Ring Mountain

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When I woke up and saw more than just a wall of fog out my window I decided to take a crack at catching a sunrise up on Ring Mountain. This is the blueschist boulder with the petroglyphs on it (and a few nasty scratches made by obligatory idiots). San Francisco is in the distance to the right.

Unfortunately, the sunrise never really went off, color-wise. This is the view through a 300mm lens.

I hiked up in the dark, using a headlight to see the rocky trail and holding a small flashlight for the darker stretches where the trail was covered by trees. Coyotes yipped across the hillside to the east. The petroglyphs that give Ring Mountain its name were hard to see in the dim, diffuse light. 

I gave up on catching good light at the petroglyph site and started to poke around to look for the Tiburon mariposa lilies. I've only been up there a few times and I couldn't remember exactly where they were, so I hiked higher and farther west than I needed to, but I didn't care because I also wanted to see Mt. Tam. The clouds were thick around the mountain, and when I drove over there later on I needed to run the windshield wipers a few times.

This was about as colorful as the sunrise got. A bit of a gale was blowing on the ridge.

I don't often see Indian pink since it doesn't grow on the parts of Mt. Tam or Pt. Reyes that I usually explore. I've seen it near Alpine Lake, though. The flowers were low to the ground and partially in the lee of the wind, surrounded mainly by poison oak, but I managed to get one half-decent shot without too much movement.

I'm always glad to finally stumble upon the rare Tiburon mariposa lilies (Calochortus tiburonensis). They don't grow in profusion, but they do stand out.

With the wind less of an issue at this elevation I was able to run off a couple of focus stacks on the amazing, hairy corollas.

The sun peaked out for just a minute, casting the only shadow of the morning.

These two little California ringlets were resting together in the grass, clinging to soaproot buds. They were extremely accommodating as I moved in closer and closer, and they were still just like this when I finally walked away.

I was surprised on my way back down to the car when I looked at my watch and saw that it was only 7:40 a.m. I could have stayed longer and tried to photograph the many wildflower species, but my heart wasn't in it. Had the morning been still and heavy with dew, I might have felt differently.

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May Day

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I always set my clothes and camera gear out in the living room the night before I anticipate leaving on one of my weekend photo safaris while my wife is still sleeping. I tell myself the night before that I might not go. I might decide to sleep in. After all, who wants to get up at 4:30 in the morning on a weekend after getting up early the whole workweek? But then I do wake up, and if it's 3 o'clock or 4:30 I think, "I'll bet I can get out to Point Reyes in time for sunrise." I just can't go back to sleep after I think that.

My plan this morning was to reach Limantour Beach by sunrise. The weather was clear and calm, and I thought I might find a big bloom of bush lupines like I found around this time last year, only last year the sky had been heavily overcast.

As I drove into view of Black Mountain before sunrise I fell in love with the layers of fog over Nicasio Reservoir and had to decide whether to stick to the plan or accept this gift of serendipity. 

I was glad I chose Door Number 2 because Limantour had nothing much going on. As I walked out toward the beach I spotted an elk way off in the distance, walking in shallow water along the shore of the little estero to the northwest. It was kind of silhouetted in front of bright water behind it. I rushed to set up my tripod and get a long lens on the camera, but I only got one frame off before the elk disappeared from view, and even in the frame I got the elk was no longer in just the right spot to make the shot. I would love to get an elk-in-water shot sometime.

I actually thought about heading home but decided to check out a meadow near Muddy Hollow instead. I walked out there in flip-flops and enjoyed the cold dew on my bare feet. There still wasn't any wind, so I was able to make some focus-stacked landscapes that I was pretty happy with.

I wish the blog allowed me to post larger images. I've been posting a few shots on Flickr recently, just to be able to show bigger pix. It'd be even more awesome to have a place where photographers could show large prints in real life. If I ever win the Lottery I promise I'll open up a gallery for people to show their work big and IRL.

So it's May 1st. Supposed to rain again next week, which is cool. Keep it coming.

I got my first tick of the season yesterday.

Which got me thinking abut ticks quite a bit while I was out in the Muddy Hollow meadow.

Especially when I was literally flat out on the soaking ground, my chin and cheek in the grass as I tried to peer through the viewfinder at this neat little flower.

Back at the Muddy Hollow parking lot I noticed what I first thought was a blackberry bramble, then realized that what I was seeing were the berries that Jane Huber had mentioned last year. I had been on the southern end of the trail though and missed out. They're still a bit early, but there were several ripe Pacific salmonberries to be plucked. There I was, eating a banana and a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich (with delicious rhubarb jam we bought last week in Mendocino), and tossing a fresh vine-picked berry in my mouth every few bites. Sweet.

I found this great little spot full of ferns and stopped to make a few photographs. Check out this black-and-white version I posted on Flickr.

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Northern Exposure

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My wife and I drove up the coast to chill out in Mendocino for a couple of days, and we stopped at Salt Point State Park on the way up to stretch our legs and enjoy some northern exposure.

I think I could photograph the tafoni sandstone formations at Salt Point all day. I spent maybe half an hour in one small area while Pam took in the inspiring seascape and spotted a couple of gray whales heading north and spouting off fairly close to shore.

The tafoni formations are one of those subjects that you never finish exploring. The possibilities are endless and invite many interpretations and compositions. Eventually you have to move on, but you do so knowing you weren't truly done, and that one day you will return to explore some more.

We walked north along the bluffs from the paid ($8) parking area. There was lots of sea pink, or sea thrift, as well as goldfields and iris and poppies. The bloom wasn't as fantastic as I chanced to see it one fine day in May a few years back, but it was still pretty good.

We'd just reached this promising area for more minute exploration, with carpets of purple johnny-tuck and pillows of poppies, when it started to drizzle. We didn't want to head back to the car, but the drizzle kept intensifying, so we made a reluctant retreat and continued our drive up the coast to Mendocino. 

I mainly used my pocket camera in Mendocino and came home with a bunch of tourist pix that I thought I might sprinkle on the blog until I realized it was just too much. After a brief, wonderful stay, we drove down to the headlands this morning for one last look. We were harried by rain yet again, but it was all good.

Springtime in Sonoma and Mendocino counties is awesome, and rain enhances the experience if you let it.

This one little cove was churning with heavy swells, but farther down the coast it wasn't rough at all.

When I first walked out onto the headlands with my wife I only brought my pocket camera, but after seeing how splendid things looked I had to run back to the car for my D800. 

There's nothing quite like this stretch of coast in our neck of the woods. Every now and then it's good to head north and get exposed to something a little different.

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Meadows in the Sun

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An early wake-up got me all the way out to Chimney Rock, at Pt. Reyes National Seashore, before the sun came up.

I half-expected there to be several other photographers out there, maybe even a class, but I saw only one other person the whole time I was out there.

It was much more windy than I'd have liked. I was able to fire off a few landscape shots, but close-ups were pretty much out of the question.

What a difference a couple of weeks has made. It was nice when I came out with my wife a couple of weeks ago, but now there's a whole bunch more flowers and species.

Peregrine falcon bonus, although he doesn't look too pleased to see me.

He didn't really seem to mind the company until another falcon called and he flew away, maybe to a nest site on the cliffs below.

Wight's Indian paintbrush on the bluff tops.

And tidy tips.

Lots of deer around Chimney Rock, as usual.

One more view of Mt. Saint Helena, with flower-packed meadows in the foreground. You can't see them in this little image, but there are lots of deer in the meadow.

Brief coyote sighting. 

I thought about taking off after him, but there was an electric fence between us. I could probably have squeezed through, but it seemed like a long-shot anyway since the coyote quickly dropped out of sight behind the hill.

A small herd of elk enjoys the forage above Drake's Beach.

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Iris in the Rain

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The coyote was my last frame of the day, shot on the way out to Drake's Beach at Pt. Reyes National Seashore. I saw him from the car as he was hunting in a beautiful iris-filled meadow. I pulled over and put my long lens on, then stepped out of the car into a light drizzle, propping the heavy lens on a fence post. Unfortunately, the coyote spotted me right away and I got just two shots off. It was my second coyote sighting of the day. The first had been out on Tomales Point, where a very furry fellow crossed the trail maybe fifty feet in front of me, soon followed by a small herd of elk. It was raining, and visibility was extremely low at the time, and I probably cut a frightening silhouette with full rain gear and umbrella.

A friend told me last week that Pierce Point had way more wildflowers than Chimney Rock, which I had just visited with my wife. He wasn't lying. There is a very good iris bloom going on just south of Pierce Ranch.

It was raining constantly, so I had to do my photography from beneath an umbrella. Handling a tripod and umbrella at the same time, being very careful to keep droplets off the lens, is not my favorite way to approach a subject. It's an unwieldy process, as you can imagine.

I had hemmed and hawed a little bit from home as to whether I should even make the long drive out to Point Reyes. It can be a fun trip if you don't get stuck behind a pokey driver who won't use pull-outs to let people pass, and I had mixed luck on that score, as usual. But a couple other factors weighed in favor of going. First, the forecast was for very light wind. The storm wasn't going to be a howler and make it virtually impossible to work under an umbrella. Second, although I would love to have had great light and good visibility to photograph the meadows and landscapes, this moody and broody stuff is what Point Reyes looks like much of the time. Indeed, by the time I got back from my hike, the fog in this area had reached total coverage, reducing visibility to maybe thirty meters.

The beginning of the Tomales Point Trail drew a thin line between thick meadows of wild mustard and radish which are still just waist-high. They'd have made a nice foreground for landscape shots -- if only the background of the landscape had been visible.

There were some iris patches out there too, but nothing like the profusion in the elk sanctuary on the approach to Pierce Ranch. There were lots of California poppies and cream cups, species that only open when the sun comes out, so I could only imagine how gorgeous the hike would be on a clear day.

I saw quite a few elk cows, but no bulls or calves. I think the fog's limited visibility made them extra spooky. I had to wonder about the coyote I saw because it had been much closer to the elk than I was, yet I (not the coyote) had spooked them. Had they not seen the coyote? Or were they simply unconcerned by its presence? The coyote was big, with a thick, healthy coat, but would probably be no match for a grown elk.

The rain let up for about fifteen minutes near the end of my return hike, so I thought I'd check out a nice patch of low-growing fiddleneck near the parking area. It soon started raining again, so I had to continue working under an umbrella, this time on the soaked ground with a macro lens. With rain pants and jacket, though, I hardly noticed the wet ground and was able to keep my attention on holding the umbrella over the camera.

Shooting in the rain is not my favorite thing, but once I had the hang of it my only regret was that there were so few species to photograph.

There was just enough of a breeze to make things more difficult, so extreme close-ups with focus stacks weren't really an option.

This sign on this weathered old post above Tomales Bay State Park caught my attention. I wonder if "protected" means no huckleberry-picking.

Fog had greatly reduced visibility out around Pierce Point, so I thought I'd drive over to see if it was any better out at Chimney Rock. I knew from last week's visit that Chimney Rock didn't have the spectacular iris show that Pierce Point does, but there is still a nice variety of wildflowers all the way out at the point. Out there with my wife I only had my point-n-shoot, and I thought I'd like to go back with my real camera to photograph the wildflowers with the cliffs in the background.

I made a short side trip up Mt. Vision Road, and a ranger stopped where I'd just parked on the roadside and was gathering my photo gear. I'd been reading on the West Marin Feed's Facebook page that there have been a few car break-ins lately, so I'd stashed all my gear in the trunk when I hiked out on Tomales Point. The ranger also warned me about break-ins and said there'd been another one just that morning. 

I stopped briefly at North Beach and saw a few surfers out. The waves had probably been much better at low tide. I took another detour down to Drake's Beach, figuring if I could see Chimney Rock, then I'd buy a snack at the store and continue on out there. The fog was thick, though, so I decided to save that trip for another weekend.

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