Opal Creek Adventures

Yesterday was Monday, but it was my Saturday. Which meant that it was a perfect day for an adventure! John was wanting to go fishing and I wanted to a new-to-us place. That's when I mentioned Opal Creek and showed him a photo of someone fishing there.

Now, keep in mind that we both had backpacks and were prepared for what we were heading into, especially with our late start for the 8.5 mile hike ... but first an iPhone pic of the real heroes of our day, Kona and Coal.

These two were real troopers. This was our first long hike as a family and the only complaining they did was when the three of us left John on the river to do a little scouting.

We arrived at the trailhead by 5:00 pm and headed down the trail with our packs and pups. It took us a good 1.5 hours of brisk hiking to reach a spot along the trail where Battle Ax Creek fed into the North Santiam, which we decided was a good place to stop and stash our packs. John took off his hiking shoes and pulled up his waders, put on his fishing vest, set up his rod, and then was in the crystal clear water. While he was out in the river, the dogs and I did a little scouting for a good place to set up my tripod for a long exposure of the river.

But before I show you what photo I created, I wanted to give you an idea of what we packed and how we were prepared for our late afternoon adventure.

John's backpack:
• Fishing Gear (rod, reel, flies, waders, fishing vest)
• Dog food (Kona and Coal's dinner)
• Metal bowl for dog's dinner (they ate one at a time and it could double to boil water if needed)
• Coat for him
• 2 bunches of parachute cord
• 2 flashlights with extra batteries
• 1 liter of water
• Small hydro-flask of coffee
• Sleeping bag
• Pocketknife
• Lighter

My backpack:
• Camera gear (Rebel T3i camera body, Canon 24-108 f4 lens, Tokina 11-16 f2.8 lens, polarizer, tripod, mini towel, lens clothes, shutter release)
• Food (2 cooked pork chops, 2 apples, pack of crackers for our dinner)
• 1 long sleeved shirt
• Warm coat for me
• Toilet paper and way to pack it out
• 2 flashlights with extra batteries
• Gloves
​• Multitool
• 1 liter of water
• Roll of bright orange doggie bags (could double as flagging tape)

Needless to say, if it was absolutely necessary, we could have spent the night.

And that brings you to this photo I took when it was nearly 9:00 pm. And this next part is for the photo geek in you ...

I took this photo on a very tall foot bridge with my tripod leaning over the rail (don't worry the camera strap was around my neck). I used my Tokina 11-16 f2.8 lens with my polarizer. The polarizer meant I had to have a long shutter speed (5 seconds to be exact and I still brought up the exposure in post), but it also meant that I could cut most of the glare in the pool of still water so you could see the amazing green color. And since it was getting to be so dark, I had to manually focus to infinity, but that meant that I didn't have to worry about any hotspots from the sunshine. The settings were: 13mm (did cropped in post), f2.8, ISO 100, 5 seconds. And as always I tweaked settings in Lightroom.

After I moved my tripod on the bridge around for a couple different compositions, John, Kona, Coal, and I were on our way back through Jawbone Flats and to the car. We had passed through Jawbone Flats around 9:15 pm and then pulled out our flashlights to navigate the 3+ miles on the rocky road back to the trailhead.

A little bit of excitement happened when our flashlight beam hit the reflector of a traffic cone along the road. Apparently, Coal thought it was the reflection of some animal and started barking at it and pulling on his leash. He was very brave, protecting his little family from potential danger, and we were happy to know of how he might react if we did happy upon an animal in the dark woods.

We made it back to the car in record time (10:20 pm), and walking along the road helped us to keep our pace up. We were rewarded with a fantastic view of the stars and decided to get a couple shots before jumping in the car and heading home.

This photo was once again taken with my Tokina 11-16 f2.8 on my tripod. John was playing around with the embers of his cigarette butt in the parking lot, which is the red lines you see. I was quick with my settings, but for those interested they were: 16mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 30 seconds.

So, if you go out on the trail, especially a new one to you, make sure that you're prepared for fun and any scenarios that might happen. Such as if John and I were to fall into the water, we had a sleeping bag to get warm in and potentially share for the night. We had plenty of water and a way to boil more water to drink, plus a way to gather wood for a fire and light it. Please remember to practice Leave No Trace and to Pack It In, Pack It Out so that the beauty of nature can be shared with all for years to come.