Day 9 -- Terry Trail

 I went back to the Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve again to do the other trail -- the long one -- the Terry Trail.  It's not only longer, it's tougher. I'm sure it doesn't rate anything above "moderate" but I'm 60+ and carrying a camera on a tripod so there's that.  I really wish I wasn't in love with sturdy tripods, but I am.  It make's for a sturdy (if cumbersome) walking stick in slippery places too.

Anyway, before I even got out of the parking lot I was lured back to the Disc Golf course for this shot.

For those that don't know how to get a "sun star", set your apeture at its smallest setting -- F22 in this case -- point it at the Sun, click away and hope for the best.  I always take my skylight filter (really just a lens protection filter) off before pointing the lens straight at a point light source.  Otherwise you can get some strange reflections (especially with candles).  Anyway, when you shoot at F22, you're not letting light in very fast so your shutter speeds (of course) get longer. 1/5th of a second here.  That's when it helps to have a sturdy tripod.

Moving on down the road, er, trail...I think you're actually in the city limits of Huntsville in this part so it shouldn't be a surprise that you have cell service. And you can point your smartphone at the QR code and download the self-guided big tree tour.  (I did it but I didn't really use it.)

That's how I found this black tree.  I don't really want to put that with walnut because when you put those two together some people see dollar signs.  So maybe the bots will miss this and leave it to the people that appreciate trees.  But it's the biggest and healthiest one I've ever seen.  Just so you'll know what to look for, here's some bark and leaves.

And now I need to get to work on my little bit of nature so I'll get down to my best picture of the morning.  It's of Mossy Falls. (It's on the trail map.) It's more moss than falls (I didn't see or hear any  water) but it's pretty.  There's rock under all of Huntsville and I'm told there are a lot of part-time water falls.  You have to be there during or immediately after a rain as water drains off the mountains.  We'll see.

All-in-all it was a good hike. I enjoyed the tree identification part more than I thought I would (there's a sugar maple!) and all the signs are unobtrusive enough they don't offend a photographer's eye.  So far I'm really impressed with the Land Trust of Northern Alabama and I'm glad I joined. I'll have to look around and see what I want to do tomorrow.

Don Brown
May 13, 2021