I captured this image at sunrise on a recent photo shoot at Sequoyah State Park, near Wagoner, Oklahoma. It is one of the photos I entered today into the Norman Park Foundation’s 2014 Tree Photo Contest.

As I drove to work this morning I noticed the low fog hanging in the (South) Canadian River Valley and veered off my usual course to grab a couple of shots with an iPhone 5. I like the way this one turned out.

See my article on the work of the volunteers with Friends of the Ouachita Trail and the Ozark Highlands Trail Association in the latest issue of Arkansas Living magazine:

http://onlinedigitalpubs.com/publication/?i=222513

 

I found this lone sunflower at the end of the trail on top of a mesa at Gloss Mountains State Park at sunrise. It was doing what sunflowers do and facing directly east into the sun.

 

Glad to see my latest hiking story in TrailGroove magazine:

http://www.trailgroove.com/issue17.html

While in Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge, along the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, my colleague Debby Kaspari and I came cross this gigantic cottonwood tree. I saw some big cottonwoods along the banks of streams in Arizona which far outstripped anything I had seen in Oklahoma for size, but this one takes the prize! Climbing into the tree for a photo was a nonnegotiable for me, and I was able to use a couple of small trees behind this big one as climbing aids. The tree was draped with long, lush strands of Virginia creeper, which blew dramatically in the wind. It is difficult to effectively convey in a photograph the height of this great, and undoubtedly very old, living thing.

Here’s my review of Romantic Mountain Cabin, Medicine Park, Oklahoma (from Oklahoma Today magazine)

MountainHomeRoutesMJ14

Arkansas Living Magazine’s April issue features my story on hiking Eagle Rock Loop. See page 10!
http://onlinedigitalpubs.com/publication/?i=202314