More photos from a hike along an Indian forest trail in the fall of 2023.
This wraps up my hike and photography along this forest trail. Upon arriving back at my vehicle, I drove on along the forest roadway, looking for more fall scenes to photograph.
More later,
Ken
Even more photos from a hike in an Indiana forest, fall 2023.
To be continued,
Ken
More photos from an Indiana fall forest.
To be continued,
Ken
I continued walking along an Indiana forest hiking trail, stopping frequently to photograph the fall foliage and woodland scenes.
To be continued,
Ken
Today I drove down backroads heading generally in the direction of a state forest and a wilderness area. Along the way I stopped at a stream and shot a few images of the stream and wooded area around it.
Shortly after getting onto a roadway in a state forest, I parked in a pull out to have a look around. I did not plan to stay long, but wanted to see what this area had to offer in the nearby woods.
Even though it was late October, it was a warm day and mosquitos were buzzing around as I walked down an old forest roadway. Usually, mosquitos are not a problem here at this time of the year, so I had not brought insect repellant and frequent swatting and waving off mosquitoes was a distraction.
As I wandered along the faint roadway, it eventually turned into an official hiking trail. I walked quite a way along this trail. As I got deeper into the woods the mosquitoes became less of a problem, making stopping to shoot photos more pleasant.
To be continued,
Ken
I drove to the western portion of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge to scout the Charon’s Garden Wilderness area. In route I stopped at a small reservoir, Post Oak Lake.
Post Oak Lake is a small reservoir formed by a small dam across a tributary of Post Oak Creek.
There is a nearby military base and there were a couple of jet fighter aircrafts, practicing maneuvers, that periodically screamed overhead, breaking up the silence in this area.
I walked across the small dam, shooting the shot above from the dam. I believe the dam is leaking. A small stream of water was emanating from one side of the dam a few feet below the top of the dam. That stream was not from the dam overflow or controlled flow. I photographed the leak area, but the image detail is insufficient to illustrate the leakage. The leak does not appear to be sufficient to indicate an eminent dam failure.
From the lake area, I could see geological features in the distance that looked interesting and might be good subject matter for sunset photography.
I continued a short distance down the roadway, past Post Oak Lake, to the end of the road and the trailhead into Charon’s Garden Wilderness. It was a moderately hot afternoon and I wanted to travel lightly on this scouting expedition, so I did not take my heavy DSLR, but I did take a bottle of cold water, enough for a short hike in and out.
I did not spot much wildlife in this area. Other than a few lizards scampering around, I saw one or two squirrels or chipmunks, a few birds and a jackrabbit.
The most interesting wildlife that I spotted is the Eastern Collared Lizard, the Oklahoma State Lizard. It is fairly large and colorful.
I had to follow this one around to get close enough to shoot it with my iPhone. It hid beneath a rock overhang and peeked out just long enough for me to get the shot above.
Those vertical looking rocks, ahead on the trail, were my primary interest. I continued hiking in that direction, looking for potential places for sunset photography.
I hiked leisurely for about a half an hour, stopping to shoot iPhone shots to document my progress. Most of those shots were of little interest and are not included here.
The trail is not always as apparent as that in the photo above. It crosses solid rock areas and goes through some intermittent wooded areas.
I soon came to Post Oak Creek and Treasure Lake. I eventually gave up my hike, after determining that the substantial creek would probably block my access to those interesting feature in the background. In any case, hiking in for sunset photography would require hiking out along a not always easy to follow route in the dark, so I ruled out this area for sunset photos today. I later learned from my campsite host, that the rangers did not like for hikers to be in this area in the dark, presumably due to the increased danger of night time hiking and the potential of becoming disoriented in darkness. I carry a GPS device that allows me to mark my route, still there are dangers of tripping and falling along portions of a trail at anytime and especially in the dark of night.
More scouting in the granite mountains next,
Ken
A continuation of photos captured during a morning hike in the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area of the Hoosier National Forest, Indiana.
That’s it for this hike.
Until next time,
Ken
I returned to the old outlook tower that I found earlier, where a trailhead into the Charles C. Deam Wilderness originated. This time I was prepared to hike with my DSLR.
To be continued,
Ken
While examining a digital satellite map image of the forested area near my operational base in Indiana, I noted one area designated as a wilderness, so I decided to drive into that area and check it out.
All of the photos in this post are via my iPhone.
I pulled off of the forest road through the Hoosier National Forest on my way to check out the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area at a camping/picnic area to look around. There were restroom facilities, shelters, picnic areas and a few visitors. I noted a hiking trail that went into the forest from here, but I did not take time to check it out. There were a few colorful trees in near peak fall color, so I made a few iPhone images, with the one above the best.
I continued down the forest roadway, spotting a number of “No Parking” signs along the way.
This roadway is narrow, so parking along it would impede traffic and probably would create a danger, since visibility over hills and around curves is limited and one could easily crash into a parked vehicle that appears suddenly in the narrow roadway. The $80 fine seems steep, but maybe necessary to discourage parking here.
I found a parking lot just off of this roadway at an old fire lookout tower that is no longer in use, but open for visitors to climb.
Apparently, there were farmlands in this area at one time, but those have been taken over by the forest, after this area was designated a wilderness area.
I chose to climb the 133 steps to the top to get an overview of this area. As I started up the first flight of stairs, I had second thoughts about my choice as the stairs wobbled with each step. After a brief hesitation, I continued the climb.
Near the top of the tower, I noted that someone else had the same reaction as I did to the wobbly stairs.
I shot a few iPhone photos from the observation floor of the tower. Being above treetop level, I had a good overview of the vast forest around the tower.
After enjoying the view, it was time to descend the “sketchy” stairs and get my feet back on firm ground.
I saw a trailhead marker near the tower, so I walked over to check it out. I was not prepared to hike in this wilderness today, but I decided to come back another day for more exploration.
There was an old road beginning at the end of the tower parking lot that was blocked off with a steel gate. I walked over to take a look down the roadway and found this sign about an old cemetery that was apparently here prior to the wilderness designation. There was no indication of how far it was to the cemetery, but I decided to walk the roadway, hoping to find something interesting.
I found remnants of old structures that were mentioned in the information sign at the tower and continued to walk the roadway for awhile. I never found any indication of how far it was to the cemetery and I eventually turned back, since I did not see any noteworthy reason to continue.
This final image, looking into the wilderness woodland, was taken somewhere along the route.
Until next time,
Ken
This large hoodoo seems to be standing guard for those in the valley below it, ready to alert of approaching photographers.
I spotted the hoodoo above from a far distance as it stands out very distinctly in this broad valley in the Bisti Wilderness of New Mexico. I had scouted around it looking for ways to photograph it and found what I thought were promising compositions, only to discover that many of those compositions did not work out well.
It was a cloudy afternoon, but some rays of golden hour sunset light broke through.
I was in a dead end spur off of a big valley and went into this small nook, where I noted interesting rock features and hoodoos with the golden hour light on the top of the background hills and blue sky with fluffy clouds above. My son was calling for me to come out into the main valley, where the day’s final rays of light was peaking, so I hastened to get this shot, not at all sure it would be worthwhile; but I think it turned out well.
So there you have it, the final part of this visit to Bisti. I do not usually include so many photos in one post, but since this is part 13 and I had exactly 13 photos to wrap up this Bisti visit, it seems fitting to end it so.
If you can, please look at these images on my Flickr page and on a big screen, where the details are much better viewed.
Revisiting these images has put me in the mood for another visit to Bisti, but it might be some time before I can get back, so readers will not have to suffer through more Bisti any time soon.
Stay safe and thanks for following,
Ken
P.S. Actually, I just remembered that there is one remaining item for this visit: Night photography with stars and maybe the Milky Way, if I ever get around to finishing the editing, which is always a pain for such images, so I tend to procrastinate with that task. There will probably only be one or two or three photos, so that post will be short.
