Meeting a Wolf for Breakfast

March 05, 2018 in Photography, Behind The Photo

As I was driving down the highway, I saw something starting to cross the road just ahead. It was running on all four legs and close to the ground and had something in its mouth. At first, I thought it might be a coyote, as I saw some small tracks earlier in the morning that I thought was from a coyote. I also thought for half a second that maybe the thing in its mouth was a cub. I immediately started to slow down. As I got close and realized how big the animal was and that the object in its mouth was a rib cage of a deer, I realized I had just crossed paths with a wolf.

I slammed the breaks and pulled over as quickly as possible while rolling down the window. My body just went into react mode to capture what I was seeing. I knew I couldn't get out of the truck because there would be too little time. When I'm out on my adventures, I always keep my cameras in the passenger seat on and ready to go. I run with two cameras; my full frame weather sealed camera (5d MkII w/24-70 f2.8) and my crop sensor zoom camera (7d w/70-300 f5.6).

As I was tracking the wolf and trying to get ready and park all at the same time, I saw him head towards the back side of a tree and knew my moment would come when he emerged. I threw myself as close as I could get to the open window with my foot still and the break and waited. The wolf came running out and towards a small clearing where it stopped unobstructed to take a peek at me to see who I was before heading back into the woods. I got a total of six shots, all but one I had missed focus. The entire event from first sighting to him gone, took maybe 20-30 seconds.

Once he was gone, the emotion of what I just experience came flooding in. I was blown away by what I just saw and captured. This experience is up there with my best moments in the field.

Fort Rock State Park

March 04, 2018 in Photography, Adventure

After hearing about Fort Rock from an old rerun of Oregon Field Guide, I knew I needed to see it for myself. While I was out there, I thought I could also see Hole in the Ground, such a unique name, and a place called Derrick Cave. It had been a few weeks since I was last in Eastern Oregon when I was there last it was free of snow, but a couple of storms came through leaving a healthy amount of snow on the ground.

My first stop was to Hole in the Ground. Right away I was driving in snow; this was an excellent opportunity to test out my truck and how it handles in the snow, so far so good. There were a ton of White Tail deer around; they seemed to be just as curious to who I was as I was interested in them. I made it up to the top of the trail and accurate to its name; there was a great big hole. After exploring for a while, I started towards Fort Rock where I saw a wolf along the way. There will be an entry dedicated to that experience.

Fort Rock was pretty cool; I couldn't help but think what it would look like if it were made into an actual fort or even a small town. The rocks out of nowhere go straight up in almost a full circle. There were a ton of birds nesting in the porous rocks. Evidence of all there hunting was strung out everywhere. As I often do, I found myself there nearly to myself for most the morning until a couple came through climbing to the top.

Something that I keep running up against is that my GPS doesn't tell me about seasonal closures of roads or when roads are closed for other reasons. I ran into both those problems trying to get to Derrick Cave; I tried to get there twice from different directions to ultimately fail on getting there. One road was closed until spring, and the other route was plane closed for some reason. I wasn't too bummed as I can always come back and that I found a pretty cool abandoned building on the way out.

Little Adventures : Elijah Bristow SP

February 13, 2018 in Photography, Hike, Little Adventures

After driving past more times than I can count, I finally decided it was time to explore the local state park. I recently was reading about the history of the area and found out this park is named after one of the original pioneers of the southern Willamette Valley. That peaked my interest, so Ridley and I went out to explore it.

We got there mid-morning and it being a Monday, we nearly had the place to ourselves. Ridley's hiking legs are still pretty small, so we stuck to a one-mile loop through the forest by the river. The weather was cold, but the light was coming through the trees was incredibly beautiful. Portions of the trail are mixed use for hikers, mountains bikes, and even horses.

We passed by a few swamping ponds with some of the stillest water I've seen. I would love to come back and photograph it in some thick fog. We made our way down to the river and spent a good time throwing rocks into the water making up fun names our silly throws. I don't know why it's taken me so long to get there, but I'll be back.

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Double Changed plans and high Lakes

February 12, 2018 in Adventure, Photography

After looking through some options of where to go, I found a nice little hike to Indigo Lake. It's a small lake close to a massive rock mountain. I woke up early, packed up all my gear and headed out. I had never been here before, so I put in the location to my GPS and headed out. Unfortunately, the last 10 miles of the road to the lake was closed for the winter and converted over to a snowmobile track. Feeling bummed, I quickly made new plans, but before I left, I hiked down to Crescent Lake and explored for a little bit.

My next stop would be Newberry Caldera. I took the back roads on my way over stopping a few times at some interesting sites. 10 miles up the road to the caldera I came to another closed gate and was put yet again into the position of changing my plans. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't too upset. I suppose I was just glad to be out exploring.

I ended up making my over to Wickiup Reservoir. I took the back way in towards the earthen dam by an old service road. It's quite the beautiful area with lots of reeds. I circled the lake and made my way over to Davis Lake. A serene lake with a lava flow running into it. I spotted a bald eagle, but it spooked before I could get too close. I ended up climbing to the top of the lava hill but found only more lava; I'll have to go back when I have more time.

The most exciting moment I had was a moment I wasn't able to capture, even though I tried. On my way to Wickiup, I spotted some road kill off the side of the road with a few dozen crows eating lunch. As I drove past, I nearly made eye contact with a Bald Eagle that was back in the bushes. I immediately pulled over and grabbed my zoom lens. Byt the time I was ready to make my way around, but another truck came by and got to close for the eagle's comfort, and it took off. I was utterly bummed that I missed this shot. As I sat there thinking about it, the eagle came back! I again began to sneak a bit closer to get the shot, but this time it was me who spooked the eagle, and it flew off yet again. Thinking patience would win me the image, I went back to the side of my truck and decided to wait for this one out. After around 8-10 minutes of nothing, I heard a rustle 20 feet back and about 40 feet up. As I turned around to see what made the noise, I saw the tail feathers of the eagles I was waiting for. He snuck up behind me and was watching me as I waited. He must have thought I was up to no good and decided the free lunch wasn't worth it. I'm bummed I didn't get the shot, but what an experience.

Iron Mountain

February 05, 2018 in Photography, Adventure, Hike

A few years ago, before we got more into adventuring and photography, my friends and I decided to go out for a photo excursion to Iron Mountain. It was Jon, Jesse, and I. I'll do a retrospective write up on the trip at some point, but to say the least we failed and it was probably a good thing as we were greatly unprepared. Fast forward a few years and coming back to this mountain sounds like a fun weekend to reattempt this mountain.

The forecast was for an overcast day, so I didn't bother leaving too early for a sunrise, but halfway up to the trailhead I could see the sun poking through for a beautiful sunrise. Moments like these I almost don't know what to do. I start stressing out that I was missing out, but I kept reminding myself that it was a beautiful moment to experience and that it was out of my control.

In my planning for the hike, I noticed a forest service road that if taken, could save nearly half the distance on the hike. I had in mind that there would probably be snow as well, but thought my 4x4 could handle it. Also in this planning (looking at google maps) I thought it would be fun to also hike Black Butte afterwards, but more on that later. I made it to the service road, put the truck in 4 wheel drive and started my way up. Not more than a hundred yards up my rig stopped and I was completely out of traction. Turns out that the snow I was dealing with had a layer of ice under it. I decided it wasn't worth trying to traverse and I don't have much experience with ice, so I turned around and headed to eh trail head.

I didn't initially plan to hike the whole trail, but I was out there early enough it wouldn't mess up my plans, and I wasn't going to lose to this mountain again. There was snow on 98% of the time, but it wasn't a problem as the trail was visible, until 1/3 of the way up, the trail completely disappeared. I wasn't sure what to do, but I knew I needed to go up and thought I would eventually find the trail again. After a bit of trailblazing and a fair share of post holing to my knees, I made it to the top portion of the mountain that was primarily exposed rock. I knew I was still off the trail and didn't want to come back down this route, but thought I could find it from the top.

While I was on the rocks, I took the opportunity to make a few pictures sneaking close to the edge to gain the best view. Though I was thoroughly safe, the thoughts of how alone I was out there started to sneak in, so I quickly made my way back to the accent.

Once on top, I was blown away by the expanse of the view. I had never been to a pinnacle point such as this with 360 views from such a small footprint. I began to think about the morning sunrise and how beautiful it would have been up here but also realizing how impossible it would have been for me to make it up the trail in the dark. I will need to come back.

After soaking up the view and taking as many pictures I could think of, I began my descent. I found the trailhead from the top that leads me around the opposite side from my accent. The snow drifts filled the trail, and I was up to my waist in no time. Soon I made it out of the waist-deep snow back to the familiar knee deep with soaking jeans; I was not prepared for that. I was able to make it down much faster following my footprints.

After getting back the truck and loading up my gear, I headed off to my next hike, Black Butte.