Flash-floods feed the Dirt Devil
Click on the image to view the panorama in your browser. As always, you can zoom in and out and pan around.
This weekend I visited Capitol Reef National Park with family for on Friday, and then on Saturday I went out to a remote area near Hanksville and did Angel Cove canyon with my wife’s younger brothers.
We picked the canyon with the chance of afternoon thunderstorms in mind because it is a relatively short canyon (some refer to it as a “Micro Slot”) taking only 3 to 6 hours and only having between 5 to 7 rappels in the canyon. As we exited the canyon it started to sprinkle on us, and as we neared the top of a slickrock dome the clouds opened up and it started to pour. From the moment it started raining heavily until the time we started to see trails of water was mere minutes, and it was between 10 to 20 minutes from when the rain started getting heavy to when we were able to see a number of drainages fill up and start flowing.
After watching the waterfalls for a minute or two, I could no longer resist the temptation to get out there and capture it as best I could. Working fast and in pretty bad conditions I set up and took a 20-image 260-degree single-row panorama of the area. Water spots and drops on my lens were unavoidable given the conditions (blowing heavy rain coming from every direction as the winds shifted around) – but I was able to have enough overlap between my images that I could get rid of all the waterspots in the final image.
If you are asking yourself “Gee, this is cool… but why not a 360×180?” allow me to let you ponder what happens when you try to shoot a camera at any angle greater than 0 degrees when it is raining… There simply was no way I could have shot one until after the storm had passed, and these waterfalls are as quick to disappear as they are to appear so I wanted to make sure I caught them. They did stick around for a little while and I could have gotten a slightly better shot after the rain let up – but after putting the weather resistance of the 7D to the test with the downpour I subjected it to, my camera had earned itself a bit of a break. (That, and condensation was starting to get to it so I pulled the battery to help prevent it from getting damaged)
The resolution of the final image is 19171 x 5356. If I were to print this out on 17-inch wide paper, it would be 5-feet long at full 300-dpi resolution. I stitched and retouched it at full resolution. If anyone reading this wants to buy a print that size, let me know and we can work something out. I know some places I can print them that big – but you’ll be on your own for framing it! 
Tags: canyoneering, dirty devil, flash flood, panorama, Photography, rain, sandstone, waterfall
