WESTERN PHOTOGRAPHY GUILD
Box 2801
Denver, Colo. 80201

Spring rarely comes early to the Rockies, but when a vagrant soft breeze on a sunny March day hints of summer delights ahead we jump in the car and head for Hidden Valley. South and east past acres of garden apartments, past early power boaters and water skiers on Cherry Creek Lake, past fallow alfalfa fields and miles of greening sod farms, through Parker and Franktown 35 miles to the edge of the Black Forest.

Then all of a sudden we're there, eyes searching anxiously for evidence of change, construction, despoilment -- followed by sighs of relief. The valley is still virginal and ours, though we don't own it, still unknown to most who pass by.

We've lucked out again. The valley rim could provide spectacular settings for country homes. Or it could become a state park like one several miles to the west. Or it could become part of a threatened strip city stretching from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

Larry Dee by Don Whitman / Western Photography Guild

No, Hidden Valley remains faithful, its charms, like those of a constant lover, ever ready and waiting. “No Trespassing" signs are disregarded, as always, as we climb through the barbed wire fence to begin the quarter-mile hike to our favorite shooting area on top of the canyon, seldom observed by highway travelers.

The valley stays hidden even from some who have previously been there. Steve Anthony, although photographed there twice, had to call for precise directions. On an impulse to prowl its length he had biked through Franktown and been frustrated at being unable to locate the scene. Only with detailed instructions and speedometer mileages was he able to find it on his next try.

Steve loves to ponder ages past when lumbering dinosaurs walked the valley floor between looming rocks eroded by the muted splash of crystal-clear Cherry Creek. More recent Indian life is recalled by frequently found arrow points and scrapers.

Human violence seems to have stayed clear of the valley since the body of a slain youth tossed off the bridge was found several years back. However, we got goose bumps one windy April day on our way to photograph Oscar Navarre when we saw a blue sleeping bag lying under an overhanging rock with what appeared to be a human form inside. Approaching it gingerly, we wondered how fast we could get the Douglas County Sheriff from Castle Rock. Happily the "human form" proved to be several pans and cans of hominy and beans. No one was in sight and we decided the bag had been abandoned. On our next trip no evidence remained.

Hunter Metcalf by Don Whitman / Western Photography Guild

Only once were we denied use of a portion of the valley. On the north rim one day photographing Lynn Finney, we were surprised by the sudden appearance of an elderly gentleman on a ridge fifty yards away. "I'll have to ask you to leave," he called. “I’m sorry, but I let some Boy Scouts use my cabin downstream last week and they burned it down." We waved our concurrence, took our gear and hiked upstream under the arching bridge to the south rim where we finished the session. We haven't seen the gentleman again and presume the affront to his generosity has eased with the passage of time. In any event, we always carefully clear away any evidence of our shooting to leave the terrain as we found it. Hollow trees serve as handy receptacles for spent flash bulbs.

Ordinarily, cooling breezes, reinforced in winding draws and arroyos, temper hot sunshine and help keep mosquitoes and other insects away, but the breezes were absent one day when Hunter Metcalf stripped down for pictures. A strong, rugged youth, able to hold his own in a fracas, Hunter still finds insects anathema. After the insects broke up a number of poses before we could get them on film, we called the morning a loss and headed for comparatively bugless Henderson, 50 miles to the north, to finish our shooting. Hunter was sincerely apologetic for his phobia, but it was only too obviously genuine.

The magic of nature's setting together with the heady aromas of pine, cedar and sage, never fails to work its spell. Several times a new model with obvious, even though unexpressed, misgivings about posing fully nude, has found it suddenly entirely natural to shed his clothes along with his hangups as soon as he felt the out-of-the-world atmosphere. Pepper Moreno said he would like to spend a month there "naked as a jaybird."

Kevin Dea made us wonder how he was overlooked by baseball scouts when, between poses, he demonstrated his rock-throwing ability -- long, fast, amazingly accurate arcs developed during a boyhood in Minnesota lake country.

Sherwood Cartee by Don Whitman / Western Photography Guild

Snakes seem to have left our valley. We haven't seen a rattler in several years, and the frequent presence of inquisitive cottontails seems proof of their absence -- a pleasing development because, although we have herpetologists among our models, there are more who have an aversion to snakes. Cattle are seldom seen, perhaps because drought has depleted field grass while the lush green on the canyon bottom is inaccessible.

Numerous nooks and crannies along the canyon walls are secluded, ideal places for lovers' trysts. One Saturday morning we were wading upstream to a new shooting Spot when our eyes caught movement halfway up the canyon side. In a grassy, hollowed-out cleft a fully nude young couple of obvious physical beauty had paused in their climbing to make love. Loathe to intrude, we went quietly by, and, to our knowledge, the two never knew we had been there. Our model's reaction was readily apparent. To all three of us hidden love in Hidden Valley seemed not inapropos.

Besides being bad for pictures, sodden akies set off a mental alarm when we see them over the valley. Ordinarily, rain clouds precede only brief showers followed by sunshine, but we recall the twelve-inch downpour in Plum Creek, not too far away, which caused Denver's greatest, once-in-a-hundred-years flood, which completely inundated our studio and nearly brought about our premature end. Luckily, and because we always give the sky a seaman's eye before we leave, we have not suffered more than a thorough drenching on location. Our first concern is to get the equipment secure under protective sandstone, and there is usually room for us too.

We still have not found the prop tennis net that Larry Scott hid during one of his posing periods. For a time we poked around after it on every trip, but finally decided it was probably in the nest of a chipmunk or ground squirrel somewhere.

Glen Hudson, a rugged outdoorsman from boyhood, is the only model to make the precipitous descent down the canyon wall entirely barefoot. By contrast, Rick Alexander is the only model we had to stop shooting on the rocks and move to cooler grass. Not that Rick isn't rugged, but he's truly a tenderfoot.

We hope our Hidden Valley lasts as long as we do. Although we have half a dozen other shooting spots along the Front Range and there are others to be found, it's our favorite, an oasis, a paradise where care and problems melt away, allowing complete concentration on photographing handsome physiques at their best.

--Don Whitman and Bob Zangari

Behind the Scenes: Hidden Valley Revisited