Sometimes it’s fun to take you along with me, virtually, as I hike a trail, showing you many of the various sights I see, giving you a feel for the location and time of year. In this case I decided to hike a trail my father and I had hiked part of in the past. This time I was on my own and wanted to try hiking a little further than we’d been before. Little did I know when I set out that I’d spend about 3 1/2 hours hiking a large loop instead of just heading in and back out on the same path as I’d initially planned. Because of the length of the trip and all I saw this will be a rather long and photograph heavy post, but I’m hoping you’ll enjoy seeing the variety a late fall morning offered.
I began the hike around 7:28 am in Prince William Forest Park in Prince William County, Virginia. It’s become one of my favorite parks. It doesn’t have any iconic grand landscape views but is full of smaller, more intimate scenes that I just love, not to mention all the various plants and critters. It was the first week of November, so late autumn when the leaves are very actively falling from the trees. I parked at the lot along the beginning of Mawavi Road, interestingly named by an early camp user by taking the first two letters of Maryland, Washington, and Virginia and stringing them together.
Below is what Mawavi Road looks like. It’s a gravel road that slowly winds downhill to South Fork Quantico Creek. I’m going to include a number with each photo today to give you an idea of how many photos I sometimes create during a hike. Each time I go out I number the photos from 1 to whatever so I know how many photos I created on each outing.
Photo 10: Mawavi Road in autumn
Alongside the road I found a beech tree whose leaves had mostly already changed color and were quickly turning brown. But this one had a small bit of color left. I loved how individual leaves showed the transition from green to yellow and on to brown.
Photo 24: The colors of autumn beech leaves.
At one point I stopped to create some abstract images of the trees alongside the road. Sometimes I’ll experiment with intentional camera motion to create a more artistic and impressionistic view of a scene. I’ll share some of these photos in a future post, but what I’m sharing here is what I discovered when I lowered the camera to the forest floor. The entire time I was photographing there was a white-tailed deer foraging right in front of me. It was incredibly patient with me. Most will run off as soon as they see, hear or smell me. But this one just kept going about its business. I learned that I could make a noise, moving and crunching on the gravel road and the deer would just look up at me, twisting its ears to hear, and then go right back to eating. I love these sorts of moments!
Photo 62: I caught the attention of a white-tailed deer not far away in the woods.
Sometimes I like to turn around and see what the scene looks like just behind me. In this case I noticed how the sun was lighting up this yellow tree. It’s a simple scene, and certainly not a stunning photograph, but I wanted to remember it and how I felt when I saw it.
Photo 105: Turning around I saw a bit of color on Mawavi Road.
This time of year is a great time to look down at the leaf litter. Sometimes you can find interesting patterns and arrangements. What drew me to the scene below was this lone, pale fern sticking out of the layer of brown leaves.
Photo 129: On old and faded fern pokes out of a layer of fallen leaves.
When I reached South Fork Quantico Creek I turned left and started following South Valley Trail along the creek. In some areas the trail seems cut out from the trees and shrubs that line the edges, and at this time of year it’s completely covered in leaves.
Photo 157: Turning left I began following the leaf covered South Valley Trail.
If you hike the trail far enough you’ll get glimpses of Mawavi Lake, a lake created along the creek and situated just below some cabins folks can camp in. By the time I reached the lake the sun was fully up in the sky and most all the clouds had left, so the light was rather bright and harsh, which can make some sorts of photography more difficult. I chose to create a number of abstracts in this location, but I also wanted to show you a couple small scenes as I saw them. You can see bits of color in the two photos below, especially that one red tree. And the reflections are always nice.
Photo 186: Reflections of red on Mawavi Lake.
Photo 250: Reflections and the far shore of Mawavi Lake.
After I’d spent enough time creating abstracts and watching the very loud group of Canada geese on the lake it was time to get going again, so I continued on the path that weaves around the lake.
Photo 252: Continuing along the leaf-covered trail beside Mawavi Lake.
As some point my eyes were drawn to a patch of green with a single small mushroom growing out of it. I created a number of photos of this mushroom from various angles. I love these small, simple scenes.
Photo 279: A lone mushroom hiding in a carpet of greenery.
Another simple scene was this beautiful arrangement, one I found naturally, of a fallen beech leaf and oak leaf resting together. I love the little bits of red at the edges of the otherwise green oak leaf.
Photo 317: Beech and oak.
Not too much further up the trail I noticed movement below. The day had begun rather cool and I had on a long-sleeved shirt, but now it was getting rather warm so I’d removed the extra shirt. It was apparently warm enough for this wolf spider to be moving about below.
Photo 334: A wolf spider moved in the grass and leaves below.
When I reached the intersection between South Valley Trail, which I was on, and High Meadows Trail, which heads back uphill towards the Scenic Drive, I stopped and rested on a rock alongside the creek, had a small bite to eat and a bit of water to drink. Then I decided to make a loop of the trip by taking High Meadows Trail instead of turning around. When I stood up and began walking I noticed movement below and saw a large number of eastern yellowjackets flying amongst the leaves. I’m very glad I noticed them before stepping on what might have been their nest below the leaves. That might have made for a very different sort of trip as these can sting repeatedly, which is reportedly very painful.
Photo 339: I’m glad I didn’t step on these eastern yellowjackets who likely had a nest below the leaves.
This particular hike uphill is always a tiring one for me, perhaps because I always end up here at the end of a hike when I’m already tired. But I still stopped a couple times to create photographs. In one case I found some very small mushrooms growing on a stump. You might not be able to tell but there are actually two very small spiders hanging on the underside of the cup of the mushroom.
Photo 352: Some very small mushrooms growing from an old stump, with two even smaller spiders hanging below the cup.
Just before I reached the road I noticed a fascinating oak leaf, one that was very colorful on one side but completely brown on the other.
Photo 397: An oak leaf with its color split down the center.
Finally, I reached the top of the trail and the Scenic Drive. Of course, this isn’t where I parked so I needed to turn left and walk along the road to head back to the Mawavi Road parking area. But this turned out to be a very good thing as it gave me time to appreciate and photograph the lovely winding road as it weaved through the trees, a little fall color still left here and there, fallen leaves all over the road. Sometimes the sun was out and brightly illuminating the scene and other times a cloud would cover the sun and create a very soft light. I loved the variety along the road and I hope you enjoy the series of photos below.
Photo 420: Leaves fall from the trees, covering the Scenic Drive.
Photo 430: When a cloud would cover the sun it created nice soft light.
Photo 439: I love all the curves of the Scenic Drive. Very scenic, indeed!
Photo 454: I love trying to capture fallen leaves in a photograph in autumn.
Photo 465: Another lovely section of the winding Scenic Drive.
About 3 1/2 hours later I arrived back at my car after creating 468 photographs. This is on the higher end of what I usually create in this park. Most often it’s less than half that. But there was much to see this time, many different beautiful scenes, a couple of creatures, and several scenes that inspired me to create a number of abstracts (which I’ll share in a future post). It was a fantastic trip. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of visiting this park.
I hope you enjoyed this little virtual walk with me as I hiked the trails of Prince William Forest Park. I’ve certainly enjoyed sharing the experience with you.
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