Yesterday’s attempt to hike the Knob Falls segment of the Rogue Trail got rained out, so I hiked it this morning. I really do like the eastern end of that trail. I love where green moss covers chunks of lava and logs. Towards the end of the outbound part of the hike I was hurrying to get to one particular spot before the sun came out. It turned out that this year there isn’t enough water to make the spot photogenic. I was counting on that spot to save me in terms of providing a shot that I could upload. It’s a struggle on some days.

I learned something today. (As if I didn’t already know it.) No matter how pretty a place is, sometimes I’m never going to get a satisfactory picture of it. Maybe part of that is the experience of being there, which isn’t going to show up in a picture. Because when the composition doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how pretty the scene is. Today’s picture is a good example. There is some color and reflections, but that’s it.

I didn’t shoot many shots on my way back. But with the sun out, there was a good reflection in the river in one place. I hesitated to set up the tripod since there were distracting branches in the way. But I did it anyway. As I was shooting my first exposure I noticed a big wasp nest about eight to ten feet away from me. I took the time to shoot one more picture after that. You have to realize that isn’t a particularly fast endeavor for me. Then I quietly collapsed the tripod, choked the carrying strap around the legs, and slung it over my neck and shoulder. Next I picked up my trekking poles and put my wrists through the straps. Once I had made my preparations for departure I finally adjusted the camera settings and shot a couple of quick pictures of the nest. I let the camera auto focus and could see that it had selected some leaves in front of the nest, but that didn’t matter. It was only a reference shot.

Yesterday’s weather forecast was off, and I hoped that today’s would be incorrect as well. If that had been the case my second hike would have been the trail segment from Natural Bridge to Rogue Gorge. But since the sun was out I decided to drive to Crater Lake instead. The last time I visited Crater Lake there was just enough snow for them to close the rim drive. This time there was no snow, so I was able to drive all the way around that great big blue lake. Let me tell you, it was easy. Tomorrow I expect to hike to Blue Lake, which will take more effort in order to see a much smaller lake. I have no idea what it looks like, so maybe tomorrow you’ll be seeing commentary without a picture. Or maybe the lake is fantastic. You never know what you’ll find when you hike a new trail.