hiking

The NAU Loop in 3 days (Nevada, Arizona, Utah) by Anthony Ngu

I was headed to Nevada for a climbing trip near Las Vegas and decided to spend a couple days after for a quick round trip through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.

Some people call it the Grand Canyon Loop, but I like to call it the NAU Loop (Nevada, Arizona, and Utah) I pronounce it as the "now loop" since you need to do it right now! It's that epic.

Want to see the route on a map?

The Main Stops:

  • Red Rock, Nevada
    • Red Rock has a bunch of cool features for climbers, but also some hikes that you can do without worrying about getting lost.

  • Grand Canyon
    • Iconic and an epic view to see such a huge gap with flat land on both sides. They've also got a glass platform and a zip line now.
  • Horseshoe Bend & Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona
    • Horseshoe Bend is a great view for sunrise and a short walk from the parking lot. They are building a lookout platform right now.
    • Antelope Canyon is a cool slot canyon to walk through but requires a guide and is a bit hard to get immersed in because you have to move along at the same pace as the rest of your tour group.
  • Bryce Canyon
    • Holy cow it looks like a maze of amazing rock pillars. It's definitely worth hiking through and the Navajo Loop is what I did.
  • Zion National Park
    • There is so much to see here but I only had enough time to do one hike and I chose to do Angel's Landing which was completely worth it. You get 3 different views on one trail!
  • Valley of Fire
    • Amazing views and really cool features with a lot of trails that you could easily spend a full day exploring

Things to Know:

Most of the National parks cost around $30 to enter per car, but if you get the Annual National Park Pass, you get access to all of the United States National Parks for $80! (It's worth it just for the NAU loop)

My Itinerary:

We started off a bit later that I was planning to on Day 1 and went to BabyStacks Cafe for pancakes and a Hawaiian style breakfast (really good!), then we started the drive to the Grand Canyon. We spent about an hour there walking alongside the rim and taking some photos next to the canyon edge. Then we hopped back in the car and drove to Page, Arizona a bit after sunset. Even though we missed the sunset and last remaining light, we still decided to walk down the trail to Horseshoe Bend for some night shots and I was able to snag this shot.

On Day 2 we woke up early to watch the sunrise at Horseshoe Bend and wow was it windy! The wind whipped around and caused the sand to sting our faces. After the sun rose and the crowds of tourists began arriving to Horseshoe Bend, we drove over to Ken's Tours for our scheduled tour of Lower Antelope Canyon. We started the tour and began walking through the famous slot canyon. When we ended though, we noticed that it had started snowing! It was around 10 AM and we drove to Bryce Canyon where it was snowing even harder! After waiting a little bit for a break in the snowfall, we walked around and started the Navajo loo. After a couple hours and a bit of walking around in Bryce Canyon National Park, we drove a bit more and stopped for the night nearby Zion National Park in preparation for Day 3.

The morning of Day 3 we woke up and began our hike up Angel's Landing in Zion National Park, It was a bit rough in places because of the recent snowfall, but it was well worth it for the impressive views. After completing that hike, we drove back down towards Las Vegas and stopped by the Valley of Fire around sunset before heading back to Vegas for our flight out that night.

266 Likes, 23 Comments - Anthony Ngu ➡ (a·new·life) (@angulife) on Instagram: "She forgot her hat at home and was so happy when she found this one while shopping. 🔥 it was meant..."

Do I Recommend This Road Trip?

If you've only got a couple days, then of course! Pack as much in as you can! However, ideally you would spend a full week doing this road trip so you could relax a bit and explore more of each park.  You can easily spend way more time in Bryce National Park, Zion National Park, and the Valley of Fire.

If you are even able to extend your trip by a couple more days, I would suggest increasing the loop to include Arches National Park, Moab, and the Bonneville Salt Flats.

A Week in Oahu w/ Moment Lenses by Anthony Ngu

I left Seattle about a week ago for the warm beaches of Oahu and spent that time adventuring around the island, shooting phone photography with Moment lenses, and eating poke, spam musubis, and shaved ice.

I got the chance to use the new Moment lenses and case with my iPhone X and thought that I would share some of the key highlights from my experiences with Moment lenses:

  1. The freedom of bringing something light.
    • Since I'm already bringing my phone with me everywhere, the only additional thing I need to bring is each of the lenses that I think I'll be using.
    • (For reference) I usually carry my Sony A7RII with an 18mm f2.8 Lens as well as 35mm and 85mm lenses, so you can imagine how bulky and heavy my bag can get.
  2. The quality of these lenses.
    • I didn't see any issues with photo clarity aside from the occasional sun flare when looking at the sun.
    • The only downside is the sensor size in your phone vs. a professional camera. So you can't crop in as much or blow up an image with the same fidelity (but that is expected)
  3. Easy attach/detach
    • Their phone case provides an easy way to attach/detach the lenses without having the fumble to get the right positioning. (It also comes with a stylish wood accent)
  4. Using the Moment app, the photos can be shot and stored on the phone in RAW and then edited easily.
    • When paired with an editing in the Lightroom app, you can make easy on the go edits of photos without ever having to touch a computer!

My favorite lens was the Wide for those landscape and context shots when I was adventuring.

206 Likes, 9 Comments - Anthony Ngu - a(new)life (@angulife) on Instagram: "Day 3 and I did another sunrise hike! My legs haven't given up on me yet 😅 . But dang those were..."

The Ultra-wide was great for livestreaming and Instagram stories, but they didn't match my style when it came to taking photos with it.

The Macro lens was a really cool specialty lens for the close-up shots but from my experiences it seemed to only fit that one niche.

I didn't get the chance to try out the Tele lens but I imagine it would be amazing for those long focal length shots when paired with the already 2x lens of the iPhone X.

Overall, I highly recommend Moment's lenses for the on-the-go content creator, mobile photographer, or even just someone who wants a different look for the photos they take with their phone!

Here are some other shots I took with the Moment lenses and app during my time in Hawaii, for more check out my Instagram @angulife!

 

Hiked to a Hidden Lake by Anthony Ngu

Spent this weekend hiking to a place called Hidden Lake and I had no clue what to expect.

In order to get to the hike from Seattle we woke up at 4:00 am and drove two and a half hours and through 4 miles of gravel, pot hole riddled road. There was a moment where our cars almost got stuck because a couple of holes were big enough that tires weren't touching the ground but with a careful positioning of the tires and a little extra weight courtesy of two more passengers we managed to triumph over the hole. Parking at the trailhead was pretty tight, but luckily we got there early and snagged two prime spots near the trail.

The start of the hike was pretty normal and we hiked through the forest for about a mile before reaching a clearing in the canyon. We then started to hike up through the canyon crevice where there was a small river and a lot of waist high plants and flowers. If you looked back during the hike you could see down the whole canyon crevice which made for amazing views. Once we got to the top of the ridge, we expected to see the lake but there was another ridge just past it. 

After that ridge, we found out that the lake was huge and actually a significant hike down the other side. While on top of that ridge, we decided to instead head up a short but steep path to the lookout tower and relax there. After that, we trekked down back to our cars and arrived back home around 7pm.

Overnight Backpacking Trip to Gothic Basin by Anthony Ngu

A couple friends and I decided to do a harder hike and camping trip over this past weekend. We ultimately decided on Gothic Basin, a 9 mile and 3000 foot elevation gain trail.

I met up with Charlie and we went to REI before our trek in order to pick up some gear and we began our trek. Unfortunately, we didn't make it for sunset because the hike up took a toll on us and sunrise the following morning was quite cloudy and foggy.

I later learned that my bag is pretty heavy in comparison to normal backpacking stashes (mine was around 50 lbs). Here's what my bag consisted of:

Check out the vlog of our adventure!

Sunrise Hike to Mt. Pilchuck by Anthony Ngu

Albert, Hillary, and I decided to do a sunrise hike up Mt. Pilchuck to the lookout tower and planned it the night before realizing that we would have to leave Seattle around 1 am in order to make it up to the peak by 5 am (sunrise). It took us around 2 hours to drive to Mt. Pilchuck and we started the hike around 3 am. To be honest, it was an arduous hike with an elevation gain of 2200 feet for around 2.6 miles one way, but the views were spectacular and well worth the amount of energy it took to get up to the top.

Since we started the hike at 3 am, before sunrise, we had to walk most of the trail in the dark while carrying flashlights. By the time we got close to the peak, the "blue hour" was well under way and we didn't need the flashlights anymore. It turns out that a couple parties of people had stayed the night in the lookout tower since sunset the previous day (great idea! and something I plan to do in the future)

We hung out at the lookout tower for a couple hours and grabbed some photos as the sun rose and illuminated the sky. (Note: it was pretty windy, so I would advise hand warmers, jackets, and blankets) There was a moment where a fellow vlogger was out on a different peak and the wind picked up some of the snow from the mountainside and wafted it over him and the ridge he was standing on in an arc making it look like he had a force field.

I highly recommend this hike. It's my favorite so far!

Here's the vlog video to go along with the hike! Let me know what you think and subscribe if you want to see more!

 

End of May & Memorial Day Weekend by Anthony Ngu

During the week, I ended up shooting with a bunch of cool creative people and brought out the DIY "light sabre" for some rainbow lit portraits again.

Aside from a couple outings like that, it was a pretty normal week but wow was it a busy weekend.

I started off with a 5 am hike to Lake Serene with a couple of friends and we had a great time hiking through the forest, checking out the waterfalls, and jumping into Lake Serene which was frozen at this time!

139 Likes, 9 Comments - Anthony - a(new)life (@angulife) on Instagram: "It's almost the weekend! Time to jump into another frozen lake? . 📷 Sony A7RII w/ Zeiss 18mm Batis..."

I made it back to Seattle barely in time for the monthly StreetMeetWA meet at 3pm that was hosted at the Jim Ellis Freeway Park. 

This month's meet was co-hosted with Public Aspect a local Seattle brand that was started by thirdoptic. We had a great turnout and a bunch of cool ideas that were being shot during the couple hours spent there. I got a couple cool shots and ended up filming clips for a vlog that I made of the day. (check it out here)

After a full day of activity and walking, I ended up falling asleep and then spent most of Saturday just relaxing at home, editing photos and videos, and organizing my place with some house chores. I'm sure this happens to others as well, but I tend to get a bit messy when I'm unpacking/re-packijg my bags often. 

On Sunday I spent most of the day hanging out on my friends boat and wakeboarding for the first time! It was amazingly fun and although I didn't grab any clips of people wakeboarding with the drone, it's definitely something that I'm planning on doing in the future. I managed to stand and ride for a good minute or so before falling (no jumps yet)

What a weekend.. so many photos to edit