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So there I was, on a whim finding myself trudging uphill with a 50lbs+ pack on. Starting from the distant valley far down below, snowshoeing up past Mirror Lake in the midground, and finally making the push through thigh-deep snow up to this ridge, overlooking it all. I arrived an hour before sunset. Cloudy skies and lightly falling snow allowed me to not worry about shooting sunset that night, so I shifted focus to setting camp before the dark fell.
As always when camping at this spot, I opted to not camp directly upon the ridge, as the wind is everlasting up there. I set camp just below the ridge in a stand of trees... digging into the snow and packing a nice base for the tent. I set the tent, boiled some snow to refill my water supply, and cooked up some Chili Mac for dinner. By this point the hike, camp building, and full belly had me pretty tuckered out. I crawled in to my little solo tent and read by candle light until I fell asleep.
DONT FALL ASLEEP WITHOUT BLOWING OUT A CANDLE. I normally have no issue with blowing out my little REI candle lantern, but had a lapse in judgement and allowed myself to fall asleep with it still burning. I must have knocked it over in my slumber, as I was awoken to the smell of burning tent. I put out the small smoulder fairly quickly, but ended up with a baseball sized hole in my tent... on one of the walls near the floor. I was able to just cover it with snow to seal the hole. By this time, it was only 9pm... a lot of sleeping still to do.
Back to sleep I went, waking to my alarm the next morning. MAN, I felt well rested. I crawled out of my tent in the faint light of pre-dawn to discover one of the most odd things I had ever woken up to (and I've woken up in some pretty crazy situations before.) There were Coyote tracks all over my camp. They had come in the middle of the night, probably smelling me and my food, and had... uh... marked their territory. Yeah, ok fine, I'll say it... they pissed all over my tent! More than once. I would have been upset about it if I didn't find the idea of Coyotes peeing on me in my sleep oddly hilarious. There were little yellows craters at the foot of my tent where they had peed on the tent, then the warm animal-water had dripped down and melted the snow. Brilliant.
It was easily one of the funniest moments I had ever spent in the backcountry. Then I went and shot this image while imagining those little tyrannical coyotes having a laugh at me.
I should have saw the photo first then read the story, now all I keep thinking of is peeing coyotes .
At least they gave you a warning and not come into the tent looking for you :P
Great photo, the hard work sure paid off. I just really like that soft light on the snow. The nice pink hue is wonderful.
You know, I like this shot. The purple snow is bothering me. A more natural snow appearance would have a much more winter impact for me, which would make the image stronger. Plus it would bring out the contrasts.
Excellent tones and composition. Nice light work with the glow coming from the right and behind the peak. I also think the color palette is spot on. With the composition of the foreground and the light, I do get a sense of wanting to look further to the right to see directly into the sun. It's like there's something really awesome going on over there but the frame cuts it off, leaving me wanting to see more. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. That being said, I think it's a great scene, with excellent editing and overall execution.
I would love to see a print. Have you printed it? I'm wondering what the dark areas in the trees at the base of the mountain look like on paper or aluminum. Looks great on the monitor, but the shadow may go muddy depending on print medium.
What a crazy story! I am glad now that I don't use candles out there, that could have been even worse for you. The comforting thing about coyotes, is they were just there protecting you... They even left you reminders of how they care...
What a really cool shot. I am not bothered by any toning in the snow, it looks very natural to me. Sometimes we do need to cut down on the tones in the snow, but in the case of this shot, I like it as it is.
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