Blue Ridge Parkway - Meadows of Dan

The Meadows of Dan makes a great stopping point along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I tend to want to spend the night there because it is the closest place to spend the night near Mabry Mill. Getting up for sunrise photos is MUCH easier when you are close to your subject. We've stayed at the Meadows of Dan RV park and thought it was a nice place. This time we stayed at the Blue Ridge Motel. It is an older hotel, but the owners were very friendly and it also made a good place to stay. Our ATT cell phone service had no signal and we had no internet, but for one night in this area it was worth it.

We had dinner at the Mountain House Restaurant. They served a great buffet of "home cooked" food.



The Poor Farmer's Market is a must stop. Not only was there fresh produce - squash, apples, pumpkins, tomatoes, etc, but inside the store was Amish fresh churned butter, jellies, fresh baked goods, fresh local cheeses, specialty teas, etc. I spent thirty minutes wandering through the store and we left with breads and crisp sweet apples. If we had been in the RV, I would have bought both cheese and the churned butter.

New River Gorge National River

As a country we have set aside a number of river areas as National Rivers. The Ozark National Scenic Riverways was the first, set aside in 1964. More have been added under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was passed in 1968:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation which, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural or other similar values, shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Congress declares that the established national policy of dams and other construction at appropriate sections of the rivers of the United States needs to be complemented by a policy that would preserve other selected rivers or sections thereof in their free-flowing condition to protect the water quality of such rivers and to fulfill other vital national conservation purposes. (Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, October 2, 1968)

Some of these rivers are managed by the National Park Service, some by Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and others National Forest Service. There are a number that are in partnership with other state and local agencies, Partnership Wild and Scenic Rivers.

When looking for something to visit on our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway, we chose the New River Gorge National River in southern West Virginia. I gave myself a day to scout out the area and I definitely would like to go back and spend more time exploring the area. It is a unique river in North America, because it flows north!

We woke up to a cloudy, somewhat wet morning.


We started at the Grandview area. The overlook of the gorge was obscured by the fog, but the forest was lovely in its partially obscured state. The foliage was past its peak, but the fallen leaves left a beautiful carpet underneath the trees.



We ate a picnic lunch by Glade Creek - sitting on rocks by the boat launch. There were these amazing insects that moved by the thousands along the water creating ripples. Along the road to the Glade Creek campground, I saw my first Downy woodpecker. It is one of the smallest woodpeckers - I would not have realized it was a woodpecker if I had not had the binoculars to see it more clearly.

New River Gorge has four visitor centers - Canyon Rim, Sandstone, Thurmon Depot, and Grand View. Canyon RIm and Sandstone are open year round. Canyon Rim is right near the beautiful New River Gorge Bridge, the world's second longest single arch bridge. We were not there for dramatic enough lighting for me to venture a photo (yes, I've gotten bad, if I can't get a good or great photo, I don't take one at all - silly me) The next day was going to be "Bridge Day." The bridge is closed to vehicular traffic and fills with pedestrians. Activities include Base jumping, rappelling, and high line, and rafting below. Naturally vendors supply food and refreshment as well as souvenir shirts, crafts, and photos, etc. While this might be a fun thing to attend another year, our time was limited and I was glad we happened by the day before rather than the day of the event.

We went from the falls area over to the Thurmon historic district. I had seen a backroads route that I wanted to explore. We found the beautiful Dunlap Creek:



Some parts of my backcountry route definitely fit in the "road less travelled' category, but it was a great road to be pretty much by yourself in a beautiful outdoor area. It was also a great place to create more of these artistic images that I have not come up with a great name for. I liked this one because of how the small tree shows up with its brilliant yellow foliage.



While I did not find that "perfect" place to photograph the New River, I did stop at the end of the day to get at least a few shots at the river level.




The next morning we went over to the Sandstone Visitor Center. This is a new, very beautiful Visitor Center - well worth the stop. We saw the Sandstone Falls from the road. It was a long hike down and it was a bright sunny day, so we continued our journey south following the foliage.

I would love to come back to this area and spend a week both exploring and trying to wait for those perfect lighting moments.

The Falls at Dunloup Creek

One of my goals for this trip was to find great fall scenes. I paid particular attention to the creeks and rivers hoping to find something that I could do really creative things with. When I first saw the waterfalls at Dunloup Creek in the New River Gorge National River area, I could hardly get out of the car fast enough. At first I was frustrated because there were branches in the way of my view and I did not immediately see a way to get a clear view. Henry found a way that I could get the views I wanted.

While I did not shoot in any particular order, my goal was to get the big picture and then to find ways to photograph smaller portions of the fall in a more intimate view.

I used my 24-105mm lens with a polarizing filter to get the "big picture." I had it set at 35mm rather than the full 24mm wide angle because there were distracting elements that I did not want in the photo.



I zoomed in for a closer view at 47mm:



I changed to my 100-400 and moved the polarizing filter over. This one was shot at 100mm:



Now, look back at the "big picture." Do you see that very tiny double waterfall at the top. With the 100-400mm zoomed out to 320mm, that small cascade takes on a life of its own.



I probably spent an hour or more here, trying to find all the possible compositions. While none of these images are HDR, I was also shooting for HDR - so each composition had at least 3 exposures to be sure I had gotten the water action I wanted as well as the exposure on the rocks and fallen leaves. I was lucky that the weather was cloudy - so my lighting for this was nice and even. I could not have asked for anything better.

Creative Images

When I'm shooting for these creative images, I take a lot of images that just don't work. I get just enough intriguing ones that it keeps me trying this technique.

This one came from the New River Gorge National Scenic River area. To me this one came out looking a lot like my sister-in law, Mary Solomon's pastel imagery.

Coal Mining P.S.

We've had internet issues the last few days - our hotel did not have it and we couldn't get Edge for our Sierra Air Card. I wasn't able to get this website to load until this evening here in Knoxville.

Here is one more article with a photo about the mountain top mining in West Virginia.

Warning: It is not a pretty picture!

From The Star, Coal mining ravages Appalachia.

Mountain Top Mining Revisited

Back in June, I posted a blog about West Virginia mining issues. I still read Julie Zickefoose's blog. As well as her usual birding and Chet Baker features, she brings up the current situation with mountain top mining in West Virginia.


She points to this New York Times article which discusses the measures being put in place by elected officials before their terms are up to keep this type of mining activity going.

We just passed through West Virginia. We saw large signs, "Friend of Coal." Now while I DON"T favor cutting off the tops of mountains and filling stream beds to get needed energy resources, I also wonder what the local population really thinks about these issues. We tend to think of mining corporations raping the land for corporate profits that then line already rich people's pockets. What we don't also remember - mines require laborers. Coal workers are a vital part of West Virginia's economy. Coal mining in underground mines has its dangers to mine workers as well as environmental issues that I certainly am not well educated about. But in an economy that is losing jobs right and left, I can understand a coal miner trying to feed his or her family that is worried about whether his job will survive.

Upon researching Friends of Coal, it appears to be a coal industry group. While I found some interesting and positive information about new things related to the ways that coal can help our energy problems, I also found some other websites with information as well.

Apparently today's realities - due to modern mechanism, it takes fewer workers to mine the much larger amounts of coal today. Of course, mountain top mining takes even less workers than more traditional underground mines.

I would like to live in an ideal world - where mining companies, the workers, and the environmentalists could all be working toward the same goals.

Some of the sites I looked at in addition to Friends of Coal are:

Treehugger

Appalachian Greens Be sure to read down to J Pratt's comment. It represents "the other side" to this issue.

The stream up at the top is a tributary to New River in West Virginia. It is part of the protected New River National Scenic River. West Virginia is a beautiful state. I know that we will need coal as a natural resource, but surely we can find ways to extract coal without ruining the beauty and ecology of a beautiful part of our country.

Mining Issues

I suspect you could call me a voracious internet reader, but I suspect that there are others who really spend more time than I do. I generally only read blogs from people that I have met or with whom I am friends. I met Julie Zickefoose at the Festival of the Cranes at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I was fascinated with her stories of caring for hummingbird chicks and swift chicks. I have enjoyed the beautiful artwork and the stories in her book Letters from Eden. So I added her to my list of blogs that I regularly read. Her last two posts are important to share: Mountaintop Removal Mining and How it all works.

I've been a regular visitor to Colorado since I was a young girl. I have enjoyed the rustic old mining ghost towns with their dilapidated houses and sluices. It represents a time in history when we thought everything was unlimited. We were not as aware of what the process of digging out ore did to the streams. There are a number of streams that still run red and orange from mining in the past. To our credit, there are a few areas that have really been cleaned up and revegetated. There is even one stream that used to be red that is now clear. But the residue remains on the stream bed.

In my local area in Texas, Alcoa runs a big mining operation near Rockdale. I know that one of the leaders in Girl Scouts used to set up tours. Historically this area has produced lignite, oil, and aluminum. It claims: "Today not only does the mine produce more than six million tons of lignite annually, it manages an extensive, award-winning reclamation program in the effort to restore the land to a condition that is equal to or better than it was before mining."

Texas rolling blackland prairie is going to be much easier to reclaim and revegetate than West Virginia mountain tops.

I foolishly thought we had more protections in place to protect our environment. I don't see any of our presidential candidates taking stands and talking about what they would do to protect our environment.

I realize that this is still "heresy" but part of me wishes that we had done more with nuclear energy. There has only been one major accident (Chernobyl) and a minor incident at Three Mile Island. I know that we have not figured out what to do with the waste, but so much of the research ended as well. The other issue is certainly what developing countries would do with nuclear power plants and waste with their much more limited budgets. There is a part of me that wonders whether global warming would be as much of an issue if our power plants were nuclear rather than coal and if we had developed a way to run our cars with clean electrical batteries or hydrogen fuels.

There are so many jokes about technologies that "big business" has buried to protect their own interests. I so want to believe that we as humans are smarter than that.

Wind power is clean with at least 30 years of research. We still have to be careful to protect view corridors and migrating birds, but I am hearing good things about the possibilities ahead of us with wind energy. It seems to me to be a lot better than tearing down mountains and fouling streams.