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Saturday, November 14, 2009

Rediscovering Jenks Creek

 

76th street with guardrail

Today was our trail club's regular monthly hike. We just managed to sneak it in before gun deer season which starts tomorrow. Most hikers choose to leave the woods to the hunters for those weeks. Too many accidents happen.

But after the group broke up, I chose to hike an extra two miles. This is a section of trail that I've hiked at least 3 other times. But I had completely forgotten how it follows the lovely little Jenks Creek here. Most people don't even know it's there at all. See the road crossing? Just a guardrail. Modern road building certainly makes it easy for travelers to be completely unaware of landscape features, especially small ones like creeks.

Jenks Creek

Following the trail, there are places where you can get a clear view of the creek. It may be more noticeable in the woods this fall because we had such a wet October and has flowing water. Here it looks like a definite stream bed, but in many places it is braided and becomes swampy in its small floodplain.

tape grass in brown stream

This is a very typical look at the creek bed. There was actually quite a bit of motion to the water. I always like how the tape grass seems to flow like green water in the current. The streams in these woods look so brown because of all the tannins from the oak leaves.

sunlight on water

You know that I just find textures and patterns fascinating. So the final three pictures are just sunlight on the water at various places along the stream.

sunlight on water

Any little trickle of water can become a wonderful palette for the impressionistic brush of sun and shadow.

sunlight on water

I hope you enjoyed the little journey along Jenks Creek with me. This afternoon, thanks to the clearing reported yesterday, I mowed all my trails in back of my house, getting them ready for snow. The skiing is much better when I get the weeds and berry canes cleared. It was hard to think about snow under the blue skies today, but it IS mid-November!

sunlight on water




See My World is Blue
See More Textures

7 comments:

rainfield61 said...

I have to agree that the fantastic and impressionistic brush of sun has produced so many good textures and patterns.

Rick (Ratty) said...

One thing I'm lucky about is that all of my hiking trails are in protected nature parks, so I don't have to worry about any stray bullets from hunters. Your look at this creek is bringing my thoughts to the creeks I visit. Seeing the relaxing photos of the water makes me want to go back to sit and watch my own.

Mike said...

You paint a vivid picture of the landscape. Most enjoyable, I could imagine walking there.

betchai said...

oh, what a wonderful collection of patterns you got here Sharkbytes, love them, the ripples, the sun, and the water combined to give us all these splendid photos.

Modern Mom said...

Your photos are beautiful. I can just imagine how lovely it would be to take a walk there.

Thanks for visiting.

WillOaks Studio said...

I just love your water images--they are so beautiful!

Sharkbytes said...

rainfield - Sun really fixes a lot of thing!

Ratty- I used to sit and stare at water for hours. It takes me a long time any more to get into the mood

Thanks Mike- very different from your landscape.

betchai- the patterns are there for the pickin' - the trick is to take the time to see them! I know you know that.

Hi Modern Mom- It was very nice indeed. I need to remember what a nice place it is!

Karen- Thanks!