May 12 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

For the second time in as many weeks, I ended up in Hercules Glades Wilderness Area. This time, however, I was with several members from the Southwest Missouri Camera Club. We had a great time wandering up Long Creek, taking pictures along the way. With the amount of water we've had around our house recently I was surprised to find that the falls were dry. Oh well, some other time. Even though it wasn't a great day for photography, it was still great to be out in the woods again. I did take another picture of a columbine (this is the last one, I swear!).

May 6 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I dropped by Long Creek this morning to see if any columbines were blooming and was relieved to see that they were plentiful. It was a warm and humid morning. Warm enough to make you wish for that one thing which would make photographing these challenging flowers impossible - a nice breeze.

May 13 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I had the weekend to myself, so I spent most of the day in the wilderness. It was great to return - and well worth the visit! Though threatened with a forecast of clear blue skies, it turned out to be mostly cloudy all day long, which greatly assisted my photographic efforts.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of Columbines out today. These things are like really big kites on a string and getting them to stay still long enough to photograph is challenging.


I've taken a lot of photographs of this section of Long Creek. But while photographing this scene, I started to lose my balance. Knowing that there was a small bluff to my left, I put my arm out to catch myself. What I forgot was that the wall had a lot of shale sticking out and it was quite sharp! I had to effect a few repairs to my arm before I could continue shooting.


I was surprised to find this Yellow Lady Slipper. I've never seen them before - anywhere! So it was a real treat to see them today.


Back to the falls - I've taken many pictures of these falls. Today, I was interested in the swirling patterns in the lower right. It was a long exposure (about 15 seconds).


A little further up the creek is the nicest green pool full of water with lots of little water falls running into it.


I stopped on top of one of the glades on the way back to take a picture of the sunset. I stayed until there wasn't much light left in the sky. I was still an hour or so away from the car, so I strapped on my head-lamp and headed off into the night. It was a very nice day to be in the wilderness!!!!!!

December 11 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I went out for a short hike this morning to Hercules Glades (and only fell once!). The sunrise from Coy Bald wasn't very interesting, but there were some lingering ice formations from the cold nights earlier in the week.

Splattered ice at the base of a small waterfall


Delicate ice formation around a branch on Long Creek


Ice, rocks and a leaf on Long Creek

September 17 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I had in mind a hike for this morning that would put me on top of one of the pilot knobs in Hercules Glades in order to watch the sunrise. To get there before dawn was going to take about an hour of hiking in the dark, but that's no problem. Once I dropped down to the creek, though, I found water! I knew there would be some, because it had rained heavily earlier in the week, but this creek had enough water that the falls upstream were probably running. So I changed my plans and hiked instead into the falls on Long Creek - I'm glad I did.

Long creek has many nice places to visit, but these falls are probably the most popular. Normally, you're sure to see other hikers, but this morning I had them all to myself.


A view from the other direction...


And a leaf caught between some rocks a little further upstream...

September 3 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

It was a nice morning for a short hike in Hercules Glades. I was there early in order to catch the sunrise from Coy Bald (a familiar trip!). This picture is from about 30 minutes after I arrived and the tiny orange dot on the horizon (click on the image for the bigger version) is the sun just starting to peek through. This was taken with a pretty wide lens and the clouds at the top of the picture were behind my head.



False Foxglove - this was catching the warm morning sunlight quite nicely.


After the sunrise, I bushwacked my way down to Long Creek, which actually had a trickle of water - an improvement over my last visit. This is a picture of Long Creek with a blue/gold polarizer.

July 30 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I woke up late Saturday morning (6:00am instead of 4:30am) and didn't quite make it into Hercules before dawn. Still, it was a pretty nice hike even though I was covered in spider webs before the end of the morning. The hike covered Devil's Den, and the upper pilots before heading back home.

The first image is from Devil's Den, and is just some plants that I found interesting.



The second image is a member of the Rudbeckia genus, though I'm not sure which one - it could be a Brown-eyed Susan, a Black-eyed Susan or a Sweet Coneflower.