The Hike

Only days left on my vacation before I had to head back to work, I decided to take a level 5 hike back in Los Padres National Forest. The trip would be completed in a 24 hour period and I would try to capture photo's along the way. But as it ended up, the weather went south on me and it became more of an exploration journey than a photo session.

I did manage to capture video, but I only compiled the first night, since this is where the "fun" was (~9 minutes, unedited). There were a couple close calls along the way, but pulled through without harm. The hike started at a mountain peak, then descended 1000 feet into the valley floor. At the top, there were very light snow flurries, then a couple hundred feet down from there, it turned to sleet, then even further down in the valley, rain and lots of it.


The following pictures are from the top of the trail head just as I was entering that morning.






This is looking down on the trail showing the condition (snow and ice)




A few pictures along the way.




This photo had my heart racing. As I was making my way down in this valley, I had a very narrow view due to the amount of brush. As I looked ahead I thought this was a hunter wearing his vest...very scary!



Found lots of ladybugs.




I had to prop up the tripod on some exposed rocks in the middle of this creek to get the shot.