Rio Grande Gorge Plunge Video

You know the drill: don’t try this at home! (I’ll leave it to you to figure out just what that is.) This FotoFeed image shows where I was.

What we have here is a cool video I just created of footage shot while descending from the west side of the Rio Grande gorge to the Taos Junction Bridge. That’s NM 567, if I’m not mistaken, a rocky dirt road in fairly horrible condition that plunges hundreds of feet down to the river, mostly without guard rails. I did some creative editing and added my own sound track which some of you will recognize.

This one really does need to be viewed full-screen if you can manage it. The video is 1080 x 720 HD and plenty loud once it gets rolling. At first I regretted the rare cloudy day, but then realized the gloom produced the perfect atmosphere. At one point there’s a yelp that sounds like a dog in the cab of my ’87 Ford F-150, except that I don’t have a dog, so it might have been me. (?)

I had reason to, uh, yelp…

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John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on About page. For a complete list of all John’s writing, photography, NFTs, and social media links, please visit JHFARR.ART  

  • Sherry February 20, 2011, 7:21 PM

    Freakin’ cool!

    • JHF February 20, 2011, 9:54 PM

      Ya think? Good thing I was alone on the road!

  • Byron February 20, 2011, 7:37 PM

    A+ . Wild and Worthwhile. Just don’t make this descent at night with no headlights!.

    • JHF February 20, 2011, 9:58 PM

      It’s a crazy road, Byron. And one of the few ways to get out of that canyon. Glad you liked it! Rough road, horrendous crashing and banging. Quite a place…

  • Del February 21, 2011, 1:41 AM

    Neat little adventure there John. I guess a guy has to go out and get his blood a-pumpin’ somehow. Thank for letting me know about the post.

    (Hi Beth)

  • Kile February 21, 2011, 10:44 AM

    I just got car sick sitting at my desk.

    Beautiful scenery, though!

    • JHF February 21, 2011, 8:49 PM

      It was much more nausea-inducing at the regular speed, believe me. Speeding it up helped a lot! And did anyone notice that there are SIX different speeds among the clips?

  • Robbo February 21, 2011, 5:03 PM

    It occurs to me that you must have been driving one-handed. 🙂

    • JHF February 21, 2011, 8:51 PM

      Some day I might invent a little gadget to hold the camera (a by now quite obsolete Kodak Zi6), but I’m sure I got a smoother image by holding the camera in my right hand.

      There was no one else on the road, obviously, or I might have done things differently!

      • Number 6 February 22, 2011, 1:02 PM

        maybe you need to find some kind of small Steadicam-type mount (if there is such a thing)? or as you said build you own: it’s basically just springs and counterbalanced weights, but you have to engineer it right.

  • Richard February 22, 2011, 8:57 AM

    Another great video: thanks, John.

    • JHF February 22, 2011, 10:01 AM

      Glad you liked it, Richard! I had a great time making it.

  • CK Sandberg February 22, 2011, 3:11 PM

    Nice John! And I thought I had enough vertigo just standing on the bridge way above the gorge, trying to get some interesting pics with the semis blasting past a couple of feet away and the whole bridge bouncing as as they passed. Too much vibration to use a tripod – handholding was more stable!

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