Description

I hiked up into the Herman Creek area for my first time in late summer 2023 on a quest to find a seldom-noticed waterfall along the Pacific Crest Trail. While I did find the falls, which was nice but had very little flow by that point in the year, it was the forest scenery in the area that really stood out to me. In several places along the trail the Eagle Creek Fire had cleared the debris on the forest floor and burned out the lowest dead branches on the trees. The vegetation on the forest floor had returned in force but was not tall enough to obscure the views looking back through rows of tree trunks, which seemed to go on forever. As I was hiking back, already thoroughly satisfied with my afternoon in the forest, I came upon this clearing where the trail crosses a rocky talus slope and discovered the most incredible cloud patterns lit up by the evening light. I sometimes hike with my camera gear partially set up if I’m in an area with a lot of photographic possibilities within a short distance of each other and I was thankful that day that I had not packed everything up. I quickly searched for a place with a clear view of the sunset but with a few foreground trees for added interest, capturing this image just as the sun was meeting the ridge across the river.