Today’s choice of trails was along the Rogue River from River Bridge to Prospect. I did not expect this segment to be as scenic as some others, which is why it didn’t make the cut last time I was here.
According to the Falcon hiking book, the trail leaves the river to skirt around private property after around three miles. Once again that book is wrong. It lists the segment distance as 4.5 miles when it should be 5.7 miles (each way). When it rejoins the river the water should be calm and placid where it heads into a small reservoir. I’m usually looking for a little more action in my river shots, although placid can sometimes be very nice if there are reflections or other points of interest in the composition. In any case, I chose to head back to the trail head after hiking a little over four miles. That choice would allow me time to hike another segment of the river trail. And it would be easy to catch up on the placid section on a different day. At least that was the plan.
I would say that the first two miles of the trail (heading downstream from River Bridge) were the most scenic. The rest had pretty much no river access, although you can see it down below through the trees at times. Now the very beginning of the trail showed great promise. I first saw it and thought that there would be so many good shots available. However, every spot I checked out had something I didn’t like. Nothing would work out, at least the way that I see things. Maybe another photographer can get fantastic shots there. But my eyes didn’t see any. The picture I will be uploading was from that area. I really wanted to get some ripples in the lava in the foreground. The problem was that would have filled over half the frame with the rest of the fairly uninteresting lava. Today’s picture already has a foreground and composition that isn’t really up to snuff. The ripples were behind and to the left of this spot, so you can imagine how bad it would have looked if I had included them. I know what you’re thinking. Yes, a couple of days ago I did upload a picture that was all foreground. And that foreground was lava. But in that case the effect was exactly what I wanted. I must be fickle, right?
I finished my first hike of the day by noon. The forecast was for a few showers at 3 PM. It was listed as a 35% chance. In reality, there were showers by 12:15. That put to rest any indecision about whether I was going to need to bring rain gear. Very soon after I started hiking the showers became full rain. I continued for just a little while before seeking shelter under a tree that was not yet saturated to the point of dripping. I figured that following my plan and hiking seven miles in this rain was going to result in soaked camera gear. I wasn’t up for a repeat of my soaked Union Creek hike three years ago.
In case you’re wondering about biscuits and gravy, I saw that sign in the window of a gas station convenience mart the other day. With a sign like that, how can anything possibly go wrong?
