat, 13 May 2006 05:41:00 +0000

A few weeks back I went to hike the Black Mountain; started at 10:30 with Sun already up,
didn't find parking for about a 1/4 mile from the parking lot (it has space for hardly 10 cars)
and was carrying my d50 clubbed with 17-55;
no one else showed up from the group; over all not a very good start.

Initially it is a bit steep, but was ok as I had just begun.

On the way, the view of the bay area is seen clearly and is beautiful too.

It is a difficult hike (at least the last mile), if one is not in very good shape.
I almost gave up twice... but then after resting for a bit I was ok and did get to the top.

It is supposed to be a good starting practice hike for the bigger hikes in the Sierra.

I saw this little caterpillar hanging on to the leaves and was intrigued by it.
This one is getting around as another friend told me that he saw it on Mt Diablo the other day too ;-)

Went to Mission Peak last weekend.... hopefully will get to plog about it soon.

Another candid

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sun, 07 May 2006 23:47:00 +0000

Shot another one of my son in the backyard... this time with the 70-200mm.
I like this pic better than the one with 85mm but it could be the background which makes this one better.

Portrait with an 85mm

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 07:21:00 +0000

Another one of my impulse buy's happened last week.... this time it was an 85mm f/1.4 aka The Cream Machine.
Very true to it's nick name. Here's one of my first shots with it.

Really like the bokeh it produces... though not much different than the legendary 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens but in a much lighter package; easy to hand hold, extra 2 stops for low light and much smaller minimum focusing distance.

It has found a place in my bag :)

Colors

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 06:12:00 +0000

Going through some of my old shots.... this one here I liked a lot and kept coming back again to see it.
Like the colors in the dresses...

Closeups

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 05:21:00 +0000

Recently have been playing with shooting close ups with the extension tubes and close up lens adapters.

This one shot with the Canon 500D mounted on 70-200 lens

300mm with PK-13 extension tube

Shooting with these required much more patience than shooting with a dedicated Macro lens due to the very fine DOF range associated with the high magnification.

I am getting used to them :)

Winter morning...

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 07:29:00 +0000

Earlier this month we spent a weekend in Donner Lake area near Truckee.
Tried to learn ski... didn't get too far with it :)

Did some shooting - one of the morning shots

D50 - Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 05:20:00 +0000

I got a used Nikon D50 this week; it is so light and small that I can carry this around everywhere
when going out with family and not look like some photo-geek.

Here's one of the first shot I took with it. Shot through my son's bedroom window.
This is the basic resolution image straight from the camera with no post processing.
I like the saturated colors D50 produces.
The default color space of D50 seems to be IIIa sRGB which favors the nature & landscape pictures.
I was sort of restricted in terms of composition but like this anyways.

Wild Orchid

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 05:08:00 +0000

Borrowed a dedicated slide scanner (nikon collscan IV) to digitize some of my photos of past (film) life.
Colors are very close to the slide but sharpness still sucks.. though it is mucho better than what I used before
- some epson photo scanner with transparency adapter.

Here's one of them.

Swastik

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 08:44:00 +0000

Shot this during my sis' marriage last month in India.

I kinda like how it turned out; turning off the flash saved this shot.

See no evil, Hear no evil, Say no evil....

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 07:39:00 +0000

Over-exposed

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Just before leaving for work this morning I snapped a few shots of my son.
I like this one the most despite the background is completely blown out.

It doesn't matter I think.

SF in the morning

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 05:21:00 +0000

Bay Bridge under the morning fog.

After very long time, I got to get out to shoot in the city.
Was hoping to capture some early sunrise colors... but fog won over sun.

Title is a must....

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:50:00 +0000

I don't like my pictures saved on blogger's site. I would love to have the 3-way integration - picasa, smugmug and blogspot.

Picasa's basic photo editing tools are cool. I don't need the horsepower of Photoshop to tweak here & there to post on blog.
------
BlogSpam - As soon as I published my previous blog... I got a mail about comment on it (with in few seconds...). I said, wow!! Well... for the lack of my knowledge of the correct jargan, I'd say it was one of those blog-spam-comments.

Lastly, does evey blog post / picture need to have a title? I couldn't think of a good title for this shot, any ideas?

------
EDIT -- Finally I figured that a title is a must for these blog entries otherwise you can't get a direct link to the post. :( Thus, adding a title.

Picasa to Blogspot...

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:27:00 +0000

The integration works and is cool!!

Well, yeah it has been a long time since I was on blog sphere. Life generally gets too busy when you have to work 10-12 hours a day and have tons of things to do to make your home liveable.

We are in the process of buying furnitures right now. I had been promising my ~3 yr old that we'll go to pumpkin patch & train ride. Finally last weekend we were able to do it at the same place. There's a pumpkin patch with train ride on Grant road, Mt. View, south of El Camino.

Here's Manas hiding in the maze.

Calypso's scanning

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sun, 15 May 2005 23:15:00 +0000

Recently I joined DISIG; a group interested in digital imaging.
In one of the monthly meetings, Joe Levine of Calypso visited.

Although I couldn't make it to the meeting that day,
I was kindly sent the free print offer of one 35mm slide/digital image.

This is where late Galen Rowell used to get his prints, so obviously I was very excited about this.

I readily took one of my recent slide. I am very pleased with the quality of the output,
a 35 mega pixel image from 100MB drum scan and a 11 x 14 print.

Here's the shot I got done. It's the cascade range over Orgeon, shot from the flight.
Color output is very close to as seen on the slide.

The only bad thing happened is that I broke the glass in the frame trying to put this picture in it. :(

Silhouette

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Mon, 09 May 2005 06:55:00 +0000

I processed this image last year after the shoot, though I wasn't satisfied with my results.

The person in the shot climbed up the Tufa hoping to shoot the sunset from up there. As we all were waiting for sky to turn colors, I asked him to lift his hands and pose as he's seen in the shot.

Within few minutes the colors were changing fast and this buddy was still up there in almost every other photographers frame; everyone shouted at him and made him come down.

My intention was to take a silhouette but I messed up the metering and got an averaged shot; since I shot in raw I was able to post process it to darken the tufa and change it to what I intended.

Looking back at old photos...

noreply@blogger.com (Durgesh Srivastava) — Sat, 07 May 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Anand's post made me think about my old photos which are neither deleted nor processed... just sitting on the hard drive;
I happen to have a bunch of them (say couple of thousands..).

Actually I am afraid to say, that I have not being deleting any photos...
ok just a few.. which I know that I will never give a second look.

Well, anyways..... since Anand & I are making plans for an Eastern Sierra trip next month,
I decided to take a look at my last year's Mono Lake trip collection, more than half of which I haven't processed yet.

Here's 2 of them which I ended up working on tonight.

This dramatic sunset was on the 1st evening I was there.
They say you can see lenticular clouds (also known as Sierra Waves) formation very often in the Owens Valley.

This is yours truly, deep in thoughts... shot by Rob, in the background is the Sierra.