- [Announcer] Sigma is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world.

And we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(bright music) (water whooshing) (birds tweeting) (bright music) - [Announcer] Mpix is a proud supporter of "View Finders."

From our materials to our American photo labs, we believe your adventures are worth celebrating.

Mpix, print what matters most.

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Learn more at visitoconee.com.

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(birds tweeting) (upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) - A habitat for dozens of mammals and hundreds of bird species.

- 156,000 acres in size, bisected by four tributaries of the Rio Grande.

- Situated at the intersection of three eco regions, leading to exceptional biodiversity.

- This is Ladder Reserve.

I'm Paul.

- I'm Chris.

- [Both] And we're the "View Finders."

(upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) ♪ Out here, tired of being patient ♪ ♪ I was waiting in line ♪ ♪ What you want is never enough ♪ ♪ What you need is just a little more time ♪ ♪ Burning like a fever ♪ ♪ And you can use my credit card ♪ ♪ Nevermind the sunshine ♪ - Is this fine?

Jade, it is so good to see you again.

- Chris.

- So good to see you again.

- How are you?

- Absolutely.

- Hey Paul, buddy.

- All right, man.

Good to see you again.

- You too, guys.

- Oh man.

- What timing?

That was perfect.

- Perfect, right?

- I know.

- That's how we do it.

That's how we do it.

- You know, people ask me all the time, "What's your favorite property?"

And often one of my favorites that comes out very quickly is Ladder.

Ladder's one of Ted Turner's Reserves.

It's about 156,000 acres in size and it's in southern New Mexico at the kind of corner of the Chihuahuan desert.

It has a really incredibly diverse landscape where you see these desert ecosystems mixed with something that's really special to Ladder and that is there are four different tributaries that flow down to the Rio Grande River from the Black Range.

And so because of that, you have deep, thick riparian areas inside of these canyons that are wrapped by a desert environment.

And there's very few places in the world where you get that sort of combination.

So its ecosystem is fragile and the diversity here is really special.

♪ Something new is out here ♪ ♪ Knocking on your door ♪ ♪ I'll paint a pretty picture ♪ ♪ Yeah, you can hang it on your wall ♪ - Well Paul, this is a big old tree.

- Massive.

Massive.

- Nobody knows exactly how old it is.

There's a photo here.

It's just, are we gonna find it?

- [Paul] I have an idea of something I think I want to try.

- Yeah.

- Like giving scale to this thing, even though it's hard without somebody here, but kind of going from the bottom and shooting up.

- You know what, we've got almost three hours till sunset.

So we've got the luxury of time, which is actually kind of rare.

- Yep.

- Usually we're running around like crazy, so.

Oh my God.

- What, did it move?

- There's a big old snake behind this thing.

- Oh (beep) bye.

- [Chris] There's a big old snake looking at me.

- Oh.

- Right there.

Look at that snake curled up.

- [Paul] Oh snap!

And I was just playing around with that thing.

- You were just playing around with it.

That thing is just curled up.

Look, I'm glad it didn't strike me.

I was standing right there.

- Oh yeah, look at this.

I just moved that thing.

- [Chris] Hey, don't let him slither away.

Keep an eye on him, Paul.

- Uh, yeah.

Okay.

- Well Paul, we got a new experience under our belt.

- Very new, very frightening.

- [Chris] We were standing literally about two feet from a coiled up rattlesnake, both of us.

- Playing around with this little skull.

- You moved his home and he wasn't angry.

He just was so chill.

I couldn't believe it, actually.

- Look folks, had I known, I would've been nowhere near this thing, okay?

I don't play with snakes.

- They don't have those in Brooklyn?

- (laughs) Not unless they're shoes.

♪ Come alive ♪ ♪ Revival ♪ ♪ All right ♪ - Ted bought the Ladder property in 1992 and there were a few things that were happening on the property that I think he was very attracted to.

One was the quail population.

Quail in the desert is fragile and rare and Ted loves quail, he loves quail hunting.

So that was like an instant attraction.

But the diversity of the Ladder property also was very attractive to him, and how many species were rare or endangered or threatened.

And so as soon as he bought the property, almost immediately, different projects started to emerge that we needed to put our attention on.

- So I run the Chiricahua Leopard Frog Project.

They're a threatened species of frog here in the southwest.

They range in New Mexico, Arizona, and down into Mexico a little bit.

They are unfortunately at risk due to non-natives, such as bullfrogs, disease, and then habitat loss.

- Ted spent 20 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars making sure that that frog still is in existence today.

And without those efforts, it's questionable whether that species would be alive today.

- So what we do is get frogs from populations that are at risk for getting wiped out due to floods, disease, whatever it may be, bringing them into captivity, breed 'em, and then we'll raise tadpoles and release tadpoles back into the wild, where the parents were originally from.

Some years I produce up to 10,000 tadpoles in here.

A couple of years, it's down to like five or 6,000.

It just depends on the year.

But we so far, since 2011 when we started this project, we've released close to 125,000 tadpoles.

- What people enjoy when they get here is the differences.

When they come across into the main gate, you know, it's kind of this flat desert look and then they drop into this cottonwood canyon and then as you go out through these rolling hills that lead up to the forest, it's just such a diversity and these wide open landscapes that you can just, you can look in every direction and see something different.

- So here we are, first day in Ladder.

It is so different.

- Very different, yeah.

- Than our normal photography.

And we've got to this spot, our sunset spot, so to speak.

What are you thinking?

- I like it.

We got that leading line, leading straight into the mountains back there.

We got some clouds that are participating with us right now.

We'll see if they stick around.

- It's a good word.

Good word.

- There's a little patch of some cacti right there that I want to get in my foreground.

And I'm gonna have that mountain range in the background, hopefully with the clouds with some color on them, behind the mountains, okay?

But what I don't want to do, and the reason why I'm gonna use the 70 to 200, is I don't want to maximize the cacti and make the mountains seem smaller than they are.

So I'm not gonna use that 24 to 70 that I normally use.

I'm gonna try to compress everything into the 70 to 200, which would give me pretty good size on the cacti and then pretty good size on the mountain range in the back there, okay?

- So this was an unexpected treat here at the end, getting the moon coming up.

I want the moon to feel pronounced.

And so I do this sometimes in my images where I do kind of like a focal length blend.

So I shoot the seam with the moon in it.

The moon looks a little small and if I don't think I'm gonna like it in my final composition, what I end up doing is zooming in on the moon and shooting a separate frame.

And then I blend that frame into the original composition so that the moon feels a little bit more pronounced.

And so that's what I've done here, so I have options with my edit, but I mean, look at it.

It's so cool.

In fact, I'm gonna get this shot.

It's still just a little light on the highest peak that just gives it character.

It gives it character.

(soft bright music) (soft bright music continues) (soft bright music continues) Well, we don't have clouds.

- [Paul] No, but it looks like there may be some color.

- [Chris] Yeah, there's a little, it's getting a little pink.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

It's such a (indistinct).

- Increase the contrast in that and kind of bring that out a little bit more.

- [Chris] What catches my eye are these.

- The texture in that, yeah.

- The texture of the hillside or the mountain side kind of coming down.

- What I thought was gonna happen looks like it is gonna happen.

The sun is coming up right behind this little cactus tree here and it does present a really good glow around the tree.

The only problem is, is there's a huge dynamic range here.

And what I mean by that is there are very bright spots in the frame.

The sun's coming up, that's a very bright spot.

And then we have very dark tones in where the ground is, in where the tree is, and it can confuse your camera and it can confuse a photographer too.

You have to understand where you can be in your settings to get the perfect shot to where it's not overexposed in the sky and it's not underexposed in the ground.

- I just wanted to share something that just happened, totally unexpected, and that was, I noticed how the light is raking across the valley right at us, we're kind of in this elevated position, and so I've got my long lens on which I use all the time, and I just zoomed in really, really tight on the valley floor.

And I just started kind of moving around.

When you're zoomed in tight, you crop in on just a small area, like things just start presenting themselves.

And so what I found was in this kind of brush that is pretty colorless, there is this one really green tree that's backlit by the sun 'cause it's so low.

And so that light is coming, washing across the landscape at this very, very shallow angle, and all the leaves are just almost shimmering in the light.

(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music continues) - There's a particular species of wolf, the Mexican gray wolf, that has a really powerful conservation story because that particular species was down to five animals left alive on the planet, just five, that's all.

So the US Division of Wildlife made the decision to capture the last five remaining wolves and make an effort to try to save that population.

- So genetics in the end breeding is like super high.

So we had to, we make pairs according to genetics of who's gonna breed in captivity and then release into the wild to help.

- Ted helped to fund the construction of these special pens.

They're about an acre in size.

And so we could have anywhere from two to seven different wolves in those pens coming and going.

Sometimes we're really lucky and all of a sudden we'll have a pair, an adult pair that will breed, and we'll have puppies born on the property.

- So in '98, I believe, they released 11 wolves into Arizona and that's where the recovery started.

It was zero from there.

And now we are up to 286.

So that was the population count for 2024, the minimum count.

- And now two times in history, the US government has allowed a release of the Mexican gray wolves on private property and that's also been here on Ladder.

So it's a really fascinating story.

I think the number's around 600 total animals alive in the world today.

Some of those are down in Mexico, some of 'em are in captivity, and some of 'em are in the United States.

And here at Ladder, we know we've got one family.

(wolf howls) (soft music) (soft music continues) - All right, so first of all, let me start with a pro tip.

Be careful when you're walking around and there's cacti everywhere, 'cause I just had six little cactus spurs sticking out of my leg.

Did not feel good.

Went right through the pants.

Fortunately, we didn't get that on camera, but we are getting this on camera and it's absolutely gorgeous.

The sunrise is coming to life.

The rain has moved right in front of the rising sun, which is absolutely perfect.

I couldn't have planned it any better.

- So this is why photography is so tricky.

I came out here this morning and the clouds were like covering almost maybe 80% of the sky and it just wasn't looking like it was gonna do anything.

Then at the last minute, I got a composition that I liked.

I got the cactus in front and the sky is playing just like we thought it would and just, well, no, I did not think it would, just like we hoped it would.

Okay, that's a better way to put it.

You got the rain coming down to the right over here.

The sun is coming up right in the middle there.

There are crazy colors going on in the sky right now.

And the cloud formations are just ridiculous.

It all came together in the last two minutes.

- And so now it's just like composition city.

It's getting all the shots that you can possibly get, trying to get creative with it, knowing this is gonna be very short lived.

So get it while you can, but boy, what a beautiful, beautiful sunrise.

This is why you get up early in the morning, is to experience things like this, to be present, and just watch it and live it, but also try to get an image.

It's one of my very favorite parts about photography.

(soft music) (soft music continues) Hey y'all.

- Hey guys.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- I'm Chris.

- Scott.

- Scott, so nice to meet you.

- Paul.

- Paul, nice to meet you.

I'm Chris.

- If you're a Bolson tortoise, your only gig is the Turner Universe.

Like you, you made it to the Turner Universe and that is the reason that you exist today is because you're here.

- Yeah, we're here at the Tortoise Headstart facility.

The goal of the project overall is to reestablish Bolson tortoises in the northern part of the Chihuahuan desert, which is where we're standing right now.

These guys are hatchlings from this year.

- [Chris] Oh my gosh.

They're super cute.

- And see how they're individually labeled, so that we can keep track of them.

- Oh my gosh.

- They really are super cute.

- Today we're trying to figure out how do we take 'em to the end game of the Bolson tortoise, which would be reintroducing them into the wild where they can be self-sustaining, where that population can continue without our constant management.

- This particular species of tortoise, only about 2,500 adults are left in the wild.

So it is critically endangered.

And when humans first started appearing on the continent, people started eating them and started altering their habitat and all of that so that only this remnant population is left at this point.

We are very fortunate, I mean, that Ted is willing to share his ranches and his land with these endangered species.

(soft music) - If you think back like 1,200 years ago, when the Mimbres tribes were in this area, it would've been a little more tropic.

The climate was a little different.

They were growing some of their food.

These mesquite trees grow these little pods.

Inside of these little pods are like these little seeds, these little beans.

And they would basically break them open and so then what they would do is they would grind these up on some rocks to make flour.

And that was how they made their bread.

They needed a particular rock, something that was kind of like a bowl shape, and another rock that they would use to act as the grinding tool.

They would pass these like rocks or the location of the rocks down from one generation to the next, just like we pass things down to our children.

This is a pretty cool find.

Like this is actually one of those bowls and this is the stone that they used for, you know, probably more than 50 years.

People had been like putting these seeds inside of this guy and grinding him until they got powder.

- So we just obviously had this awesome time in Sego Canyon.

We're coming out, just walking along, talking.

Do you think we'll have time to stop at the little house?

And then suddenly that sound.

Whoa!

Whoa!

(snake rattling) That's a big one.

Whoa, it's a big (beep) snake.

That was a big snake.

- Yeah.

- Did you see him?

- It was bigger than the one we saw last time, yeah.

- He was looking at us.

- This was like the size you see in the pet store.

The snake was pretty healthy.

- He was thick.

- Yeah.

- And, estimates of four feet.

I put him at eight, but maybe I'm just exaggerating.

He was an enormous snake and he wanted nothing to do with us.

He wanted us to move on.

- He let us know.

- He never struck, but that rattle, I'll never forget the sound, the rattle.

(upbeat music) ♪ Out here, tired of being patient ♪ ♪ I was waiting in line ♪ ♪ What you want is never enough ♪ ♪ What you need is just a little more time ♪ ♪ Burning like a fever ♪ - Getting me as I fall down the tree.

So this is an Arizona sycamore tree.

One interesting thing about it is this drainage, the Animas Creek drainage, is one of the only places, the only place, east of the continental divide where these trees grow naturally.

(upbeat country rock music) ♪ All right ♪ - Oh!

- There we go.

- Ooh, there we go.

There we go.

♪ I'll paint a pretty picture ♪ ♪ Yeah, you can hang it on your wall ♪ - That's where we're going.

- Kind of steep here, man.

Late in the day.

Had a long day.

- Been a long day.

We've had an incredible exploration.

Literally just crossing over creek beds that we had to fill in with rocks so that we could cross them.

- [Paul] We had to rock scape these things just to get these ATVs through the water, so.

- Lot of heavy lifting.

- Yeah.

- But we've emerged up here.

Beautiful vista.

The sun is setting.

We got lots of clouds.

- We got some clouds.

We got clouds.

That's the key ingredient to the sky shot.

- It is.

So we've got 43 minutes until the sunset and we gotta get up to the top.

- Let's go.

- Let's go.

Hey, watch out for the cactus.

- Watch out for the rattlesnakes.

(laughs) (soft music) (soft music continues) Right now, the sky's like really popping.

We got orange, we got blue, red.

Everything is in there right now.

- [Chris] It is an absolutely stunning view.

I can't even put it into words and pictures won't even do it justice.

♪ You're my home ♪ ♪ You're my home sweet home ♪ ♪ The place where I belong ♪ - What's up, man?

- (laughs) What is not up is the question, man.

I am tired, I am so tired, man.

- I'm beat.

It's a full day.

- Full day.

Full couple of days.

- Full couple of days.

- Great photography.

Great host.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Fabulous property.

- It was, it exceeded all my expectations.

And if I'm gonna be totally honest, when we were driving in, I saw lots and lots of desert, expansive desert, and there was this little voice in my brain that was like, "Is there gonna be enough to photograph here?

Are we gonna find enough variety?"

- Because it'll look the same.

Yeah.

- "Is it all just gonna look the same?"

- I mean, my concern was more immediate.

Like the day we went out to shoot, the days we went out to shoot, we left here and there were some days where the cloud cover was just like either 100% or 80% above the sky, or some days where there weren't any clouds at all.

And at least for the days where there was some cloud cover, we were able to get out there and get a little bit of break within the clouds and we got some sunlight through there and it produced some like crazy color.

I mean, when you guys see these pictures, you gotta realize there's nothing fake about 'em.

- Yeah.

- I mean what you see is what we saw when we took these shots, so.

- Yeah, it was so saturated, like tonight it was so saturated that I'm gonna, I might have to even desaturate.

- Might have to tame it down.

Yeah.

- I might have to actually back it down because it was so bright on my sensor.

But you know, we ate great food, we went on some really memorable adventures.

I think we took some excellent photographs.

- Yeah.

- And I am gonna leave here tomorrow with a lot of memories and a smile on my face.

This place.

- Owes me nothing.

- This place is really special.

- This place owes me nothing.

This was fantastic.

- On to the next one.

More adventures ahead.

Looking forward to it.

♪ You're my home ♪ ♪ You're my home sweet home ♪ ♪ The place where I belong ♪ ♪ Hollows in the woods call out ♪ ♪ Trails up mountains climb ♪ ♪ Waves and sand keep beat and time ♪ ♪ Mossy blankets, swirling streams ♪ ♪ Over rocks and dirt ♪ ♪ Run at pace with all the earth ♪ ♪ Could we capture nature's wonder ♪ ♪ Find our way to getting lost ♪ - [Announcer] Sigma is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world.

And we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(bright music) (water whooshing) (birds tweeting) (bright music) - [Announcer] Mpix is a proud supporter of "View Finders."

From our materials to our American photo labs, we believe your adventures are worth celebrating.

Mpix, print what matters most.

- [Announcer] Support is provided by Visit Oconee, home of "View Finders," with historic landmarks, parks, and year-round events.

Learn more at visitoconee.com.

- [Announcer] Troncalli Subaru is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

(bright upbeat music)