Inside Alex Honnold’s Tricked-Out New Adventure Van
Back in 2014, pro climber Alex Honnold gave us a tour of the 2002 Ford Econoline E150 he used as his mobile base camp. That van served him...
-
You might be thinking more about snow than water right now. But that means it’s a great time to invest in off-season gear. And a bunch of BO...
-
No one wants to have to use first aid. But everyone wants the goods when bad stuff goes down in the backcountry. You don’t have to try to f...
Monday, July 30, 2018
Instagram vs. Reality: The Truth About Antelope Canyon https://ift.tt/2OsVGb3
Instagram photos of Antelope Canyon deceived us. On our recent visit, the ‘serene’ canyon was busier than a New York subway, and tour guides staged most of the shots.
Sure, we know that people only post their very best photos on Instagram. And we knew Antelope Canyon was bound to be crowded. But our experience wasn’t quite what we had anticipated. Here’s the truth about the place.
It’s as Beautiful as the Pictures Depict
This actually came as a surprise to us. The smooth, red-orange walls were actually smooth and red-orange. The beams of light shining down onto the sandy passageway were mesmerizing. And the contorted, narrow canyon walls were mind-boggling, soaring 100-plus feet overhead.
Every turn presented a new, breathtaking vantage point, continually wowing us along the 100-yard walk. Thankfully, the beauty of this canyon is real and exceeded the high expectations the edited Instagram photos had given us.
The Crowds Are Insane
Antelope Canyon is on a Navajo reservation near Page, Ariz., and is not governed by a federal public land organization such as the National Park Service. The only legal way to see the canyon is to go on a guided tour.
Currently, there are four “Upper Antelope Canyon” outfitters. Each outfitter gives about 18 tours per day, guiding at least 75 people on each tour. That equates to a minimum of 600 people going through the 100-yard canyon every hour between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The result is an astonishingly crowded, shoulder-bumping slot canyon.
There is no place in the canyon without a crowd of people. There is no quiet place in the canyon. At any given moment, you have throngs of people in front of you, behind you, and exiting the canyon to the left of you. It’s an out-and-back tour, with guides yelling for their passengers to “keep walking” or “stay to the right.”
So with these crowds, how do people get those unobstructed photos of the canyon?
Every Photo Is Staged
Especially on the photo-specific tours, guides take it upon themselves to stage the perfect photo for their paying customers. On a few occasions, we were rushed out of a room in the canyon to clear the way for a barrage of tripod-rearing visitors behind us, ready to take a shot with no people in it.
At another spot, our guide proceeded to pick up a handful of sand and toss it into the sunbeam shining through the canyon, setting up an epically staged photo of sand floating down from the rim above.
My personal favorite was when a guide ahead of us whipped out an ice scooper. After tweaking everyone’s DSLR settings and straightening-up tripods, he began to vigorously scoop sand onto a ledge, building the pile up until it cascaded down in a majestic sand waterfall to the ground below. I’ll admit, we took the chance and captured the shot along with 20 others, just after the guide scurried around the bend and out of camera view.
Along the way, our guide would stop at various points, grab someone’s camera, take a shot, and encourage us to capture that same angle with our cameras. It was helpful, no doubt. But in the end, we took very few images of our own artistic accord.
Though our particular tour was dubbed a sightseeing tour, it was dominated by photography. Putting the camera down and enjoying the view took a conscious effort. However, at the end of the day, we came home with incredible photographs that we marveled at for hours afterward.
The Canyon and Tour Are Short
Upper Antelope Canyon is the more popular and scenic section of the canyon. Its length is a mere 100 yards, and the tours are 90 minutes, including the 2-mile drive to the entrance and back. We’ve explored slot canyons that extend for miles, so the football-field length of this one surprised us.
It’s Expensive
The only legal way to explore Antelope Canyon is via a guided tour. Reservations for these tours book months in advance. In fact, we booked ours three months in advance and secured the last spots for our desired 11 a.m. time slot. Many different tours exist, such as photography tours, sightseeing tours, and those that also visit other slot canyons.
For the cheapest Upper Antelope Canyon tour, expect to pay around $50-75 per person depending on the timing. “Primetime” for the canyon, when you can expect the best lighting, is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. For a 2.5-hour photography tour, you’ll be looking at $160 per person. The tour companies often sell out all 18 guided tours each day.
Overall, we did find visiting Antelope Canyon worthwhile. It’s a magnificent slot canyon — the most perfect one we’ve ever seen. We recommend paying it a visit, especially because you’re better prepared now for what to expect.
Sure, take some epic photos, but don’t forget to stare in awe at the natural marvel that is Antelope Canyon.
The post Instagram vs. Reality: The Truth About Antelope Canyon appeared first on GearJunkie.
from GearJunkie https://ift.tt/2OsVGb3
https://ift.tt/2M3xoTr
Traeger Goes Portable: Meet the Ranger Wood Pellet Grill https://ift.tt/2Kejtbg
Traeger grills are renowned for home use. A new model, the Ranger, gives tailgate chefs a portable pellet grill option.
Traeger’s home smoker grills are well known for slow cooking meat, fish, vegetables, bread, beans, and even deserts. If smoke a brisket, slow cook ribs, or make pulled pork, there is no better tool.
But most Traeger grills are huge. They arrive on a pallet, or in boxes that make the UPS driver cuss. They require an afternoon for assembly and you need a yard, a large deck, or a spacious garage to store them.
Traeger’s new Ranger delivers all the awesomeness of other Traeger grills in a package compact enough for a camping trip. Load it up for #vanlife, bust it out for epic tailgating, then store it in a closet until you’re ready to fire up a feast on your deck or patio.
The grill sits on a table or the ground, and when you’re not using it, it clips shut so you can carry it with its oversized lid handle.
Traeger Ranger Review
The 60-pound grill is larger than most portable grills but still compact enough to transport at 13”x21”x20”. The cooking surface can hold a rack of ribs, six burgers or 10 hot dogs, and the hopper takes up to eight pounds of pellets.
I slow cooked a Boston butt for four hours, and there were still pellets left in the hopper. Depending on how long and how hot you’re cooking, you might need to reload.
Once the Ranger is plugged in, a digital panel lets you control the grill. A center button cycles through temperature, timer and probe temperature. It also turns the grill on and off. Up and down buttons increase or decrease temperature or time. A status display window shows temperature, remaining cooking time, and probe cooking temperature—the meat probe plugs in next to the display panel.
Keep warm buttons and the ignite button are in the same control panel. And indicator lights next to the temperature readout confirm the timer is set, keep warm mode is activated, and the meat probe is plugged in.
What that means: when I stuck the meat thermometer into the Boston butt for pulled pork, it came out perfectly. Precise temperature control—arrows let you increase and decrease temps by five degrees– let me experiment with smoking chicken for slicing and smoking it for pulling. And when dinner was ready but the rest of my crew was still out mountain biking, the pulled pork was still moist, tasty, and warm when they arrived.
One bonus that other Traeger grills I’ve tested don’t have—an included cast iron grill. This made the Ranger both a grill for making dinner and also a breakfast cooking machine. Eggs, pancakes, bacon, and smoky breakfast kale were all out of this world.
Electricity Required
The one big drawback of the Ranger is that you do need a place to plug it in. Like other pellet grills, it uses electricity to turn its auger and heat its fireplug. And like others, this one runs on 120 current.
If you’re camping and have a Goal Zero Yeti Power Station or similar, you can power the Ranger without a wall socket. But it still requires 120 current, and thus an inverter if you run a 12-volt system.
We’re not certain how quickly it will deplete battery sources. It would be awesome to see Traeger design one of these to run on 12-volt in the future, but for now, you’ll need to invert or to plug into the grid.
Traeger For The Road
Because it’s a smaller, portable grill, cooking space is limited. And, with all Traegers, you’re restricted to using Traeger-specific pellets. It’s hard to call that a drawback as they are available in nearly a dozen subtly different and delicious flavors from maple to hickory. Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, and my local hardware store all carry Traeger pellets, so it’s easy to stay stocked up.
The Ranger is a reasonable $399 compared to other Traegers, some of which are more than $1000. And if you’re looking for something even more affordable, consider the Scout, for $299. It allows for temperature adjustment in 25-degree increments, has a smaller hopper, and it’s lighter.
The post Traeger Goes Portable: Meet the Ranger Wood Pellet Grill appeared first on GearJunkie.
from GearJunkie https://ift.tt/2Kejtbg
https://ift.tt/2mWyJk4
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/grjztljyu4d11.jpg){kind=link}