One of the great things about trail running is finding these places that feel like worlds unto themselves, where one can run forever and forget the hard reality of life off the trail.
This little spot on Olney Creek was magical in the afternoon light. I was sorely tempted to splash about in the water, but our days are still not warm enough and the water was icy cold 🥶
The ferns adorning this mossy tree remind me of the frilly gills of an axolotl, and I imagine this capture as the plant-axolotl Dragon of Kaiser Woods 🐉🌲
I'll never get tired of the sight of mist moving through the forest, nor will I tire of the blues and yellows of sunlight diffused by clouds on the horizon 💛💙💛
I love the way this tree's roots look as they stretch their way over the mossy rocks and down toward the creek. Gives me a real jungle-y feel, and I really dig that 😁💚
I found this mushroom on a short walk thru Long Lake Park, and I loved the smaller cap growing halfway down the mushroom's stem. The photo came out well, I thought; but then someone I love asked for a photo of a single mushroom so she could make something with it, and what she sent back to me was so much better than just a simple photograph 🍄❤️
I was intently focused on capturing the smaller trunk growing out of the main trunk on the tree at center-left, didn't even realize I got a beautiful canopy shot until I got home 😁
I wish you could hear this scene: the sigh of a breeze through the trees; the swish of fallen leaves dancing with that gentle wind; the pitter-patter of a recent shower's raindrops falling from the canopy to the understory below; the even quieter, almost imperceptible sound of leaves shaking free of their trees and landing among piles of other fallen leaves; the occasional chirping of a squirrel, the carefree song of a bird. No sounds of humankind this far into the woods, this deep into autumn.
In my experience, these purple-pink phenotypes are much less common than white trillium in these parts (the forests of western Washington); I was very surprised, then, to find that almost half—by my very rough estimate—of all the trillium I saw on the Mima Falls Trail were this purple-pink color. When I got onto the McKenny Trail, the majority went clearly back to white. I wonder what it is about the Mima Falls Trail... 🤔