Last Friday, Steve and I went camping at Hone Quarry outside of Harrisonburg. The Forest Service campground is small and rustic, and nestled in a deep hollow of Shenandoah Mountain. It’s a beautiful spot that feels isolated even though it’s fairly close to civilization. It’s also not very crowded in the off season. We managed to choose the coldest night to camp. Temperatures dropped down to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the comfort limit of my 20 degree sleeping bag. It’s good to know the insulation survived the washing machine. In the morning, we hiked the short trail to a rock overlook and then tried to drive to Reddish Knob, but at 4300 feet, the road still had some snow drifts near the summit that were not going to fare well with my car. We headed down the mountain and went to Second Mountain for an afternoon of bouldering.

Last weekend, the new staff arrived for the start of training. We’ve been teaching them the ropes (literally) while playing on the elements and getting them set up for the new season. Training continues next week and we’ll get our first school group the week after. Here are a few photos documenting our fun.

Megan jumps from the Leap of Faith

Jon posing on the Leap of Faith

Steve climbs a tree

Mashawn jumps over the stream

Huck plays with a stick

Working together to switch islands

Sitting around the campfire

During today’s photo shoot, I discovered that we have more sparrows on property than I originally thought. While going through the pictures, I identified Fox Sparrow and White-crowned Sparrow, both of which are uncommon according to the Sibley field guide.

If I learned anything from this photo session, it’s that my lens, the Canon EF-s 18-200 is not very good on the long end. The images are surprisingly sharp, but Chromatic Aberration is difficult to work with, Autofocus is inaccurate much of the time, and it’s really just not long enough for photographing small birds. Someday, I will have a Canon 100-400. But at least this lens is better than my old 70-300. ]]> http://www.mineral2.com/personal/photographing-birds-on-the-farm/feed 2 http://www.mineral2.com/personal/a-new-mineral2-com http://www.mineral2.com/personal/a-new-mineral2-com#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:55:43 +0000 Matt http://www.mineral2.com/?p=35 For the longest time, I have been wanting to re-design my site to make it easy to update and manage content. At first, I thought a content management system would suit me, but I found them to be a bit daunting. Perhaps later I’ll re-visit the idea, but for the amount of content that I [...]]]> For the longest time, I have been wanting to re-design my site to make it easy to update and manage content. At first, I thought a content management system would suit me, but I found them to be a bit daunting. Perhaps later I’ll re-visit the idea, but for the amount of content that I actually publish, a blogging platform would do me much better. I still have the photography up using Gallery2 and the main website is now using Wordpress. I figured if I’m going to provide stories and updates, I might as well do it in blog form rather than use dreamweaver and static content.

So, welcome to the new Mineral2.com. I’m still playing around with the new system, but hopefully this means I can provide updates more often and keep this site active once more. Current projects include integrating photo galleries with wordpress and customizing my own theme design. At lest now I can manage my site on the go.

Enjoy.

Its Memorial Day Weekend already! My how time flies. There’s been a lot happening lately, and between illnesses and deaths in the family, I haven’t been out exploring and backpacking as much as I would have liked. I’m finally going to get out on my three-day weekend. I will be hiking the Three Ridges Wilderness loop with two nights out on the trail.

Next week, Erin and I leave for Las Vegas for a friend’s wedding. I’m more excited about our week at Zion National Park after all the festivities. I’ve got film ordered, but I fear it may not be enough. But have no fear, new photography will come as I pick up my camera once more.

Wow. I realized I haven’t updated this place in quite some time. A lot has happened in the past year. I went back to Ferry Beach (www.fbes.org) in the fall and had some fun on the coast of Maine with weekends in the White Mountains again. I spent the winter in Hagerstown unsuccessfully looking for a job. And now I’ve finally found one in Luray, Va with the Sheridan School’s Mountain Campus (www.mountaincampus.org). I work at a facility nestled up against Shenandoah National Park, and literally somewhere in the photo above.

We’re still in training week, but work has been great so far. Everyone there is friendly and its great to be out of the dirty city. The job is less science-based and more adventure and teambuilding, though the science content is certainly growing and expanding. I’m excited to be taking students on hikes, backpacking trips, overnight canoe trips, rock climbing and into caves.

Over the fall and winter, I also applied to the zoology graduate program at the University of New Hampshire. If all goes well, I shall be moving North again by the end of summer.

Happy Spring, and more updates to come.

I’m in Illinois now and will be here for a good majority of the year. While I’m living 40 miles in the Chicago suburbs, I’ve already taken a trip to the Mississippi River to see the Bald Eagles and am planning a weekend to Nebraska to watch the mass of Sandhill Cranes as they stopover on their migration north. As the spring approaches, I hope to go south to some terrain that is reminiscent of Alabma. I also plan to go northward to view the waterfowl and the flowers of the North Woods. Of course, I will also get back into city photography with some extensive shoots of Chicago and the suburbs. It looks like I’m on my way to amassing a collection of photos that I can only call “America.”

My White Mountain adventures have been strenuous, but fun. It started Labor Day weekend with Mount Lafayette, the 5200 foot giant at Franconia Notch. The elevation gain in 4 miles was a little under 4000 feet and the whole hike took 7.5 hours. But the views up there were worth every ache and pain. Two weeks later I did Mount Chcorua, a smaller mountain to the south, but its bald, rocky summit gives way to great views of the mountains. Next was Kearsarge North, 200 feet smaller than Chocorua, but with an observation tower on top. Kearsarge is located just beyond North Conway, NH and looks up the Mount Washington Valley right at the 6300 foot giant itself. On Columbus Day weekend, I did an overnight on Mount Adams, the second highest peak at 5800 and part of the Presidentials chain. I spent the second night lower down at Mountain Lake and woke up to the sounds of loons crying and splashing in the water. I also finally saw my Moose. A couple weeks later, I went back up Mount Chocorua with some of my fellow naturalists from Ferry Beach for a 10-mile circuit.

Since then, it has gotten cold and snow has fallen in the higher elevations of the mountains. Time worked itself out so that I haven’t been back up there, but I may be back in December and so I shall hike some more peaks then. But in a week, I get to go to my new house in Virginia and do some more hiking around Mount Rogers.