Fall has come to New England

This is a view of the White Mountains from Artist's Bluff located in Franconia Notch State Park, New Hampshire. Early snow can be seen on the peaks of the higher elevations while the lower slopes still have the reds, yellows and blazes of bright orange. Many of the trees had begun to drop their leaves but there was still many that were displaying their fall plumage. It was a wonderful fall day weather wise and we New Englanders know to enjoy the day while you can for the weather can change fairly rapidly.

I took my Nikon D300 with 18 -135 mm telephoto lens but forgot to take a spare battery with me. Naturally on the climb up the trail to Artist's Bluff there were lots of photos to be had. As I neared the peak I noticed that my battery level was quite low and hoped it would last for a few shots from the bluff. Fortunately, it did continue have enough charge to allow photos at the top and continued to keep the camera operational on the trip down the trail allowing for more shots to be taken. I took a lot of shots on that one battery with a single charge. The D300 is really a low drain camera and thankfully so since I would not have been able to take the photo that is displayed in this post.

It was not just my spare battery that I forgot. After I was quite a way up the trail I realized I left my cell phone back in the car. Hiking alone without anyone knowing where you are located without a cell phone can turn into a bad scene pretty rapidly if you should trip and injure yourself. In hindsight, if I were to do this alone once again, I would make sure I had a survival kit of sorts in case of a mishap. Sometimes the exuberance of being out in nature eager to take photographs of her grand beauty can cause one to not be properly prepared. I was fortunate that day but I promised myself I would not do that again if I were not somewhat better prepared than I had been on this hike.