Amateur Photos Alpine Loop

Here are a few photos from a quick trip Randy and I took around the Alpine Loop. 

View of a hillside looking back towards Mt Timpanogos

Quaking Aspen with fern under growth.

More Quakies, less ferns.

The main reason we took this trip was to get some shots of the trees changing colors. On our way down Randy stopped at this small stream just to see what we could find. I ended up liking these photos better than my other shots. The green moss set against the moving water turned out real nice.

Another angle.

Here is Randy setting up for a photo.

Older Lizard Photos

Gloria holds a large leopard lizard we found on a trip to Moab. Whenever we catch a lizard Gloria always wants to hold it.

Drew picks up a gopher snake from off a dirt road near Pioche, NV.

Drew shows off two of the collared lizards he caught while camping with his Grandpa Tim

near Milford, UT.

Drew holds a Chuckwalla and a whiptail we caught in St. George.

Drew with some water snakes.

The boys on a mini lizard trip near St. George.

Fast Fire

This is one of my better attempts at creating a friction fire fast. I've been able to generate embers much faster but getting flames always takes too long. This time I created the ember reasonable fast and was able to get flames pretty quick also.

Ember in 12 Seconds

I was trying to see if I could create an ember faster than Usain Bolt ran the 100, but that guy is just too fast. I did beat my best time in the 100 though, or 50 for that matter. With a little more training, and HGH, I think I might be able to break Usain's mark - that is if Melissa can hold out as camera girl.

Hand Drill Fire Starting Demonstration

This is a demonstration on how to use the hand drill method to start a fire. This looks, and is, quite easy once you've done your homework and practiced. Starting a friction fire was on my bucket list. I started out with the bow drill method because the hand drill looked impossible. The bow drill method is very reliable and easier to learn because your hands don't wear out (blisters). But after moving on to the hand drill I rarely use the bow drill anymore. There are plenty of materials to make a hand drill work and you can get a coal just as fast or faster.

Valley of Fire Lizard Trip July 08

After looking around Logandale, Nevada most of the morning we finally catch a Desert Iguana. We saw a lot but were unable to catch many. This was one of our first attempts at video taping and talking to the camera like a documentary. It was painful.



Most of the time we don't get very good footage of actually catching a lizard. The fact is most of the time we spend more time chasing lizards around and goofing off more than catching them. This time we just about had the footage we were hoping to get: a spectacular capture (or someone getting bit by a snake). Matt made the diving catch while the camera was on and you can just about see the whole thing. After Matt catches the lizard, it gets away when Neil sees a DI (desert iguana). As amateur filmographers we give ourselves a B+ on Matt's diving catch behind Neil and an A- on the lizard jumping out of his hand and running into a hole.Unstaged, without overhead camera angles and a lighting crew, what do you expect.



At dusk and a couple of hours after a rain we went out in the foothills near Beaver Dam on the Utah/Nevada border. The conditions were great. This video shows how excited Neil gets when he finds a lizard that is not very easy to find. After filming Neil and I spent an hour and a half trying to dig the lizard out of a very rocky hole. While we were digging Drew and Matt caught 2 horny toads, a desert banded gecko, and a sagebrush lizard. The lizard Neil and I were chasing got away while both Neil and I got bit several times each by the ants from the nearby ant pile.



This video shows one the horny toads Drew and Matt found while Neil and I were digging. They were just tiny. We will get better at filming. Hopefully.

Lizard Trip 2007 - Laughlin, Nevada

In 2006 our main lizard trip took us to Laughlin, Nevada. We saw many wonderful reptiles including a king snake, Mohave rattlesnakes, zebra-tailed lizards, chuckwallas, desert iguanas and more. Hoping to duplicate our success we returned in 2007. Our luck wasn't as good, but we still enjoyed tromping around in the desert.

Highlights without photos (we usually don't take the camera with us) were Drew catching a fringe-toed lizard somewhere in California, catching a monster desert iguana at a sand dunes near 29 Palms, a few chuckwallas and DIs around Laughlin, along with a few other odds and ends lizards like leopards, whiptails, spineys, etc.

Highlights with the few photos we took are Drew with a little chuckwalla above and the rattlesnake below:

Here is the rattlesnake we found

Matt jumps in and picks him up.

Drew picks up his first rattlesnake.

Neil shows off his snake handling skills and putter. Notice the bends in the putter handle. The tantrums Neil throws on the golf course after missing a few putts has created an ideal snake handling device. You would think such a wonderful snake tool would be retired from golf, but Neil still uses it. And, next lizard trip, it will have even more useful bends. 

Finally, I get a turn. When your taking pictures you have to be the last in line.