Big Cottonwood Canyon

[Photo-John]

I was out riding a few weeks ago and saw a photographer with an SLR and tripod taking pictures. We spoke for a few minutes and exchanged e-mails. Last Thursday, Eric picked me up and we went up Big Cottonwood Canyon for a little photo excursion. Hopefully there will be many more and other Utah members will join us.

I'd never been in Big Cottonwood Canyon and I am very happy Eric showed it to me. It's just above Salt Lake City and has two ski areas up at the top - Brighton and Solitude. The valley at the top of the canyon is about 8,000 feet in altitude and the peaks around the valley reach up over 10,000 feet. It's very much high alpine terrain with tons of wildflowers, aspen stands, and lots of wildlife. I saw a moose on the drive up with Eric. And this is all only about 45 minutes from my new home

The photos below were all taken with the new Casio Exilim EX-V7. I'm working on a review of it. It's a pretty nice little 7-megapixel pocket-camera. It's got a 7x optical zoom lens, manual exposure controls, image stabilization, and a very effective auto ISO setting that I actually trust. And since it's so small, there's no penalty carrying it on the mountain bike. That's a big deal for me.