Pretty much since I first laid eyes on the Pocket Wizard radio triggers, I’ve wanted to get the camera trigger so that I could take pictures without standing behind the camera or using the timer.

Then I had a baby. Any idea how hard it is to get a decent family photo with a bobble head kid and a ten second timer? I need something where I can be in the photo, and snap the shutter with the same response time as if I were looking through the viewfinder. As an owner of a Canon D30 and a Canon 20D, there is no included wireless trigger like some of the cheaper models such as the Digital Rebels.

Then I moved to Colorado, and realized I wanted to get some family photos while high up in the mountains on the trails, with no one in sight to take a photo for me. To complicate matters, I hike with my 30 pound son on my back, in snowshoes. Trying to hit the shutter button and quickly get in position in deep snow while weighed down is an interesting maneuver to say the least. I’m sure I resemble a water buffalo on roller skates.

So I bought the pre-trigger. It was delivered a couple of days ago and I have done some very limited testing on it. Soon I’ll take it for a real spin. So far I love it, but have learned a couple of things that I can tell you if you buy one to help you out.

So keep your eyes peeled for the review if you have any interest in this product. And if you don’t but own Pocket Wizards, I just might convince you to get one.

I had the day off yesterday, so my wife and I took a drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a little snowshoeing. It was a nice sunny day, but the wind was howling.

We hiked up to Nymph Lake and took some photos there. At left is me standing out on the ice. I’m not really sure how thick it was, but it was thick enough that I couldn’t see all the way through the ice.

Nymph Lake was about a mile from the parking area. We decided we wanted a longer hike and wanted to see more of the park’s beauty, so we headed further up the mountain to Dream Lake. On the trail, we stumbled upon this beautiful scene. We were totally off the trail now, and were blazing through thigh deep powder. It was awesome.

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Once we finally arrived at Dream Lake about another mile past Nymph Lake in deep powder, the wind was blowing 60-80 miles per hour. It was brutal. We wanted to go further to the next lake, but just couldn’t take the pounding blowing snow. So we quickly snapped off a few photos, and headed for the shelter of the trees. Here are a few of the photos we came away with.

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It feels like ages since I’ve been able to put up a decent post on this blog. It’s been well over a month now since I was even able to post any photos to the web. But the good news is that our satellite internet service was installed on Thursday and we’re back online. To show all you readers how important you are, you get to see the first pictures posted online since we moved to Colorado.

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Here are three photos taken around our house. We live in an amazing place known as Poudre Canyon. Poudre Canyon follows the Cache La Poudre river for many miles out of the Rocky Mountains and out to Fort Collins. The name is French, and it means “hiding place of the powder”, so named because during the 1800’s French trappers used the canyon to hide their gunpowder after getting trapped by a snowstorm. Today there are a few hundred people who live along the river. While it’s currently frozen over (more pictures of that to come), during the spring and summer the river is a big destination for white water rafters and is said to be world class fly fishing waters.

The picture you see here at left is the view looking down at the river and road from our deck. This is the amazing view I get to look at every morning while I eat my corn flakes before heading to work. Speaking of heading to work, our driveway is 1/2 miles long down to that road. It’s the steepest drive I’ve ever seen, and after it snows it turns to ice. In my truck I typically just slide all the way to the bottom. It’s really a semi-controlled slide more than a drive really. My wife lost control on the driveway a few weeks back and will no longer leave the house after it snows until the driveway clears. It’s fun…

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Here’s the house. Two main levels with a finished basement. Is it me, or does it look like the guy who built this place spent a really long time playing with Lincoln Logs when he was a kid? You can’t really tell from this distance, but most of those logs are two feet or more in diameter. Some are three feet. Those logs are huge!

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And despite the hardships of living up here, this is what makes it all worth while. Even though I have to get out on the tractor and plow the driveway for an hour every time it snows, we can throw on our jackets and snow boots and walk out the front door for a wilderness hike any time we want. Here’s me and my boy a few nights ago after work. It was a lovely warm day so we thought we’d take a little hike. Wouldn’t you hit the woods if it was 25 degrees outside? I learned something on that hike: a 30 pound toddler on your back and the thin air at altitude don’t mix so well. I guess it’s time to get in shape.

More to come…I’m off to take a little hike now.