Mt. Talbert is a forest-covered, 750 foot tall, ancient, worn-down shield volcano 1.5 miles from our house. Hiking time: 142 minutes and 8.37 seconds, or 2 hours and 22 minutes. Start at Sunnyside Road Trailhead at an elevation of 250 feet, to right on the Park Loop Trail, past the north end of the West Ridge Trailhead to left on the south end of the West Ridge Trailhead to left on the Summit Trail to the 750 foot summit to left on the Park Loop Trail to the Sunnyside Trail to the car. This route is all up and down, for a total climb of about 1,000 feet.

Took 51 photos of which 28 made the cut. The main purpose of this hike was to experience what it was going to be like photographing hand-held with the "Spider Arca-Swiss Clamp" instead of the "SpiderPro Plate." I got the Spider Arca-Swiss Clamp from UPS on December 3, 2014. This clamp is used for hand-held photography free of camera straps (and of course no tripod). It replaces my previously acquired "SpiderPro Plate." The clamp or plate attaches to the bottom of my Olympus E-M1 camera and they allow me to carry my camera on my waist belt, hands-free until I need the camera. Either plate attaches to a "Spider Holster" which hangs off my belt. The camera + Spider Clamp or Plate easily slips into or out of the Spider Holster.

The new Spider Arca-Swiss Clamp is absolutely gorgeous and, like the SpiderPro Plate, slips into and out of the holder friction free by pulling back on a spring lever with the index finger of my left hand, while the right hand pulls the camera + clamp or plate out of the holster. There is no possibility of the Spider clamp twisting or getting out of alignment, as there is with the SpiderPro Plate.

The clamp only weighs 3.5 to 3.6 ounces, much less than the 16 ounces advertised on Amazon, but slightly more than the 3.2 ounce SpiderPro Plate that it replaces. The SpiderPro Plate is a compromise to work with everything, clumsily requiring screwing it into your camera bottom, and can get pushed out of alignment. I was mislead by Spider's claim that the SpiderPro Plate was compatible with all quick release camera plates. The Spider Arca-Swiss Clamp rectifies this advertising mistake and is a masterpiece of functional and visual design.

The Spider Arca-Swiss Clamp is much more positively fastened to the camera than the SpiderPro Plate, although both are aesthetically compelling, and built with robust and stunning craftsmanship. But even the SpiderPro Plate was not the first Spider plate I bought. This was the "Black Widow Thin Plate." In fact, I bought two of these Thin Plates. The first was bent beyond usefulness in a fall I experienced. The second one I bought also very soon started bending, simply through "normal" use.

The Thin Plate is a very fragile device, advertised for use with "small and light cameras" (the Thin Plate only weighs one ounce). I was raised on heavy Nikon SLRs and DSLRs with their huge, bulky, and heavy lenses. So when I got the much smaller and lighter Olympus E-M1 micro 4/3 system, I was delighted by how much easier this camera and the micro 4/3 system was to lug around but was mislead about what Spider meant by a "small and light camera." I thought my E-M1 was accurately described as "small and light," but I was comparing it with my former Nikon systems. I rather quickly discovered that the E-M1 and micro 4/3 lenses were heavy enough to destroy the Spider Black Widow Thin Plate.

After going through two Black Widow Thin Plates, I sprung for the SpiderPro Plate. But I was dismayed to discover that the SpiderPro Plate was incompatible with my Really Right Stuff L-bracket for my Olympus EM-1. So when I saw the Spider Arca-Swiss Clamp, I just jumped for it and it proved to be my dream come true, perfectly compatible in fit and finish with the Really Right Stuff Arca-Swiss style camera plates.