One of the more arduous hikes during the visit to West Virginia was the one to the Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory in Monroe County, WV. Quite a short hike, but very steep and rocky in places.
Part of the trail is on the Allegheny Trail. It was odd to see this small segment of fence in the middle of nowhere.
Above is detail from the cliff we passed along the Castle Rock hiking trail at Grandview State Park in West Virginia. The picture below puts the cliffs in perspective.
I was trying to choose between three landscape photographs from my trip to Bluestone State Park last week and decided to post all three! Thanks to Patrick for some post-processing tips!
Getting near the end. Soon this view will be obscured by leaves.
I also do sunsets! This is the Ventura Pier with the sun setting over Surfer’s Point. On a typical day, the point will have a few hundred surfers in the water over a one mile stretch of coastline.
There’s nothing like a brisk sprint up the beach in the morning to get the juices flowing. Not that I’m going to run myself, but I do like to photograph people running as the sun comes up!
…. and each one is different. An endless number of photographic opportunities!
Does anyone other than me feel that all the televised hype and doomsaying about Irene on television was out of proportion with the actual event? I returned to vacation only to find the beach still closed. What I didn’t find was any indication that a damaging hurricane had just blown through. It was a couple of hours after Governor Jack gave the a lll-clear sign, but there were no down power lines, no cottages swept into the bay, no streets littered with roof shingles and no flooding. Hell, the ground wasn’t even damp.
It was more like someone said “Hey, there’s a windy storm thing off in the Atlantic, and sometimes when this happens beaches get torn up and stuff. Sometimes this doesn’t happen, but maybe if we talk about the potential for bad things, more people will watch us on television and our viewership will go up and we’ll sell more advertising and be able to charge more for it!”
I don’t want to minimize the deaths and damage that did occur (my neighbors are going to be spending thousands of dollars because of a fallen tree that hit their house), but I think the weather pornography promoted by the Weather Channel and its ilk served the interest of the media more than the interest of the public. I’m irritated that they were able to get me so hot and bothered about Irene that I watched storm news for about eight hours straight. Damn you, Hurricane Schwartz!
In any case, here is a picture of the beach behind that sign. Pretty menacing, huh?
Delaware declared a mandatory evacuation of the beach area by 9:00 A.M. this morning, but I took one more picture of the pre-Irene beach before the lifeguards kicked us off. So I moved from an area of flooding and chance of death by drowning to one with a chance of death by falling trees and flying debris. Spent the morning moving anything with a possibility of flight into the garage and the corner of our porch.
Our landlord, Phil Shedaker, is securing the cottage. I’m hoping for minimal damage and a return to vacation late Sunday or early Monday morning. Good luck Phil!
One big advantage of vacation during the last weeks of August is that the kids are in school, beaches are pretty empty, and there are no people to ruin your landscape photographs. These are three of the oldest cottages on the north end of Fenwick Island. I’m staying in the one on the far right, just peaking over the dune.