Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
While in San Diego in May 2017 Alexis and I decided to visit Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve for some beautiful coastal scenery and to take a few photos of ourselves as well. It took us a while to find our way there, one of the roads had been closed and we had to drive in a large circle to get to the park but it was worth it! Upon first arriving it was a very cloudy day but the sky cleared up and made for some beautiful photos.
Torrey Pines for me was just one of those places; where it’s hard to stop taking photos because everything is breathtakingly beautiful and creates a space for this feeling of calm, peace, and contentment. I wish we had spent more time here but we had to get to Balboa Park and see the dinosaurs before the Museum of Natural History closed so we did about 1.5 miles in 1-1.5 hours.
Torrey Pines is named so for the endangered Torrey Pines that are common throughout this protected landscape. We found an endless amount of lizards running around in the area during our visit.
I used a trigger release and my trip to take photos of Alexis and I anticipating a beautiful location (you can kind of see me clicking the release in some photos).
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
12600 N Torrey Pines Rd,
La Jolla, CA (near San Diego)
Trail Map
2,000 acres
No dogs, smoking, food, or drones allowed
10/25: Shenandoah National Park and Blue Ridge Parkway
Continuing our trip in Shenandoah National Park Alexis and I got up and packed up our campsite at Loft Mountain Campground and headed out to hike to Doyles River Falls. We didn't do the full loop here just there and back, I believe it was bout 3-3.5 miles round trip.
The trail on the way to the waterfalls is almost all downhill which means on the way back it is almost all up hill. It is a pretty trail, especially in the fall when we went. At one point on the trail there is a stone wall with water coming through. There is also a small bridge near where you meet Browns Gap Fire Road. (see the map here)
Coming from this direction (having parked in the closest lot to Loft Mountain Campground) we reached the smaller of the two Doyles River Falls first which is seen above and below. This is a serene and small falls and of course I climbed right across rocks and stepped in the water to take the photo from different angles for my favorite.
The second falls is two steps to it. I had a lot of fun photographing the top pieces alone and playing with
After our hike we finished the last piece of Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park and continued on to check out some of Blue Ridge Parkway and the over looks there.
4/9 at the Arnold Arboretum
This weekend I actually did some hiking/nature walks both days so I'll have two posts for you! While it wasn't the warmest weekend in this New England spring it was nice and sunny. My friend Amanda and I took our dogs, Ruggles and Behr, to the Arnold Arboretum on Saturday and Middlesex Fells on Sunday. This post will be about Saturday at the Arnold Arboretum.
We parked by the entrance to Peter Hill and decided to start there, we walked right up the hill and got a pretty view of Boston. We then wandered around the hill at a leisurely pace. While on one of the paths we found a Sequoia from Asia and I noticed some other interesting trees and a little puddle of water near by. We drifted over to take a look at the trees and the water, as we assumed it might not look the same again, the water was likely because of the recent heavy rain.
While by these beautiful trees and their reflections in the water we ran into a little boy and his mom, he was confused by my position while taking photos. I was lying on the ground shooting up, as I often do, and he came over and said hello. We decided to keep walking after a little bit. I can be a little annoying to hike or walk with if you want constant movement as I'm always stopping to take some photos so I try not to stop for too long. The boy and his mom also continued walking and he ran right up to us and tried to say hi to the dogs. Ruggles is a little shy so Behr said hello.
After we finished walking around Peter Hill we decided to check out more of the park since we hadn't gone too far. We both hadn't realized it but the other entrance we were near featured all of our favorite spots (well, those we'd discovered before, since neither of us has seen the whole park) which was exciting. First we followed a stream a bit further down and then realized it was the location where a bridge went over the stream and there were some small rapids in the stream.
We kept stopping to look at all the mossy exposed roots of trees by the stream. When we crossed the bridge we were happily surprised to find a hill covered in the same moss, exposed roots, and rock which made for some beautiful and very green scenery.
It was slippery to get up the hill and pretty steep so we didn't go all the way up with the dogs. After we came down we went back across the bridge and continued. We immediately came upon a favorite tree of Amanda's, that little blue flowers grow under.
And here's a silly one of Behr because he's cute.
If you're looking to find some of the same spots we did, here's a map of our walk.
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Hiking 3/09: Middlesex Fells
This post is a little late but since I knew I'd be missing this past Sunday's hike (March 13th) and Wednesday March 9th was going to be 70 degrees in New England I just had to go hiking. Since I didn't want to take a full day off work we stayed local. I went with my boyfriend Alexis and our dog Behr. We parked in the same parking lot as last time by Flynn Rink and used the same entrance to the park, but we turned left immediately instead of right.
Since I knew that Rock Circuit Trail gained the most elevation we took that trail. We came across a few fallen trees and bridges along the way. It was hard to get Behr to take the small bridges instead of going through the mud so he ended up a little dirty. We had Behr play around with walking on 3 different fallen trees. The first fallen tree fell right across our path and was just one normal tree. The second we found broke in a very cool way, you could walk in part of the middle of the tree by the stump. The third was a few trees attached to a large piece of displaced earth and we tried to get Behr to walk on a higher branch but he quickly lost his balance and we kept walking. We also found a tree with a hollow base and stuck Behr through the hole for some photos, I might have to revisit that tree for some other photos too!
Eventually we started gaining in elevation, and reached a higher point. At this location we stopped for a minute to give Behr some water. The moss covered rocks, the fallen pine needles, a view of only trees around us, and the breeze made for a very serene stop. Then a runner passed by us on the trail ending the spell and we kept walking. After a while hiking we decided it was getting late, and close to rush hour traffic, so we should try to find the fastest path back to our parking lot.
I pulled out my Maplets app with the Middlesex Fells Reservation Map open and tried to figure out the quickest path back was. We found the orange path which connected to the blue path was the fastest way back. We quickly found the orange path but got turned around figuring out the blue path but eventually found our way back.
Based on using My Map by Google Maps we walked about 2.7 miles in just under 2 hours. The actual walk highlighted here is a little shorter, we took a few detours by accident.
© 2015 Google Inc, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.
I used Google Maps - My Map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/) to create the above map.
Sunday Hiking: Middlesex Fells
I hope to find the time and go on some kind of hike or walk every Sunday with reasonable weather and shot a few photos, even if they aren't particularly interesting. Just to get outside, get some exercise, and play with my camera. If I stick to it you will see a hiking post every Monday. The photos here are from the first of my Sunday hikes.
For the first Sunday hike I went with my friend Rachel. We didn't have much time as we both had family parties later in the day, so we decided to stay local but go to a park we hadn't tried before. We chose a parking lot that seemed easy to find and meet at, the Flynn Rink parking lot. Of course when we got there that particular lot was very full from all the kids who play hockey, but we got lucky and there was a small lot just up the street we could park at.
We had some trouble deciding which path to try first so we went with the one that looked like you might gain more elevation for a more challenging hike. We started by just following a trail right off the road marked in blue, called Woodland Path. We eventually came to another road through the park, Fellsway E, and decided to find a path that headed back in the direction we came.
I pulled out my Maplets app with the Middlesex Fells Reservation Map open and tried to figure out where the path marked in white, which appeared to head back the way we'd come, was. We found it quite by accident when we decided to climb some rocks for fun but we turned ourselves around and ended up by the road again. Eventually we found the correct direction to walk on Rock Circuit Trail to head back towards our parking lot.
Once we got on the Rock Circuit Trail in that area we saw a few beautiful hazy views of Boston.
Along the way back we found part of an old stone foundation which is all that left of the old observation tower. A friend had mentioned it's existence to me previously as I am always looking for locations to shoot photos but had suggested I might not find it quickly as the park is very large. So I was pleasantly surprised we happened upon it on our first hike in the park. When we found the foundation we also found people had stopped and done some rock balancing and created a sundial here as well. While I wasn't expecting to find the foundation so easily, I really was not expecting to find more than just the foundation when I came to it. This made the area all the more intriguing and exciting to find. We stopped to take a few photos and stopped again a little further along the path when we found a grove of trees covered in pinecones.
Based on my friends fitbit we climbed up 54 flights of stairs (540 feet) and based on using My Map by Google Maps we walked about 2.7 miles in just under 2 hours. The actual walk highlighted here is a little shorter, we took a few detours by accident that added about 0.3 - 0.5 miles to the trip.
© 2015 Google Inc, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.
I used Google Maps - My Map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/) to create the above map.
Getting Wolfy in the Arnold Arboretum
My friend Natalie and I came up with this fun idea to play with doing a sexy wolf photoshoot where she was the wolf. On a brisk winter day we decided to drag ourselves down to the Arnold Arboretum and look for somewhere fun to shoot. We soon came upon what we affectionately referred to as a human size bonsai tree, I know we could have looked at the actual name of the tree, since we were in the Arboretum, but to us that was a what it looked like and that’s all that mattered. It was a low growing tree with lots of beautiful twisted branches. At this point we had only walked feet from the entrance we came in and decided we should probably see more options before we stopped so we kept walking.
The next place we came to we decided to play with some shots, it was already 2:30 and sun set was as early as 4:15 as it was early January in Boston. We found some cool jagged rocks and started playing around. The lighting was difficult to work with as it didn’t hit her face and while I love the rim lighting on her spirit hood, which highlighted the wolf well, it was easily blown out so I had to shoot dark and use a reflector and tree branches to hold it up. We used a stool to help exaggerate the size of her body and draped her fur vest over it. Here we got silly and played around with what worked and was wolfy but still human. It was a learning experience and we may repeat this shoot in different seasons… so stay tuned.
After we played by the rocks for a while we headed back towards the entrance and our bonsai tree. Natalie took a quick climb into the tree and found the one opening with beautiful lighting from the setting sun streaming through and I began working my way steadily up and down the hill by the tree as well as around the tree to get the shot from every angle I could. Playing with the composition of the shot with the different twisted tree limbs while she remained in a very similar position. When I had to chose my favorite photos it was a bit of a struggle as the lighting on her face was so beautiful. So I apologize if there are many similar shots :D
More photos on my facebook page: facebook.com/mswphoto