A Return to Bridge Creek Wilderness

This is the end of summer.  I’ve already spent 24 days in the wilds this year.  It’s time to close the season.  The weather report predicts snow in the Cascades and Ochocos next weekend and it’s likely that the Forest Service will lock the gates soon after the first snow fall.  There is just time enough for one more trip.

I decided to return to the area I was in last month.  The smoke had cleared and hunting season finished the previous week.  I wasn’t expecting to see any large mammals so I brought along a few carving projects to work on.  I also planned to try out a new backpack with camera tripod harness. 

Carrying a camera with a large lens mounted on a tripod is cumbersome.  Think Tank Photo has come up with a tripod suspension kit that is supposed to make it easier to carry. I was anxious to give it a try.

I camped near the top of the same ridge I had visited before.  Since I was there, the meadow had been visited by the rancher (setup a salt block) and by someone on an ATV. I guess that the rancher collected all of the cows as they were not around–probably for deer season.

In the morning I woke to the sound of Steller’s jays calling and hairy woodpeckers knocking.  It was so peaceful just to lay in my sleeping bag all nice and warm, with a cool wind blowing across my face.  The coolness spoke of the coming winter snows.  But now, conditions were ideal and I couldn’t be anything but happy to be here experiencing early autumn.

I dallied over a breakfast of fried potatoes and home-grown peppers before I left for a photo walk.  I planned to climb the nob to the west.  I hoped to see some birds or perhaps a squirrel. My primary goal was to test the compatibility of the backpack, binocular chest harness, and tripod harness.  I also wanted to practice carrying and deploying my camera from the tripod harness.

I loaded my backpack with lenses, camera cleaning kit, extra batteries, flashlight, jacket, small survival kit, first aid kit, lunch, and water.  The entire load left plenty of room for my sweater.  The Osprey backpack holds the load close to my back and is very comfortable to carry.

I found that I can easily access my binoculars from the chest pack–that’s good. When I carry the camera on a neck strap it’s difficult to get the binoculars out.  It takes a bit to deploy the tripod, as it gets hung up on the paracord loop supporting the legs.  I also discovered that on steep downhills the legs drag when they are at full extension.  I shortened them and solved that problem. However, this makes the tripod shorter, so I have to extend the legs or kneel to use it.

I walked back up the road and took an old logging trail that the animals are using up the nob.  The trail zigzagged up the slope through the Ponderosa pine forest.  In my last post I said that the pines were dying from water stress, that isn’t quite correct.  It seems that many of the trees are infected with mistletoe—perhaps that makes them more susceptible to water stress. Or the mistletoe is killing them.

The trees at the top of the nob are more widely spaced than they are on the slope.  I set my backpack down and swapped lenses to the wide-angle zoom.  After shooting a few shots of mistletoe and the forest I sat down to rest, drink, and consult the map.  I set the tripod with my telephoto on it in front of me, leaned up against a fairly large Ponderosa pine, and fished out the water bottle and the map.

While planning which route I would take back to camp, I felt the gaze of another creature and looked up to find a Chickaree staring at me from the branch of a downed tree.  Of all the things to happen, I was not at all ready. I had removed the telephoto to take pictures of the landscape and here was a critter within perfect range for a nice telephoto portrait.  I had also placed the camera on my backpack while I held the map.  Fortunately, it was within reach.  So, I slowly retrieved the camera, focused, and took a few quick shots anyway.  Now that I had a photograph, I would try to change lenses.

Slowly, I removed the wide-angle lens and pulled the tripod close.  As I was fixing the camera body to the telephoto the little guy hopped from his perch and ran off into the forest.  Well at least I got a shot.  The background’s a mess and the subject image is small, but the focus is pretty good.  And I got something!  Who knew that would be the only mammal I would see on the trip.  I suppose one has to remain prepared.

After waiting about a half hour for the little guy to return, I packed up and made my way down the far side of the nob.  I hiked around the nob and returned to camp.  The only animals I saw were a few woodpeckers-one was a Pileated, that was special.

I spent the afternoon resting in camp, reading.  It was wonderful just to relax without interruptions.  I saw the Golden Eagles soar across the ridge.  Glanced up at the call of a pair of tumbling ravens.  Listened to squirrels warning of some danger in the forest.  It was just a normal early fall afternoon.

After dinner I prepared for night photography.  I wanted to try out a deep sky technique that I had stumbled on.  The process is described in this video:

I used Nico Carver’s recommendations and took 1000 light frames, 50 calibration frames, 75 bias frames, and 50 flat frames.  The entire process took about an hour to complete.  I downloaded the images to my laptop right after taking them.  To ensure I had copies I didn’t delete them from the camera card.  The card I use has room for about 2200 images.

Back at home, the processing took all day, using about eight hours on my home server.  I used the free software Nico provided links to.

I don’t have any of the Adobe programs (Lightroom or Photoshop), I used the editing program from Nikon.  I’m sure it has fewer features, but the results were good enough.

Here is the resulting image:

This is just amazing to me.  If you have a digital camera, I highly recommend trying out this technique.  I plan to try other deep sky objects.  Amateur astronomy sure has changed since I was in High School.

In case you were curious, here is an unedited sample image from the stack.

I sure can’t see anything in there. Well, except for that satellite track.

On the way down the mountain, I encountered a tree that had fallen across the road.  Happily, someone else had come across it before I did and removed a section of the log for traffic to pass through.  My little chainsaw would never have done the job. There is another exit but it would have required a significant detour.

I almost forgot, I again failed to find any scorpions in this area, even though I searched each night I was there.