White Mountains Apache Reservation, AZ

[Robinhood4x4]

The wife and I, having only been to the white mountains once, decided to do a last minute exploratory trip up to the white mountains to find some nice camping locations and fishing holes. We ended up leaving on Saturday, a little later than I wanted at 8:30a, but made it to the horseshoe lake campground in a little over 4.5 hours. The campground was pretty much deserted, and we almost had the whole campground to ourselves. The nearest neighbor was probably a good 400-500 yards away, maybe more.

This was our camp and this is the reason we got a small camper. There's no way a bigger popup could fit between the trees. As it was, I had to make multiple point turns to get the trailer into the best spot.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-n3QgbLp/0/L/i-n3QgbLp-L.jpg

Here's another shot from the other side.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-3CFwZcm/0/L/i-3CFwZcm-L.jpg

This trip was full of animals, starting with the dead skunk on the road that I had to straddle, but ended up getting some of the stench on the truck anyway. No pictures of that, but I spotted a deer way off in the distance. If you look close, you'll see a fawn about 4 feet to the left of the doe.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-z42g4FC/0/L/i-z42g4FC-L.jpg

Then, on the way back to camp, we see a bear crossing the road ahead of us. As soon as he saw us he got out of dodge.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-ZQ6qWfQ/0/L/i-ZQ6qWfQ-L.jpg

Finally, on the dirt road to the campground, a bull elk was chasing a couple cows (female elk). It was pretty dark by this time, so the picture is pretty grainy.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-b7mp7mf/0/L/i-b7mp7mf-L.jpg

Back at camp, I went out to take some more pictures:
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-hC3jz68/0/L/i-hC3jz68-L.jpg

http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-zm5QWD6/0/L/i-zm5QWD6-L.jpg

http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-7LVqgFd/0/L/i-7LVqgFd-L.jpg

The next morning (today), we packed up and headed home.


Here's a link to the rest of the pictures and bigger versions.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/Category/Camping-09-23-2012/25543474_LwfsZ2

[troyboy162]

looks like fun!

[DHC6twinotter]

Looks like fun! I love those night shots. That's something I need to work on.

[Robinhood4x4]

Thanks.

Those night shots are tricky and I have yet to take a good star trail shot that I'm happy with. I didn't bother trying to get a good one this time because it was late, I was tired, the sky wasn't totally clear, and I didn't have a good foreground to work with. Normally you should take a bunch of shorter exposures and then stack them.

[paddlenbike]

Steve, nice pics, thanks for sharing! What lens did you use for the shot of the moon?

A pop up is the first thing on my list after I finish paying for a wedding.

[4x4mike]

Great shots Steve. How was the fishing?

I love empty campgrounds.

[Robinhood4x4]

Ken, just elope. It's much cheaper. Reno is just a few hours away!

The moon was shot with my 80-400mm, but it's also heavily cropped. For post processing, the only thing I did was sharpen it a little, otherwise it looked a little soft.

The popup is really convenient to have camping and makes for a nice base camp. It's probably about the same amount of work to setup a small tent, but much easier than one of those taj mahal tents. Once we figure out our camping system and can leave things in the popup, it'll make things that much easier. You know, things like sleeping bags, cooking stuff, etc.

Towing isn't too bad, but it's definitely not as convenient as not towing, obviously. I still have to think about whether I can pull into a parking lot and turn around, or how I'm going to get into a gas station. The 4runner pulls it with ease, even up and down the mountains. I can easily maintain 70 mph on all but the longest and steepest of grades.

Mike, unfortunately, this wasn't a fishing trip even though we took our rods. This trip was all about scouting out the lakes and campgrounds for the next trip. I'm hoping this will be our new Mammoth.