In the summer of 2015, I did another long walk looking for tripod holes. I load my pack with a TL120, a digital SLR, maybe a W1, a box of slides, and a STL viewer. The task is to find the locations, and recreate the view. The challenge is to make an engaging image in a location which probably no longer has the jaw dropping magnificence of its youth.

It is hard to suppress the cringing and pain I feel as I search for tripod holes. I have a visual memory. My trek across the barren rock is a long slow playback of previous excursions, narrated by my little voice, “I remember when . . .”, “We forded the stream up there . . . “,  “This used to be . . .”.

This location happens to be where I made some of my favorite images. I know one made it into the folio. Others, including Raining Tunnel, made their way into a slide display at the NSA convention in Colorado.  The camera location recorded in this thumbnail (from 2010) is just about where the cliff wall exits the right side of the stereo view. In this case, I was unable to create any meaningful image by putting my tripod back into those holes.  I chose, instead, to move my camera to the vantage point from which I had made the 2010 self-image.

In 2010, the water ran into a ice tunnel of uncertainty and opportunity. I knew it fell into the lake somewhere, but how far would I venture into that tunnel to find and capture images. In 2015, it is a spread of certainty. The fireweed and willow have taken root, the stream runs in the open, and a Southeast rain forest will soon own this location.