4 WHEEL ALIGNMENT

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Explore #352 29-10-10

One of last nights star trail shots over at Hadleigh Castle in Essex. I had several missed opportunities in the past week where I couldn't get out to take advantage of clear skys so last night I dropped my friend Russ a quick text to see if he fancied sitting in a damp field for a couple of hours and surprisingly he said "yes.....sounds like fun". We arrived at 10.30pm, greeted by cloudy skys :( Luckily these cleared away quite quickly. We were joined briefly by some yoofs who painted a bit of their own light into the image. I don't think they realised we were there as shortly after I'd fired up the floodlight they disappeared.

The light was provided by a remote area lighting product, borrowed from the office, which was a past design job for one of our clients.....and it was bloody awesome. It's LED based so it provided some nice blue light - it was switched on for a few seconds in one of the exposures to paint some light onto the brickwork.

With my previous attempts in the garden I hadn't encountered the problems of condensation on the lens. About halfway through the 50mins shot time the lens started to fog up, obscuring the castle. Luckily the trails still shone through (but gradually fade out). I think this actually adds quite a nice (accidental) effect.

I somehow managed to capture Russ motionless in one of the 30 sec exposures so I kept him in the composition......I think he adds something good to the image, silhouetted on the horizon. I had wanted to include the north star in the shot but I couldn't get round to the right spot - the hill that the castle stands on dropped away rapidly fairly close to where I was standing.

After a few hours in the cold & damp I had quite a few shots to work with so at 1.10am, several coffees down and a flat camera battery we headed for home.

Image comprised of 99 (max shots available on continuous shooting with Nikon cameras) 30 second exposures overlaid to show the spin of the earth reflected in the star trail movement. Bit of work in photoshop to adjust contrasts to enhance the trails and to overlay layers.

WHAT AN OUTSTANDING TRAIL. This is the PCT as it starts to drop down off the high point on the high route across Old Snowy Mountain. The large majority of backpackers take the low route across the top of the Packwood Glacier (it is 1/2 mile shorter and 500 feet less elevation gain) BUT for the views and the experience - - the high route is the BEST route. OMT

September 7th & 8th, 2008:
This trip consisted of a short backpacking trip (four miles) up to the intersection of trails: 96 & 86 (from the Snowgrass flats trailhead) into the Goat Rocks Wilderness. Near the trail intersection I set up my tent to use as a "base camp" for two nice day hikes on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.

The first "day hike" from my tent site, was up to Goat Lake and the ribbon water falls of Goat Creek. This is a short easy hike through meadows of wildflowers and whistling marmot. Because of the late snow pack in the Cascade Mountains this year (2008), many of the wildflowers bloomed late and lupine still flourish. The harbinger of fall, the mountain bog gentian are showing up in bloom now.

Though clear skies prevailed, a really strong gusting wind storm rattled my tent late Sunday night.

The second day hike started Monday morning at 7:30 am when I left my tent site with a day pack. I hiked up trail 96 to the Pacific Crest Trail. At the PCT I hiked north and up over the high route of the Pacific Crest Trail, up over Old Snowy Mountain. I hiked north up and down the spine of the ridge until I was just above Elk Pass.

I returned back to my tent in the afternoon, following the low route across the west face of Old Snowy Mountain, that passes just above the Packwood Glacier.

The weather was perfect; the mosquitoes were few; the camp fire soul soothing; and you can't beat the scenery, exercise, and fresh mountain air.

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