After 20 years of climbing around in the mountains and taking photos out there, I have had many experiences with being fooled by shadows. Many overnight trips have been a total waste to go look at something up close that I had photographed from a distance.
One of the best examples I can think of which has a photo to go with it, pertains to a trip I made up a very narrow and deep canyon with a friend back in 2007. The brush was so high and thick in places that we had to use flashlights in the middle of the day to see our way through it.
We were about 7 hours from my truck, and half way up the canyon when my friend spotted what looked like the entrance to a tunnel on the opposite side of the canyon. We both photographed it and I marked the location that the photos were taken from on my GPS.
This is a zoomed in photo I took of the tunnel entrance that day.
Carrying heavy backpacks loaded with everything we needed for an overnight trip, neither one of us wanted to spend the time and energy that would have been required to go have a closer look at the tunnel. We were only about 2 hours from where we intended to make camp for the night, and anxious to get there and get those packs off our back.
We made it to our planned campsite in a cave, fixed a nice supper and focused our thoughts on the original agenda for the trip.
It was about 3 days after the trip, when I was looking at the photos I had taken, and I came across the one of that tunnel entrance. The more I examined it, zoomed in on it, and enhanced the brightness on it. The more I became convinced it really was an entrance to a tunnel!
I discussed it with my friend who had been there with me when the photo was taken, and he said he had done the same thing, and also concluded that it was a tunnel entrance. Try as I did, I could not convince him to go back there with me and get a close up look at it. He never wanted to go up that brush choked canyon again... Tunnel or not!
I finally decided to make another overnight trip alone and find out what was in that tunnel.
You guessed it by now I'm sure. No tunnel! It was nothing but a shadow caused by a boulder to the right of it, that you can't even see in the photo. It is bad enough when you can't believe your eyes out there, but when you can't believe a photo. That's really bad!
A lot of people get upset with me when they show me photos of Hearts, or Crosses, or Horses they have seen and photographed in the mountains, and I tell them that I believe it is only the effect of shadows. Different time of day, or a different time of year and their Heart (or whatever it was) won't be there.
This of course is only my personal opinion, but it is based on 20 years of disappointing experiences.
Not one time, has anyone ever came back to me later, with a close up photo of their find and proved me wrong.
Like pictures of the Loch Ness monster and UFO's. Not that I don't believe that both could exist; it's just that the majority of photographs in existence are of other objects or phenomena that our brains interpret as something else. Still, there's always that one chance in a hundred, or thousand........
It's that one chance in a hundred, or thousand........ That compels you to all the way back to something like that shadow, just to see what it really is. It's either, do it and get it over with, or lay awake every night wondering about it.
You could call it that.
I prefer to call it a Passion.
You have to love it, to be able to do it.
Especially when you already know.... You could be chasing a shadow!
I guess a passion becomes an obsession when it interferes with your ability to make rational decisions. Like maybe going into an old cave or mine 100 miles from anywhere with no backup?
Don't get too personal there Bob I do that kind of thing all the time. When you are 3 - 4 miles inside the Wilderness area. You are as good as 100 miles from anywhere. I rarely have a backup along with me when I am exploring, but that has never stopped me from checking something out. When I found the Miller Mines, I was alone. Not having a backup slowed me down some, but I didn't leave until I had explored every foot of it. I estimated it to be around 200 feet of underground tunnel in all. You have to remember that someone had to dig all of that, and they had to have solid ground to get in and out. As long as you have a good flashlight, and go slow enough to see any snakes or down shafts they might have dug, you're just as safe as the people were that dug it.
There is another tunnel on the same ridge the Miller tunnel is on, but it is on the opposite of the ridge, and about 1/3 of a mile away from it. It goes almost straight in for 115 ft. The thrill of finding something like that is only 1/10th the thrill of exploring it. You never know if you are going to find a 200 year old skeleton, leaning against the wall in some corner of it. With a pile of nuggets "As big as your fists" laying on the floor beside it.
Jim,
I tried to send you a private message, but they don't seem to exist on this forum. Do you know Ron Eagle? Send me an e-mail to djui5 at yahoo dot com.
No, I have never met Ron Eagle. Although I have heard his name repeatedly since the day I arrived in Apache Junction in 1989. I believe he authored the book "West of Dawn"? It is a great read, and testifies to his time on the trail!
I opened a new topic at the top of the "Gold Prospecting & Treasure Hunting" Forum, with my e-mail address in it, so it would be easier for everyone to find.
I do that kind of thing all the time. When you are 3 - 4 miles inside the Wilderness area. You are as good as 100 miles from anywhere. I rarely have a backup along with me when I am exploring, but that has never stopped me from checking something out. When I found the Miller Mines, I was alone. Not having a backup slowed me down some, but I didn't leave until I had explored every foot of it. I estimated it to be around 200 feet of underground tunnel in all. You have to remember that someone had to dig all of that, and they had to have solid ground to get in and out. As long as you have a good flashlight, and go slow enough to see any snakes or down shafts they might have dug, you're just as safe as the people were that dug it. 