Almost five months have passed since I began this story. I suppose I should write down a few more details before they fade from my mind.

I could not find a trail down to the water and the falls so I forged my own. It got a bit scary at times as it was fairly steep. I made it down with only a minor fall or two. I walked along Muir Creek for a while, realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to reach the waterfall without crossing the river. So I gave up on that idea and instead headed south along the east bank away from Muir Creek Falls. The views were beautiful without falls. I walked carefully as I was sinking in the snow, rather deeply, even with snowshoes. There was so much snow I was worried that it wasn’t all on solid ground, and I could plunge through the snow and into the water.

After today’s photo I turned around and began to retrace my steps. Walking was much easier stepping into my old prints than creating new ones as I’d only sink an inch or two with each step instead of many inches on my way down. I lost my fear and increased my pace. That was when my prior anxiety was realized. Although I stepped into my prior steps, this second time I went straight through the snow (more than four feet of snow) and into the water. My adrenaline kicked in like never before. It seemed to know that I was on my own, and if things didn’t quickly get better rather than worse I could be a dead man.

I think one of my snowshoes caught some wood at the bottom while my other was in water (with my foot still in it). My head and shoulders were above the snow (I’m 6’4″), my feet were in water, and my body was in snow. I couldn’t see my situation below the snow. I had no branches or other items on the surface to pull myself up with. As I struggled, snow around me disappeared into the water below. That wasn’t good as without the snow around me I had no way of getting out. Details are foggy at this point as everything happened so fast, but I think I was able to get one of my poles up and out and onto something more solid than the snow immediately around me. My right snowshoe on a log or branch or something also gave me a bit of leverage. Somehow I got myself up and out of there.

The rest of the walk back up the mountain and to my car was uneventful. My socks, boots, and pants below my knees were frozen solid as they had gone under water before reemerging into the below freezing temperatures.

Posted on August 21st, 2016 under nature, outside of ashland, places. Tags: hike, muir creek, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750, snow, winter. Comments Off on Muir Creek “trail”

11-photo photomerge

@TipSquirrel #photography #phototips #photomerge #photoshop

I wasn’t thinking when I grabbed my D500 (crop sensor) instead of my D750 (full frame) to go on a hike this past Sunday. The D750 with a 24-120mm f/4G lens is perfect for hiking. The D500 turns that lens into a 36-180mm lens. I don’t really need 180mm on a hike, but I do need 24mm. When that happens the solution is to photomerge. I did so with the photo above. However, I didn’t like how much of the water at my feet wouldn’t fit. So, for the first time, I tried a different technique.

Normally I photomerge by shooting vertical images from left to right and then merge them together as a horizontal panorama. For the image below I shot vertical images from left to right, but instead of shooting one and moving right I shot one and moved down to take a second before moving right. Something like this:

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

I didn’t know if Photoshop would be able to merge them together, but there were no issues.

22-photo photomerge

Posted on August 11th, 2016 under nature, outside of ashland, photography. Tags: california, hike, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D500, photography, photoshop photomerge, trail gulch lake. Comments Off on Trail Gulch Lake

Red Queen Trail (approaching the intersection with Road 2060, AKA Ashland Loop Road)

There’s a new trail in town. The Red Queen has been built over the past few weeks and is now open and ready for foot traffic. The trail runs from a couple intersections with Bandersnatch or Jub Jub up to the intersection of Caterpillar crossing the Ashland Loop Road. There aren’t any significant view or overlook areas, but it is a nice trail in the watershed without any bikes.

One way to get there is to park near the water tank where Terrace and Ashland Loop intersect. Just past the water tank on Ashland Loop an unmarked trail begins going uphill. This turns into Red Queen (and is marked) for a bit, before becoming Bandersnatch, and then reverting to Red Queen (again marked as Red Queen). If you are on Caterpillar and want to go down Red Queen look for the unmarked trails heading toward Reeder Reservoir on the left side of Ashland Loop as you are heading down. The left one is for bikes (Jabberwocky) and the right one (not marked as Red Queen but with an indication that is only for walkers and horses) is Red Queen.

Red Queen flower

Posted on May 9th, 2016 under nature, only in ashland, places. Tags: flowers, hike, samsung s7 edge camera. Comments Off on Ashland’s Red Queen Trail

Muir Creek (near Muir Creek Falls) from the east

As I mentioned a couple days ago, my first goal on my snowshoeing adventure last week was to see Muir Creek Falls in winter. There isn’t a single photo of the place in winter on the internet. The normal trail to the falls is 3.9 miles each way. I wasn’t up for 8 miles in snowshoes, especially since I had a late start and wouldn’t be arriving until late afternoon. So, in looking at a map, I decided to try to get there from the Claude Lewis Trailhead / Sno-Park parking lot. The two places appeared to be only about 1,000 feet from each other on Google Maps.

The parking lot was easy to find and well plowed. I was the only person there. There were no trails or prints of any kind so I had to forge my own path, something snowshoes are pretty good for. The snow varied from a few feet to over 10-feet deep in places. The snow was very soft, and I sank 6-12 inches with every step, even with snowshoes. Although the going was mostly flat, after 1,000 feet or so I came to the scene shown in today’s photo. Muir Creek was right in front of me, but it was a hundred + feet down with no trails or feasible way to make the descent.

Posted on March 28th, 2016 under nature, outside of ashland, places. Tags: hike, muir creek, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750, snow, winter. Comments Off on Muir Creek in winter

Smith Lake, California

Today’s random, throwback photo is from May of 2015. All three girls in this photo are named Ellie. What are the odds?

Posted on February 4th, 2016 under nature, outside of ashland, people. Tags: california, ellie, hike, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750. Comments Off on TBT

Posted on November 19th, 2015 under nature. Tags: clouds, hike, hobart bluff, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750, panorama, photoshop photomerge, skywatch. Comments Off on Hobart Bluff on a snowy spring morning

Pilot Rock (Ashland, Oregon)

Just a mile over the California border lies Pilot Rock (in Oregon). I made it to the top today for the third time. However, I think this will be my last time. Today was my first time in almost eight years, and I don’t remember it being this difficult. I don’t think it has changed which means I must be the one who has. (I’m getting old.)

The trail to the top has changed and is currently changing. Recently the old part of the trail you can see in the lower-right portion of today’s photo has been covered over in branches. Instead of a straight up, wide ascent over loose gravel for this old part of the trail, a new switchback has been created. Nice. A big improvement.

The other new change to the trail is its length. Previously you could park near the intersection of the Pilot Rock trail head and the PCT. No more. They are currently turning the last mile or so of these directions into single track. I’m guessing that by the beginning of September 2015 the fire road that previously took you to the small parking lot will all be single track. The new parking lot is much bigger. The Pilot Rock hike is now a mile or so longer (each way).

If you want to see what turning a fire road into a single track hiking trail looks like, head up there in the next few days or weeks. The process is surprisingly interesting.

Also, the recently refreshed and marked Lone Pilot Trail can be accessed from the location of the old parking lot.

Lone Pilot Trail (Southern Oregon)

Posted on July 21st, 2015 under nature, only in ashland. Tags: hike, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750, pilot rock. Comments Off on Changes to the Pilot Rock trail

Yesterday we went in search of Boundary Springs. We couldn’t find the trailhead (or maybe we did and just didn’t know it). In any event, we parked at the Mazama Viewpoint off Highway 230 as we could see no other place to park near the Mile 19 marker, which is where we read the trail is supposed to start. The sign at Mazama Viewpoint said Upper Rogue River Trail (I think). There was no internet from there, but my GPS worked fine. It looked like we could still do the Boundary Springs Trail if we could find it.

Even though there should have been tons of snow in the area, the snow was fairly minimal–especially for this time of year–so we didn’t bother to put our snowshoes on. We ended up walking on the trail for several miles before realizing we were no longer going toward Boundary Springs. At that point we turned around, walked back to our car, drove to Crater Lake, and snowshoed there.

I want to try the Boundary Springs Trail again. I saw this sign, but couldn’t read it. Apparently this is where we should have turned to get to Boundary Springs.

Posted on January 26th, 2015 under nature, outside of ashland, photography. Tags: hike, moss, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750, rogue river, winter. Comments Off on Upper Rogue River in winter

View of Mt. Ashland from Roxy Ann Peak Trail

@mtashland @TravelOregon

The day before heading to Daytona, two weeks ago today, we took a walk up to the top of Roxy Ann Peak. Strangely enough, this was our first time up Roxy Ann Peak even though we have lived in the Rogue Valley for over 14 years now.

The weather forecast was for no rain. That’s not what the sky looked like. We didn’t get rained on, but it did begin raining the moment we got into the car at the end of our hike. This storm ultimately turned out to hold enough snow for the mountains that Mt. Ashland was able to open a few days later for the first time in two seasons.

Posted on December 28th, 2014 under nature, outside of ashland, places. Tags: hike, landscape, mt. ashland, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G ED AF-S VR, Nikon D750, Roxy Ann Peak. Comments Off on Road to Mt. Ashland