Re: No snowshoes

Hi John,

It's been my understanding from talking to folks who are active with the FOCTS that the plan is for the patrons to shoot from the highway, vs. allowing people to simply wander on snowshoes. The highway barriers will essentially define the photo lines. Clearly, if people could wander, it would be a free-for-all. Young athletic types would be charging out toward the ROW, fouling the shots of the people who are older or not as physically fit, and I think they want to avoid that. I plan to bring lenses with focal lengths from 16mm to 400mm. A 16-35, a 24-120 and an 80-400 should cover it. Folks with the 28-300 may be good with just one body and one lens.

Not sure about drones. I think that is a risk, because there would be no way to keep people from flying too close and spoiling people's stills and videos. A drone in the sky is easy to clone out of a still......not so easy to get out of a video.

WRT snowshoes...... At White Pass in 2011, we definitely did need snowshoes. Rather than ask folks to bring them. The railroad arranged for a local outfitter to fit everyone and in the end, they covered the cost. I found however, that even snowshoes sometimes were not enough, and I did the "post-hole" thing at least twice. It was scary. They told us to travel in pairs, so someone could run for help if their buddy got trapped.

/Kevin Madore