I thought I'd try something a little different on our usual hike on Saturday. Instead of snapping a few phone pix, I'd lug my trusty old Nikon D800E with a 50mm lens.
Shortly after spooking up a jackrabbit near the beginning of our hike down the Old Mine Trail, we spotted a couple of deer lying in the grass. We kept waiting for them to get up and bound away, but they watched us pass with little sign of alarm.
Having the Nikon didn't really slow me down much, which is a shame in a way. Being out and about to do photography is one thing, and going for a hike is another. I don't see making a habit out of bringing the Nikon, but there might be a point-and-shoot in my future, a compromise between the DSLR and my phone camera.
One of these days I'm going to take a closer look at the possibilities for photographing this oak tree to better show off its beautiful shape. It's rare on Mt. Tam to see a single oak with so much space to itself.
The grassy hillsides are drying out, but the forest along the Matt Davis Trail is still getting a fair amount of moisture from fog drip. Whenever I pass this vine of poison oak on the Douglas fir next to my wife, I'm reminded of Tom Killion's woodblock print called Above Stinson Beach.
I don't know if it was because we were hiking so early in the morning, or if it's just that people are going elsewhere for the holiday, but we encountered very few other hikers and only a couple of trail-runners.
After the Matt Davis Trail heads down to Stinson beach, the Coast Trail angles gently up along Bolinas Ridge where it plays cat-and-mouse with the rising and sinking fog. There was enough moisture in the forest to support a couple of helleborine orchids sprouting along the trail.
I wished I had a wide angle lens for the fog-bows. My wife's iPhone camera did a great job with them. Despite the very steep hillside, the sun was a little too high in the sky to make Brocken specters.
Saturday's hike was a first for me -- the first time I ever hiked as a retired person! Woohoo!
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