A close view of the Newark Slough swing bridge.

I have an earlier set of photographs taken here in November 2006.

www.flickr.com/photos/kap_cris/sets/72157594411074250/

One of the intrigues of hiking this stretch of defunct rail line is that it runs through one of the major remnants of ebb-and-flow marsh in the East Bay.

For the 2009 outing I had a gentle wind that suited my six-foot Rokkaku and was able to make it a one-kite day. At one point I had to bring the gear down to go under a set of high voltage electrical lines. The earlier photographs from this set show the swing bridge that spanned (when it was closed) Newark Slough. I am still somewhat amazed at the engineering that produced a confined foundation in the middle of a marsh channel on which a railroad bridge could pivot while maintaining alignment.

The images below are available in a Flickr set.

Salt Pond E8X, slated to return to tidal flow.

The set below contains photographs from a late Friday afternoon walk from Salt Pond E8X to Salt Pond E8 with the camera aloft. This was a one kite day (Sutton 16) with a 80% photography / 20% kite wrangling split. Not too shabby.

Views from Salt Pond E6B – a large contemporary pond that, like many others, holds the ruins of earlier works.

In any event I was struck by the contrast between two back-to-back sessions in a new section of the salt ponds at Eden Nature Preserve. The first trip was late in the day and I was making an exploratory hike over terrain I had not previously visited. Parking the car on a levee I launched the Sutton 16 in a steady 18 mph breeze and it soon lifted the dSLR rig with just the right amount of authority – sufficient lift but not much more in a wind that was as smooth as butter. I left my KAP gear backpack in the car and hiked a couple of miles while happily clicking away as the light faded. Toward the end the breeze faded too until the Sutton 16 could no longer handle the load. After a slow, controlled descent I packed up the gear and enjoyed the hike out.

I returned to the same spot the next day filled with ideas of what to shoot based on the previous day’s scouting. Parking in the same spot around 2 pm I found a slight and somewhat inconsistent breeze. As I started to frame the large 8.5-foot Rokkaku the breeze freshened a bit so I changed to the 7-foot Rokkaku. After getting the dSLR rig in the air I strapped on my backpack and headed off for a 5-mile loop. The pack carried the remaining Rokakkus (6 & 8.5 feet) and two Sutton Flowforms (16 & 30). I used them all on the hike (the Sutton 16 twice) as the wind fell off at first, then built rapidly, fell off again, and finally settled in as a brisk sea breeze. Worse yet, I could never achieve a good balance with the wind and spent most of the day handling an overpowered kite or fretting with bare minimum lift.

Here my Sutton 16 is barely lifting the dSLR cradle in 11-13 mph winds. The camera is floating a mere 10 feet or so above the salt pond landscape with 150 feet of line played out – sort of frightening given the unforgiving nature of the landscape and the constrained maneuvering room.

The contrast between the days left me thinking about two quality metrics I use to rate KAP sessions. There are surely many indicators for how well a KAP session has gone: the quality of photographs captured, the folks one meets, the survival of airborne gear and so forth. Of late I have thinking about two indicators that nicely summarize session quality:

Number of kites deployed – I treasure my one-kite days, the days when I select just the right kite and it flies well in a steady wind. And then there are the six-kite days when I just cannot seem to get the right kite up for the wind that is to come. I once, when the wind was fading in a counterintuitive fashion, had a six-kite day in which I never got a camera aloft during two hours of kite rigging and flying.

Ratio of kite thinking to photo thinking – I mostly work with the kite line in one hand and my radio in the other. In the best of sessions the kite basically tends to itself while I devote all conscious thought to taking photographs allowing the ratio to be something like 10% kite / 90% photo. However, there are also times when the kite flying is on the ragged edge – kites at the extremes of their capabilities, a kite somehow out of tune, or hazards such as trees and power lines. In these cases the ratio can invert to 10% photo / 90% kite and KAP becomes more like work with a dollop of stress.

These days when Claudia asks me how it went after a day in the field I can respond that it was a one-kite day at 10/90 (my first day at Eden Nature Reserve) or six-kite 70/30 (the second outing).

Update:

I made a third trip to Salt Pond E6B last week and it was a one-kite day with a 10% kite / 90% photo cognitive split. The 6-foot Rokkaku was aloft with the dSLR rig for over three hours. I hiked over two miles with gear in the air and had a fine session indeed.

This full resolution crop shows the lovely catenary shape assumed by my near limp kite line.

For portions of the time the winds were so low that the kite and camera cradle formed a closed system that drifted around the sky trailing a kite line that was ever so loosely connected to me (as in the image above). This was a fine example of what Simon Harbord calls fingertip kite flying.

For an hour or so I had an interesting, slow, gentle oscillation with the Rokkaku – the result, I think, of having the tow point set too high. The cycle, which would last a 2 – 4 minutes, began with the kite stalling out high and drifting slowly downwind. After it drifted to a relatively low angle, the kite line between me and the camera cradle would become taunt again and the kite would climb to the heights where it stalls out. This was perfect for my purpose because it allowed me to shoot low and and high views as I hiked the levees. The camera cradle elevation varied from around 100 feet above the ground to perhaps 350 feet and I could accelerate or retard the cycle by how quickly I walked.

Later in the day the winds gathered enough to cause a bit of strain and ultimately the decision to pull the gear down.

Images from the session are available in this Flickr set.

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Photos from the hike after the jump.

Images from the session are available in this Flickr set.

If A23’s borrow ditch was interesting from the ground it was all the more so from the air.

NASA Astrobiologist Dana Rogoff described Salt Pond A23 as being “Mars/Europa-like.” I take the point.

The session involved a speed drill launch of the Sutton 30 followed by 23 minutes taking photographs before waning light ended the day. Here are a few images from the session via Flickr:

The Mallard II in Salt Pond M6.

In the first of these hikes I made my way out to the junction of Salt Ponds M3 and M6 where the Mallard II dredge was taking a Sunday off from levee maintenance. I always enjoy spotting the Mallard II in the field as it invariably gets me thinking about the straightforward mechanical ingenuity of Victorian era engineering. During the hike, a 9-mile loop, I was able to photograph Salt Ponds M4, M5, and M6 – high salinity ponds that range in tone from brown to red.

Pond M5 at sunset

A couple of weeks later I made a trip out to Drawbridge with Claudia. On our way out we passed Salt Pond M5. With 15 minutes of sun left I conducted a speed drill – launching the Sutton 30 from the rear of the Prius, attaching the Canon dSLR rig with 10-22mm lens, and then working hard to keep it all out of the water as the wind faded.

Here is the 2009 M Pond set on Flickr:

Figure 1. Amtrak roaring through Drawbridge

What’s left of Drawbridge is returning to the earth. Most of the buildings have been vandalized or burned to the ground. The survivors are sinking into the mud with missing roofs and collapsed walls. Still, it is a fascinating place to visit. As trains roar through at 80 mph it is easy to imagine the good times that occurred thereabouts. Though as it turns out Drawbridge is not the reason I keep hiking out to Station Island. Instead, it’s the two salt ponds (A20 & A21) that flank Drawbridge and contributed directly to its decline.

In March 2006, the levee separating Salt Ponds A21 and A20 from Coyote Creek was breached to reconnect the former evaporation ponds to the ebb and flow of Bay tidal waters. At the time of the beach, the ponds were desolate, whitish beds of deposited gypsum devoid of flora. Over the ensuing months life has begun to take hold in the form of vegetation. The vegetation is growing quite nicely now – outlining the high ground along historic marsh channels. Each time I visit Station Island there is noticeable change in the breached salt ponds and it is most interesting to watch this progress.

Figure 2: Oblique views of the northeast corner of Salt Pond A21 taken in April 2007 and September 2009. The earlier view shows a relatively desolate plateau surface, although not as desolate as the pond before the levee was breached. The latter view shows a distinct pattern of new vegetation forming around the edges of the historic marsh channels.

Figure 3. Plan views of the same small marsh channel located along the northern borrow ditch. The April 2008 view shows a bare surface with the drier areas mapping higher ground. By September 2009 vegetation has taken root in this higher ground.

I went back through the archives and selected one image from each of seven hikes to represent the surface condition of Salt Pond A21’s plateau (the eighth hike occurred during a high tide). Here is the progression through three years.

Finally, here is a photo set on Flickr from the most recent September 2009 hike to Drawbridge:

A dilapidated bridge crosses an even more dilapidated creek.

This site once held a landing for the shipping of produce and the refinery of an early salt works. During my previous visits the adjacent Salt Pond E7 was always full enough to cover much of the ruin. This visit found the salt pond low and much of the ruin exposed.

Here are images from the day as posted to Flickr:

Lisa Krieger, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, came along and wrote a nice article for the Sunday edition.

I’ve posted a set of 40 or so aerial photographs taken during the hike to Flickr. You can see those images after the jump or just head over to the Flickr set.

Rick Bacigalupi shot video on the hike and has posted his segment:

You can also find this video on the Bay Nature WWW site at http://baynature.org/videos/life-in-a-ditch

After several pleasant meetings, a fine Sunday hike to the Weep, and drafts aplenty, our article “Out at the WEEP – a curious search for life in a ditch” is now on the newsstands in the current issue of Bay Nature. Read on to learn about a public hike to the Weep later this month.

If you are not familiar with Bay Nature I encourage you to visit their web site of better yet subscribe to this fine magazine. The current issue Bay Nature is now out in the newsstands for $5.95 and an annual subscription runs $21.95. There is something new to learn about the Bay Area in each issue. Now that we have worked with Dan we know why the quality of the writing and imagery is so high for Dan is a talented and supportive editor.

Bay Nature has organized a hike out to the Weep for Saturday, July 18, 2009 from 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM.

“Microbiologist Wayne Lanier and kite photographer Cris Benton will lead us out to their favorite spot at the South Bay salt ponds, unassuming drainage ditch they have dubbed “The Weep.”

http://baynature.org/events/salt-ponds-photography-exploration

If you are interested in joining us to see what our favorite stretch of ditch is up to follow the link and register by contacting Bay Nature.