Sometimes I get the bug to go out and look for new locations and take new pictures. This was the case in early April of this year. After a blitz of research on the web I decided on a "quick" 5 hour drive down Virginia's famous Skyline Drive. I threw everything into the car including the photo dog and set off.
I must say, I have never seen more wildlife then I saw wondering the road of Skyline Drive at 3am. Countless deer, 5 raccoons, and one skunk (luckily no bear, bears scare me.) I also must say, if you are going to make the drive, make the drive during the daytime; the scenery is much better. At any rate, I managed to avoid hitting any critters although I did slow down and stuck my head out the window to scare some of the passing deer.
I finally arrived at my chosen destination on milepost 85 at 4:25am. I hoped out of the car and climbed into the back and took a one hour nap. My phone alarm went off and we set off in search of the trail. We crossed the road and started down a fire road. Turned out this was just a fire road and didn't connect into any trails, I realized there was a problem when this road headed downhill and I was going to a place called "Blackstone Summit". I scurried back up the hill and back into the parking lot where I spotted in the back corner what appeared to be a trail head. Me and Sparky head up this trail which a signpost tells me connects with the Appalachian Trail. We arrive at the top of the trail leaving only a 100 foot scamper up a rock strew field. Now, Mr. Sparky is quite agile, even more so considering he is a 7 year old herding breed and not a mountain dog, but he was having trouble, I had to help him up to a spot where I could continue on to the top but still see him.
So now I am at the top and I realize there is a problem. There are clouds and they do not seem to be clearing. That and the 30 mile an hour winds. I tried to take a few low light shots of the mist in the valleys but they did not want to come out sharp with the winds vibrating my tripod. I ended up having to switch to targets which could be captured with a shorter shutter speed. I turned by back to the wind to shield the camera and pointed towards the growing glow in the east under the cloud layer.
This shot is a single image taken at 18mm at f/16 for 0.8 seconds.
