Soaring Amongst the Stars: What an Unforgettable Night

 Daytime temperatures hovered around 70 degrees, unseasonable to say the least for the first of December, and the blanket of air that arched across the daytime sky was a piercing clear blue. But as the sun settled behind the western ridge, those temps began to drop and the blanket of blue became a crisp and clean ebony universe filled with more stars than I have ever seen, their unexpected brilliance and shimmering nature uplifted my spirits and as I gazed upward through the canopy of trees that arch over my campsite, I felt as though I was being drawn high to join them amongst their lofty domain.

This adventure photography series I've been pacing through the past few months has brought me into contact with some incredible moments. The idea behind the series is simply about "The Experience of Being There"... to encounter nature through the eyes and heart of a photographer's mind set. But, it is more than that. It's actually more about the experience than the photographs. The photographs only serve to document the moments and their impact falls well short of the emotional influence generated by placing yourself inside an uncommon outdoor situation.

That single night camping out under the stars became an iconic moment within the Adventure Photography realm. I backpacked once again into my favorite location within the backcountry of Mammoth Cave National Park...The Bluffs. My intent was to do less photography and more just camping and relaxing. But I knew the evening was soon to fall upon me and the forecast was for a dark, clear night. With that in mind, I set about finding locations around my campsite that would offer a good field of view through the trees for some time lapse sequence photography. 

As the evening fell, a thin remnant of clouds began to glow above the distant ridge and shortly after, the sky rapidly grew dark and the stars began to wink into life. The first points of light were the planets Venus and Jupiter, two very bright lights to the southwest that hovered just above the ridge on the other side of the deep ravine below where I was camping. Shortly after Jupiter and Venus came into view, Saturn blinked to life almost perfectly evenly position between the two others. The three of them created a 45 degree arch across the darkening sky. Before long, thousands of other stars came into view, some brighter, some pin points, some with a fuzzy glow around them, some white, some bluish, some yellow in hue. Their seemingly random placement across the sky appeared to have a planned artistic symmetry applied to their placement with in the canvas of the night.

The tall trees surrounding me extended their reach upwards as though somehow knowing they added to the majestic nature of this incredible starry night. The first time lapse took close to 2 hours to complete, 200 15 second exposures taken at 20 second intervals. A quick look revealed that my campfire had provided an extra element to the scene by its flickering flames illuminating nearby tree trunks. 

The next two sequences were shorter, 150 20 second exposures taken 25 seconds apart. It too revealed a remarkable song of light arching across the night sky with the canopy of trees providing a guiding arm to their movements.

By 10pm, the constellation Orion came into view rising above the ridgeline. It is perhaps my favorite of all the constellations as it is big, bold, and bright especially on a clean and clear night like this one. With the naked eye one can see the Orion Nebula glowing as the middle star of the hunters sword. My goodness, it was so bright and clean, the sight of it was an experience of profound dimensions. 

I set up my camera pointing toward this collection of stars...same exposure values...and fired off the sequence. As the intervalometer triggered each image one by one, I crawled into my sleeping bag under a simple tarp strung between two trees. 

Time was taken to make a journal entry as the thoughts were fresh on my mind...and I dozed off to the rhythmic clicking of the camera and the yelps and howls of a pack of coyotes.

It must have been because the camera stopped firing off that awakened me. I crawled back into the brisk night air and gazed upwards again. There are no words than can describe the sight. No moon was out, yet the stars were so bright, faint shadows were being cast by their light. The sky simply glowed with starlight, like a symphony, the musical tones of their performance was almost more than I could absorb. I no longer felt the coolness of the night air, warmed instead by a sight so indescribably beautiful, it all but brought a tear to my eyes.

I repositioned the camera, reset the intervalometer, and fired off another sequence. Reluctantly, I crawled back into my sleeping bag under the tarp. The warmth it provided calmed my emotions and I simply laid there listening to the clicking of the camera every 25 seconds and the occasional howl of coyotes was joined in chorus by several owls hooting through the night. I do believe they were also in awe of this special edition of the night sky.

I must have dozed off again briefly, but before long the camera stopped clicking as its sequence was complete. One more excursion into the night air...one more long view through the canopy of trees...one more long gaze at the most perfect night sky I've ever witnessed. The visions generated by that moment, haunted me throughout the evening as sleep became a rare event and only around 4AM did I finally doze off. When I awoke, daylight was upon me once again.

A much better story teller writer possibly could describe the feeling of the night in a way as to truly capture the essence of the moment. Although, I'm not so sure really anyone could fully describe the impact it had on me. I've spent may hours over the years photographing the night sky and from time to time encountered dark and brilliant nights. None compared to this one. It was truly an Unforgettable Night. One in which my spirit was lifted high into the realm of the stars, and I felt as though I soared amongst them.

 

A Simple Outing - Canoe on the Water - Phone Picture and Video - A Bald Eagle and Some Gulls

 About a 30 minute drive from my home thru small country towns, down winding country roads that flow through, around, and over the rolling hills of south central Kentucky, is Barren River Lake. It's a gem of a lake characterized by clear waters, rocky bluffs, thick woodlands, and scenery that can often be overlooked if care is not taken to avoid doing so. As a photographer, my eye is always searching for a special moment of light, and too often I too have been found guilty of overlooking this wonderful location.

Today I made a special attempt to remedy that verdict. I drove over to Brown's Ford with the idea of dropping my canoe into the water and working my way to the tail end of the lake, about 2 miles, where Barren River and Long Creek converge. The particular spot offers a wonderful peninsula that separates the two water systems. 

Where Barren River and Long Creek Converge - Taken Summer 2021 from the Long Creek side - Barren River is on the other side. This is the end of a long peninsula. Winter water levels would be 20+ feet lower than what is shown here.

I wanted to work my way up Barren River as far as I could manage using a trolling motor to do most of the heavy work, to search for a campsite along the river bank for a potential canoe camping, photography outing sometime in the future.

Taken summer 2021

The previous summer I managed to do some fishing in that area with some photography tossed in. Along with catching a few nice bass, I captured a couple of very nice images, one of a deer swimming across a gap between two small islands with misty fog hovering in the background, and another of reflections cast across a hidden inlet.

Taken summer 2021

Barren River Lake is maintained through the year by allowing the lake level to rise in summer and to drawn it down during the winter. On this outing, it was approaching its lowest winter pool level, about 20 feet or so lower than the summer level, and what was a wide expanse of flat water the previous summer was now a narrow band of shallow water with exposed rock and sandy banks. There was also a good current flowing at the boat ramp. My attempt at working my way to the confluence of Barren River and Long Creek was thwarted as the water levels were just too low to allow for a comfortable use of a trolling motor and the current was too strong to paddle against for that distance.

Instead I turned what was an ambitious outing into a simpler outing and took my time paddling around the boat ramp area working down to a long curving bluff to enjoy a short moment on the water. As I began to float that way, a Bald Eagle emerged from the tree line to my right and flew across the gap separating the long bluff from the bluff nearest to Browns Ford. He glided with a graceful soar, barely working his wings, the white of his head and tail standing out boldly against the gray background. Then, he pulled his massive wings back in a slow motion arch, almost stopping in mid air to land on a high limb overlooking the channel.

I had no camera this time except for my cell phone and it was still packed away, so I just drifted toward my Eagle friend and came to within about 20 yards of him before he launched himself into the air. I followed his white head and tail as he flew along the long, curving bluff, to finally drift out of sight some distance away. Not a single photo I made of this magnificent bird, but the memory of the moment will last me forever.

For the next hour or so, I simply paddled around, briefly talking to an elderly fellow fishing off the bank, and I managed with my phone to snap a photo or two of the scenic point anchoring the long bluff. I'm guessing the trees with the white trunks are Sycamore trees, and the tree with the reddish leaves are beech trees with their fall season remnant allotment of dried but not yet dropped leaves.

 As I made my way back to the boat ramp against the current, a couple hundred gulls circled around, squawking as they do, to eventually land on the other side of a sandy mound.

 I beached the canoe and made my way over to where they were and managed to take a few photo's using my phone along with a short video clip. They are graceful fliers after all.

The day afield came to an end shortly after my gull encounter. I loaded all my gear back into and on top of my Jeep, always a sad moment. As it turned out, the outing fell well short of what I was wanting to do, but in the end, seeing the Bald Eagle and watching the gulls was reward enough. Just being out and feeling the canoe under me again, well...it was a simple outing, but one well worth the effort.

The "Art of Being There"

 The beauty of the fall season in Kentucky is breathtaking and hiking into the backcountry of Mammoth Cave National Park during this time of year can transport one into a visual canopy of color.

Capturing the feeling of this world requires more than simply physically walking down a trail with your camera in hand. It requires you to fully immerse yourself into and becoming a part of the surroundings. There is a kind of bonding one develops with nature when you allow yourself to let go of the everyday stresses of life and then receive the soothing comfort discovered here. It helps you to step outside the distractions of life, to be elevated above all the things that weigh us down emotionally, so you begin to see the hidden compositions drifting across the landscape.

 I wish I could get that feeling every time I go out, but it is almost impossible to do so. There is an Art to it, the kind of art that is difficult to define. It is the Art of Being There where you allow yourself to become a part of the surroundings, where you feel the subtle sounds of the woodlands,

 hear the splash of light filtering through the trees, see the wind brush across your face, then inhale the aroma of the flotsam of the forest floor. 

When that happens, your camera becomes more than a tool…it becomes an extension of your emotions. The art of being there is what this Adventure Photography series is all about.

Yet it is more, for there will never be enough words to fully describe how it works because it is different for everyone. It's a feeling really, the kind that radiates deep from within yourself. It's more than simply recognizing that it can happen, it's experiencing it and living it all at once.

The Art of Being There as a photographer elevates those moments to a level well above what is ordinary...you are uplifted emotionally and everything becomes synchronized so much so, it all simply falls into place.

Backpacking Mammoth Cave National Park - Destination: "The Bluffs"

 Over the years I've done a favorable amount of backpacking, enough anyway to feel accomplished at the endeavor. I've done far more canoe camping but both are excellent outdoor activities and they share some common elements that tend to blend their requirements into similar techniques. I recently made a return visit to spend time backpacking into the backcountry of Mammoth Cave National Park. While it is but a few miles up the road from where I live, the location has remained a somewhat neglected outdoor resource for me. Even so, there is an abundance of above ground outdoor opportunity awaiting anyone desiring a near wilderness adventure.

This year I jumpstarted my Beyond the Campfire Adventure Photography video series with the intent to motivate myself into getting out to photograph and explore the great outdoors more while I still have the ability to do so. As I climb toward the big 70 in age, my physical ability to purposely stress myself beyond what is ordinary has started to diminish to some degree. 

Although I've stayed in pretty good shape for someone my age (lost 35 lbs, strength training at the gym, jumping rope, punching a heavy bag...and so on), my old body sometimes pushes back reminding me to slow down and take it easy for a little while. I've learned to listen to it in spite of the fact that my hearts desire tells me I'm still 25 years old.

My backpacking gear consists of mostly 25 years and older equipment...all venerable and functional...but, a bit on the heavy side. Today's modern, lightweight equipment was just a pipe dream back when I first started backpacking. Back then my budget allowed for only rudimentary and often heavy gear collected from the likes of the local Army Surplus Store, garage sales, and the local discount sporting goods store...a good portion of it was homemade make-do gear.

Similar to Mine

I use a 40-plus year old Coleman Peak One packer stove...probably one of the most dependable and useful pieces of gear I have. In all those years, it has never failed once. By today's standards, it is quite heavy, but it also includes the ability to fine tune the blue flame from a simmer to a fly me to the moon flaming torch. It will boil a pot of water in nothing flat, and a single tank of fuel will last for several days.

My old sleeping bag, also a Coleman Peak One, is also about 25 years old. It is filled with somewhere around 4 lbs of Quallofil fiber...where each strand when viewed thru a microscope contain 4 separate chambers...which gives it a temperature rating down to Zero degrees Fahrenheit. It's a bit bulky but has kept me warm on some very cold nights out in the boonies. A homemade flannel liner adds about 10 degrees to the temperature rating.

The newest piece of equipment I have is my self-inflating sleeping pad I purchased on a clearance sale about 15 years ago. One of the best investments I ever made.

I use 2 packer tents. One is somewhat larger and heavier than the other. On this trip I chose to use the bigger one because I wanted a little more elbow room for my camera gear. Made by Camp Trails it is a two man tent that actually fits one person and comes with a nice full cover rainfly which came in handy that night as a gentle rain fell pretty much all night.

The backpack I haul all of this gear around in is, again, about 25 years old. It is a JanSport Internal Frame large capacity pack. It has several outside pockets and various other straps and rings and things to attach whatever suits your style. It has been quite durable in spite of some abuse over the years.

Those are my main pieces of equipment along which I include various other assorted odds and ends to make up the 10 Essentials of Backpacking.

On this particular trip I included 2 cameras, 2 tripods, extra batteries, 2 extra lenses, and a fanny pack just for the camera stuff, because I wanted to shoot a lot of B-roll video footage and have enough flexibility to photograph the scenery as I saw fit. I normally would not have carried all of that extra weight, but in the long run I used all of it and the results were pretty good even if I say so myself.

The hike into the Bluffs area is pretty flat with some up and down dips and climbs until the last side trail that leads you to The Bluffs campground. There is about a 1/4 mile very steep drop down to the campsite and, consequently a 1/4 mile long very steep climb out. The climb out is much more difficult than the drop down especially when carrying a full pack.

Along the trail I encountered several muddy places but was easily able to skirt around them. You are pretty much walking through a cathedral canopy of trees, and during the fall, the colors are amazing. I made this trek the first couple days of November and although there were good splashes of color, the peak of the fall season had not arrived...(a week later it was in full swing).

A newer version 

There is a source of water near the campsite. A spring flows over the edge of the first bluff you encounter with enough flow to create a small pool of water at its base. It good clean water and it's enough to easily fill several water bottles but the water must be treated before drinking. T o do so, I use a pumper style PUR Hiker water purification system (now called Katadyn) that will filter out pretty much everything that could make you sick. I've never gotten even the slightest grumbling in the tummy after drinking the filtered water...and the taste is fresh and clean.

It was another one of those really good additions to my gear collection.

Photographing the trip involved a series of B-roll video clips where I set up a camera on a tripod then film myself walking a little ways down range...walking back to retrieve the camera...then continue on. I wanted to video sections that provided not only scenic value, but also captured a representation of what the trail was like. Doing this obviously took more time, but it was well worth the extra effort.

Photographing the area was at times a challenge because it was difficult to see through all the clutter and focus in on a good subject. Even so, there were numerous photo ops available with the bluffs and within the surrounding canopy of the woodlands. The lighting was tough as most of the first day it was bright and sunny with a cobalt blue sky. Pretty to hike in and look at, but difficult to photograph because of the harsh contrasts such conditions produce. That became the real photo challenge...how to capture the scenic value without capturing the harsh contrasts?

I was able to build a fire and spent a while after sundown sitting around the warmth of its flames. It was the first time all day I felt like I could relax. 

There is something magical about a campfire. I've built hundreds over the years and no two of them were the same, but each of them told a similar story. It's a story about why we need to sometimes put life on hold and travel into the wilderness to experience what it has to offer the soul. Sometimes Life gets in the way of Living. 

A campfire helps us to step away from the stresses of life, to experience the calling that resides within our hearts. Backpacking, in spite of the physical demands, pushes the Mute button on Life, so we can begin living a little.

A New Video Series Project: Adventure Photography

 Sort of bringing the Blog back to life but with a newer approach. Will be posting a new video series over the next few months. Adventure Photography. This series will carry the theme "It's about the experience of being there". First on the menu includes the Introduction Video, followed by Parts 1 and 2 of the Shanty Hollow Series: Photographing Shanty Hollow Woodlands and "First Light" Canoeing and Photographing Shanty Hollow.

Series Intro

Shanty Hollow Part 1:

Shanty Hollow Part 2:

Shanty Hollow Part 3:

Shanty Hollow: Part4 - Winter Wonderland