Some images taken along the southern Rim Trail in Hibernia County Park, when the air temperature was 9°F!
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I was in the area, and with this most likely the last snow of the season, I decided to visit the mill.
The last time I had been here, was last summer, and I wondered what had changed.
One of the areas I wanted to find this time, was the “Orange Room”, which I thought I saw on the last visit, but ran out of time to investigate.
As I walked further into the building, I could hear the wind blowing outside, and water dripping from the holes in the roof.
What was very startling, was how close the cars on the road sounded. There where several times, I thought they were driving in the building!
The occasionally, one of the side doors would slam a direction, and scare the hell out of you!
All in all, it was a good trip!
Thanks for looking!
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The past two nights, we had our first snow falls of 2011.
It was nothing major, about 3″-4″, enough to give the ground a good covering, and then some.
I was not able to go out Friday, but after running Family errands all Saturday, I finally got some time at the end of the day!
Grabbing my gear, and knowing that I did not have much light left, I jumped in my car, and headed to the little stream area off of Norwood Road in Downingtown.
Having driven up and down this road thousands of times, I knew of a small little parking area, about mid-way down the road. After parking, I realized that it also seemed to be an entrance to an ancient access road.
Now I was ready to go! I through my camera bag and tripod over my shoulders, and headed slight back out the road, and into the woods.
Having never walked this area before, it was funny breaking new territory with the fresh snow, but finding trails was very difficult.
Eventually, I did find two sets of prints in the snow: boots and paws, and by the looks of the paw prints, that canine was having allot fun!
I had to cross the stream, back and forth several times, scouting and shooting with each adventure, and I was capturing everything in multi-exposure HDR.
It was getting colder by the minute, and I was not collapsing my tripod with each shoot, which on several occasions, also doubled as a nice balancing rod!
Slowly, I moved up stream, finding many wonderful shoots, and taking in the beauty of the moment.
After about an hour, the light was getting too low and so was the temperature.
I crawled back up to Norwood road, startling homeowner across the street, shoving their driveway, as I broke through the trees.
It took me a few more minutes to get back to the car, and another seemingly successful outing.
May 31, 2011 – With the Winter memories slowly fading away, I finally got a chance to revisit Norwood Road Creek with my son, Logan, for an afternoon walk in the cold water!
After spending the morning checking in with the world, I got myself ready to spend some time walking along the Struble Trail near the Dowlin Forge Road entrance.
It was an over cast day, and one could “smell” the snow in the air, something I was able to learn from living in New England for so many years!
From the entrance, I headed North on the paved trail, and after a short time, I found the small dirt trail that leads down to the edge of the Brandywine creek itself. I was definitely nice to see, that I was one of the first ones to adventure through the snow.
Once by the water’s edge, I setup my camera on the tripod, and just looked around to see how the snow had covered the area:
As you can see, the light snow that covered the trees and rocks was just enough to add a wonderful dimension to everything that I was seeing.
Then I started to focus my camera on the creek itself.
More images from the creek level area can be found on my Flickr Photostream.
I started back to the snow covered land, and back in to the woods and on the small trail, were I looked around at what nature had to offer with the snow cover.
Finally back on the paved trailed, I started back to the Parking Lot, and encountered some large rocks that had a beautiful collection of moss, lichens and ice.
Back at the Parking Lot, I ran into another Photographer putting his gear away after his afternoon trek. We discussed different areas we had been, and additional areas in Downingtown to shoot.
Eventually, he said his good-byes, and was off.
He was late to a meeting.
Looking at my watch, I figured I has a little time to check out the Grist Mill ruins just off the Uwchlan Trail along the Shamona Creek.
After crossing Dowlin Forge Road, I started up Uwchlan Trail.
In the distance, I could see a man and a women crossing the small wooden bridge near the ruins.
After a minute or two later, I was at the bridge, and started across.
BAM!
I landed on my butt!
My camera was safe, and as I tried to get up, I realized that I had severely twisted my ankle, and had to use the bridge for support!
Standing there on my left leg, I tried to put weight on my right ankle, but was greeted with great pain.
Guess, I was not going to visit the Mill ruins after all!
Using my tripod as a walking support, I was able to get back to my car, and get home.
OUCH!