Shiprock Stills Video, June 2013.

Second video featuring stills and some short video clips.  There isn't a third video....two is enough.

Shiprock Videos.

  Due to the scenic tour and work after I got back it's put a little sidestep in the schedule.  Here's a little set of video clips showing locations and scenery around the rock during my trip.  It's not a teaching thing, though there always are lessons to be learned,( especially by me.)

  What a summer.

Side-tripping to the hospital

  A long week at Shiprock, then a following week of steady work at the lab processing film and then proofing the negatives.  This last Monday morning I just couldn't seem to get up and get going.  I didn't have a schedule so I hit the computer, went back to bed, tried to sleep in a bit, read, but nothing seemed to fit.  Just couldn't get comfortable.  My energy wouldn't kick in.

  Katie got up and headed for her pilates studio.  By 10 I'd noticed that I didn't seem to have any arm strength or any grip strength in either hand.  I had it, but resting, it was hard to believe I had it.  Plus I had a subtle ache in the top of my chest.  Katie came back in and read the symptoms into the computer which said "head for the ER.  I already had Jackson on standby for the same destination so he came and got me and away we went to Mother Frances.  The ER doc didn't like the EKG so they ran a heart enzyme test.  Looks like I had an event.  Tuesday morning I went through the cardiac catherization lab and Dr. Kumar put a stent in to open up an artery with over 90% blockage.  It was in an easy place.

  Out yesterday to get home and sleep in my own bed.  Amazing medicine and really great care from the folks at TMFHS.  I'm beyond grateful.  The follow-up will be finding the right meds to tolerate the stent and drop cholesterol and triglycerides.

  This will no doubt shake up my summer schedule but...so what?  I'm alive and healing.  Thanks to everyone for your care and concern.  Thank God for family and friends....and hotshot cardiologists with the latest technology.

Shiprock shadow, East side.

Update:  This morning I realized I felt back to normal, energy-wise and otherwise.  I'm sure it's not completely true- and I'm not going to push it, but that's a nice sensation to have!

The Bone Shrine

  Years ago.  No, DECADES ago.  Last century.   A Navajo man told me about a place where bones littered a ledge up on Shiprock.  You could walk there.  Eagles nested overhead.  I was a child and had hardly any concept of how to get around on the rock, which places would go and which wouldn't, and didn't have the map of experience in my head.  On top of that, though I didn't realize it at the time, the Navajo are notoriously vague direction-givers and as a practice never use any term for distance, time, compass points or left and right.

  Here's typical Navajo instructions, as given to me last week about finding my way to a point by a professional fire watcher who knows azimuth, grids, USGS mapping, GPS points, et:

  "Go down there, behind little hill.  Along behind ridge.  Go along there for a while past where man used to have corral, maybe little bit more.  Bad spot in road maybe.  Then watch over that way, up a little more and into tree.  Road go along there and maybe join up.  Might be open spot past that side."

  Or maybe not.  At any rate, I kept an eye out for the bone-littered ledge for this century and a good chunk of the last.  Just by elimination I had narrowed what I began to call the Bone Shire down to a certain area.  I'd been everywhere else.

  Last Thursday, after some fits and starts I stepped off a little before sunup with camera, tripod and plenty of water to go up behind the White Tower on the North East corner.  Aerials showed a big cleft behind it.  On this side, the Climbers Cave and a very comfortable ledge where I had slept many nights.  There's no close way to get there though I had walked below it circumnavigating Shiprock a couple of times.

  It's a sporty walk.  Bouldering.  Scree climbing.  Trail and route finding.  All at 7000 feet.  I made pretty good careful time as the light broke and went past the point where I had ever been and hugged the base of the tower curving up and right.

  One of the first features I saw was a detached slab sitting on the trail.  This is unusual for Shiprock.  It's the only one I know of, though who knows what rock climbers find above.  I walked past it and made a note to shoot it when I came back.  I was trying to get to my far point as quick as I could and then work in reverse toward the car.

  Just a little bit past I saw a big ledge overhead and scrambled around up on it.  Before I even shed my tripod and pack I saw a small set of articulated vertebra, probably jackrabbit, just under the overhang.  The closer I walked the more bones there were.  Back in the shadows under a vertical cleft there were so many bones in the dust that you could scoop them up by the double handful.

  The bones rattle down a long vertical crack system from a traditional Golden Eagle nesting site somewhere overhead.  I've seen the Eagles coming and going from this corner, seen their chick sitting on the peak and heard them above for years.  A few days previously they were in the air in this area.

  Very satisfying to sit back with a stripped jackrabbit femur in your hand and have the pieces all come together.

The Danes

What a wonderful thing.

Shiprock, 2013.

I hadn't been there this year in reality, though I go there often in my imagination.  A solo trip.  Through the portals and procedures of the air with a packed crowd and then out on the highway in a vehicle who was a stranger, up through the concrete and wind until finally I was alone in that very raw and familiar place.  Seven nights in the desert.  Days alone among the ravens and rattling poltergeists. I shot all my film but two sheets.

Texas Service Rifle Championship, Bayou Rifles Range, Houston.

  By all accounts a great weekend and a very well-run match near Pearland.  Keith Stephens won the Service rifle Championship with a 776X24.  Nearly 100 folks shot.  The club had the range in terrific shape.

  On Sunday the LEG match had 63 non-distinguished folks firing in hot and windy conditions.  Buddy Reich finished his Distinguished Rifleman's badge and several other folks got closer.  Great matches all around.

It's all fun and games....

...until the bear eats the monkey.

Tough Rock Climbing. Aux! Bees!

Guess they need to add hornet spray to belt.  It's happened before here and there.  Never thought about it.

Aux! Nazi Bombers!

Found in the English Channel.  I can't believe there is much left, but godspeed to them.

Break out the Dead Cow Cam: Aux! Vultures!

Some might recall when I put a game cam up over a freshly dead cow and recorded the comings and goings of all the predators and scavengers.  This beats that.

USMC Marine Garand instructions.

  My cousin Steve is in the area, he came over for a visit and we got to talking Garands.  When he was a Marine Recruit at Parris Island in 1960 they still shot Marines.  He hadn't held a Garand since then...and me...well, Garands as common as housecats around here.  He got his hands on my darkroom Garand.

  This is how the USMC taught Garand functioning in 1960:

ACRONYM FOR REARWARD MOVEMENT       I AM U WE CAT

ACRONYM FOR FORWARD MOVEMENT          ALWAYS FUCKING LANA TURNER  

Transcribed From Recruit Issued Materials / US Marine Corps Recruit Depot Paris Island (Circa Korean War)

SECOND RECRUIT TRAINING BATTALION MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT PARRIS ISLAND, SC

U.S. RIFLE CAL. 30 M-1

The functioning of the M-1 Rifle consists basically of two movements: (1) The Rearward and (2) theForward movements. There are ten steps to the rear movement: (1) Ignition, (2) Action of the gas, (3) Movement of the Operating Rod to the rear, (4) Unlocking of the bolt, (5) Withdrawal of the firing pin, (6) Extraction of the empty cartridge, (7) Ejection of the empty cartridge, (8) Cocking of the hammer, (9) Action of the follower, (10) Termination of the rearward movement.

(1) Ignition: When the rifle is loaded and the bolt is closed the hammer spring is compressed and the trigger lugs are engaged in the hammer hooks holding the hammer in the cocked position. Pressure is then applied to the trigger, the trigger lugs are disengaged from the hammer hooks, and the striker then protrudes from the face of the bolt and strikes the cartridge there by igniting it.

(2) Action of the gas: When the bullet passes the gas port some of the gases escape into the gas cylinder. The gas strikes the piston with sufficient force to drive the operating rod to the rear compressing the operating rod spring.

(3) Movement of the operating rod to the rear: The initial movement of the operating rod to the rear imparts no motion to the bolt for the first 5/l6ths of an inch. The operating lug on the bolt merely slides in the straight section of the recess in the operating rod. This delay in the initial movement of the operating rod permits the bullet to leave the muzzle, thus clearing the enormous chamber pressure in the barrel and chamber before the bolt is opened.

(4) Unlocking the bolt: After the initial movement, the cam surface of the recess in the operating rod contacts the operating lug camming it up, rotating the bolt counter clockwise and disengaging the locking lugs from their corresponding locking recesses, in the receiver.

(5) Withdrawal of the firing pin: Rotation of the bolt also cams the hammer back from the firing pin and withdraws the firing pin into the bolt.

(6) Extraction of the empty cartridge: The operating rod continues to travel to the rear, carrying with the bolt, which slides along the receiver, the empty cartridge is carried from the chamber by the extractor.

(7) Ejection of the empty cartridge: The base of the cartridge case is continually pressed against the ejector, when the cartridge case clears the mouth of the breech the ejector throws the empty round up and to the right of the receiver.

(8) Cocking of the hammer: The rear end of the bolt rides over the hammer, forcing it back, compressing the hammer spring and comes to rest near the end of the receiver.

(9) Action of the follower: While the bolt is at its extreme rearward position the top cartridge is uncovered. The follower actuated by the follower arm and the follower rod which transmits this pressure from the operating rod spring, forces the cartridge upward in the clip so that the top cartridge is in the path of the bolt.

(10) Termination of the rearward movement: The rearward movement of the operating rod terminates when the rear end of its board section contacts the front face of the receiver.

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Transcribed From Recruit Issued Materials / US Marine Corps Recruit Depot Paris Island (Circa Korean War)
U. S. RIFLE CAL. 30 M-l
Forward Movement:
(1) Action of the compressed operating rod spring: As the bolt starts forward, actuated by the compressed operating rod spring the lower part of the face of the bolt comes in contact with the base of the top cartridge of the clip, sliding it forward into the chamber, the hammer actuated by the hammer spring rides on the bottom of the bolt, and tends to follow it, but is caught and held by the trigger lugs, which engaged the hammer hooks. If the pressure on the trigger is still held back after firing, the sear will engage the rear hammer hooks, subsequent release of the trigger dis-engaging the sear from the hammer which then slides into engagement with the trigger lugs.
(2) Feeding: When the bolt approaches its forward position the rim of the cartridge is engaged by the extractor and the base of the live round forces the ejector into the bolt, thus compressing the ejector spring.
(3) Locking: The operating lug on the bolt cammed downward by the camming surface of the operating rod. This rotates the bolt clockwise engaging the locking lugs in the locking recesses. This locks the bolt.
(4) Termination of the forward movement: The operating rod continues to move 5/16ths of an inch until the rear end of the straight section of the recess in the operating rod contacts the operating rod lug on the bolt. Thus the rifle is ready to fire. 

I've shot Garands a little bit at Camp Perry and the TSRA Garand Championships.

It may be a 60 year old rifle with 45 year old ammo in it....but I wouldn't go out there if I were you....