Hawley Bog Sunset.

My planned excursion to Hawley Bog this morning didn’t happen.

When I woke at 5am with plans to be driving at 6, it was five degrees F out, and being alone, it didn’t seem prudent to go snow-shoeing around off-trail, crossing snow covered streams (some of them deep) to get to where I wanted to be.

I’d have gone with my usual Partner In Crime Lizz; it’s a totally different game taking chances with a capable friend close at hand.  But alone, uh-uh.  My desire to live life fully includes both intensity and longevity.

Hell, I’m just gettin’ good!

Besides, it was so friggin’ cold out, and my bed was nice and warm.  🙂

So, all you folks get is the previous night’s sunset, snagged during my recon for the morning shoot which didn’t happen.  It wasn’t a promising evening for a “keeper,” as thick clouds were moving in and the Magic Hour was slipping away, but I got across the first major stream and set up Elliot in about three feet of snow.  To get a fallen tree in the foreground and the jagged spruce snags on the skyline, I applied a degree and a half of tilt, focused on both and waited for a break in the clouds.

And waited, and stomped around, and waited some more.  My watch said it was now or never; the sun was setting, and that would be that.

Then, as these things are wont to happen, the horizon cracked just enough to allow me a few dim shots, of which this one had the most to offer:

I had to bring the levels up in Photoshop, but hey, that’s what the kids do these days, and if us Old Farts want to stay in the game we’d better learn to do it too.

Anyway, I had to have something to show for the effort of breaking a trail in for the ‘morrow, and I do mean “breaking it in;” the whole thing was a latticework of icy brush and boughs bent to the ground and linked in luminous lace.  It was a beautiful pain in the ass, and I’m happy to have salvaged something from the evening’s work.

I’ll be back there in the light, if I can manage it while the icework lingers.