Taking Great Sunset Photos without an Expensive Camera

A beautiful sunset is a breathtaking experience. We've all been someplace and were so impressed with the sunset that we whipped out a camera and took a picture to try and share it with others. Unfortunately those photos often end up disappointing and don't represent what we saw very well. So how do you capture that amazing show in the sky?

Capturing that perfect sunset in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, MN

Expose your photo properly:
Automatic point and shoot cameras meter the light based on what the camera is pointed at (what you can see in the viewfinder/on the screen). For normal everyday photos this means you end up with a photo where you can see the foreground and peoples faces; for sunset photos this means way too much light resulting in the washout of that beautiful orange glow you are trying to capture.

Just Right

Too Much Light!

Many point and shoot cameras have a sunset setting that will expose your photos just right so you end up with beautiful sunset photos. If you have this setting just select it and go.

Enjoying the show in King Range National Conservation Area, CA

If you don't have this option on your camera (or you are using a phone) you can adjust the lighting manually.

• changing the exposure (decreasing the light to -1 or -2 will do wonders for your sunset photo)                    exposure selections often look like this ->             [-2...-1...0...+1...+2]
• touching a brighter area on the screen of your phone to focus/decrease the exposure
• touching a darker area on the screen of your phone to focus/increase the exposure
• If the sunset is too bright in your viewfinder: point the camera slightly upward so that more sky is in the viewfinder and then push the shutter button halfway down to focus/meter and hold. When the lighting/focus is ready move the camera back to frame the photo you want & shoot. 
• If the sunset is too dark in your viewfinder: point the camera slightly downward so that more ground is in the viewfinder and then push the shutter button halfway down to focus/meter and hold. When the lighting/focus is ready move the camera back to frame the photo you want & shoot. 

Zoom in:
Many photos taken of sunsets without any zoom include a lot of dark/uninteresting space. Zoom in toward the main event and make sure that the sunset fills your frame.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, MN

Try different things:
In this day of digital photography you don't have to pay more to take more photos. Use this to your advantage by trying different settings on your camera, different focal lengths, and different exposures to get the perfect shot. It's easy to delete the ones that didn't turn out so well at a later time when you can actually see the pictures on a bigger screen.

 Happy Shooting!

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, MN

Admiralty Island, AK

Big Bend National Park, TX

John Muir Wilderness, Inyo National Forest, CA 

Bighorn Crags, Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, ID

Mojave National Preserve, CA

Gila Wilderness, Gila National Forest, NM

Limahuli National Tropical Botanical Garden, HI

Backcountry Reflections: Five Tips on Bringing a Sketchbook to the Trail

Many people’s first thought on the topic of a backcountry sketchbook is “I’m not an artist”. Well, I am here to explain why it does not matter; bringing a sketchbook into the backcountry could be one of the best decisions of your life.

Now, bear with me, I am prepared to explain why. First and foremost your sketches, much like a journal entry, are for you. They are a unique way to capture and connect with a place, person, event, or afternoon through your own interpretation and perspective. But, unlike a journal entry, sketches also have potential to become more; they can be used as a tool for further preservation and conservation of the land. Sound abstract? Let me elaborate. Sketching in the field gives you time to truly develop a sense of place. This sense of place can then be shared with your friends and family through the sketch who could then feel inclined to build their own love for the subject of your sketch by visiting it themselves. This process can be seen as a cycle of ‘free advertising’ for that region, resulting in more people falling in love with it. The more a wild area is loved and respected, the more likely it is to be protected.

Here are some tips and tricks to sketching in the backcountry.

1)   Take a Moment to Enjoy a Moment

After a long day on the trail, a little R&R is often top priority. With hiking boots thrown aside, rump perched on a rock fireside with friends, it’s time to pull out the sketchbook. Moments of reflection in the backcountry have the potential to be some of the most impactful in life and sketching can help facilitate this. Whether you are surrounded by friends or giving yourself some alone time, capture these moments in a way a camera never could; this will allow you to remember these glimpses of meaning long after they pass.

Drawn while watching a Ranger fly-fish in a mountain lake.

Drawn while sitting with Forest Service friends around a campfire.

Sketched in my tent after an unexpected encounter

2)   Capture the Views Your Camera Cannot

While hiking down a trail on a hot August afternoon in the northern Idaho wilderness, I encountered
an unexpected visitor. I jolted as I heard rustling in the bushes; looking to my right, I spied an equally startled young black bear 15 feet up a dead fir tree attempting to hide from me. I hooped and hollered and let the young bear know I was moving away and not to be messed with. After exiting the heat of the moment I was unable to shake the image of the little black bear, with fear in his eyes, staring at me from its tree. That evening I pulled out my sketchbook to remember the moment.

Sketching can be used in the same way a camera can, using your minds eye as the lens of the camera.




3)   Connect to a Place

Imagine you have reached your destination after a long days hike; this could be a desolate peak with vast views, a crisp alpine lake with fish leaping to and fro, or even a cabin you are will rest at for the night. Regardless, each location means something to you as a temporary home. A place you love, or have grown to love, and a place you hope will remain wild. Pull out your sketchbook and capture this spot through your own perspective. The sketch might not look like the actual landscape, but it’s the beauty that captured by your own eyes that counts. This act could end up being playing a crucial role in the protection of that landscape.

Drawn while taking a break at the summit of a peak and absorbing the views.

  The view form my cook spot at a Forest Service cabin.

4)   What Notebook to Use

In the same way you want quality camping gear, you also need high quality paper. After experimenting with numerous options, I found that the most pleasant backcountry sketchbook option is the same as a front-country sketchbook. While ‘water-proof’ paper options are great for the field scientist, they do not work as well for the field artist. I recommend a small (4in.x6in. to 6in.x6in.) sized notebook with heavyweight drawing paper. This thickness of paper will be more resistant to the elements, but still hold your medium as expected.

Some of the necessary tools for sketching in the backcountry.

5)   Necessary Gear

      

When you head out on a trip, you have a few leading artistic options, depending on your personal style and preference. Your best backcountry choices are pencil or pen. There are many benefits and drawbacks of both tools. Here’s what you need to know for either option.

      

Pencil is great for the mistake-maker. Pencil will be forgiving and allows for attention to detail, but fails to withstand the elements. If using pencil, buy a small set of artist graphite pencils and test to see what density graphite suits you best. I typically bring a HB and a 6B with me on the trail. Three other necessities if working with pencil are a gummy eraser, a small blending stump, and, of course, a small pencil sharpener.

      

Pen is perfect for the non-meticulous types. Pen will allow you to move quickly through a sketch and will hold up well to the craziness of the backcountry, but is unforgiving when it comes to mistakes. If using pen I recommend using Pigma Micron brand, purchased at any art or office supply store, in one or two sizes. I typically bring sizes 0.05 and 0.01 into the backcountry. 

      

      

Beyond the tips and tricks of sketching in the backcountry, the most important thing to keep in mind is to enjoy each moment, and to capture that moment in whatever way you see fit. You do not need to be an artist to appreciate places and moments or to use sketching as a medium to commemorate and reflect on those events. 

Happy 100th Birthday to the National Park Service!

Today (August 25, 2016) the National Park Service is celebrating their 100th birthday! That's 100 years that they have been taking care of our precious and irreplaceable public lands.

The National Park Service (NPS) was established by an act of Congress in 1916 to manage public lands that were assigned to the U.S. Department of the Interior at the time, such as Yellowstone National Park. By 1933 the role of the National Park Service had expanded to make it the primary federal agency responsible for preserving and protecting our country's most valuable natural and cultural resources.

The NPS now manages over 400 sites, including 58 national parks and a number of national seashores, national lake-shores, national rivers, national scenic-trails, national monuments, national memorials, national military parks, and national battlefields.  

The oldest NPS managed site is Yellowstone National Park, first designated as a park by Ulysses S. Grant in 1872. Known for its spectacular geothermal geysers, ancient petrified forests, sparkling waterfalls, and abundance of wildlife, Yellowstone covers over 2 million acres. To celebrate the NPS centennial Yellowstone National Park is hosting "An Evening at the Arch" centennial event to kick off the second century of the National Park Service. Tickets to the event are already sold out but you can watch the event live at LiveStream.com. (broadcast begins at 6pm Mountain Daylight Time)

The newest NPS managed site is Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, designated as a National Monument just yesterday by President Obama. It encompasses approximately 87,000 acres of Maine including the East Branch of the Penobscot River and a large section of Maine's woods that are rich in biodiversity.

The National Park Service is inviting everyone to celebrate their centennial with them by holding special events across the country and providing free admission to all 412 national parks from August 25 through August 28.

Find out more about each of our parks and what they are doing to celebrate the NPS centennial at the links below:

• Acadia National Park
• Arches National Park
• Badlands National Park
• Big Bend National Park
• Biscayne National Park
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
• Bryce Canyon National Park
• Canyonlands National Park
• Capitol Reef National Park
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• Channel Islands National Park
• Congaree National Park
• Crater Lake National Park
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park
• Death Valley National Park
• Denali National Park & Preserve
• Dry Tortugas National Park
• Everglades National Park
• Gates of the Arctic National Park
• Glacier Bay National Park
• Glacier National Park
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Grand Teton National Park
• Great Basin National Park
• Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Guadalupe Mountains National Park
• Haleakala National Park
• Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
• Hot Springs National Park
• Isle Royale National Park
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Katmai National Park and Preserve
• Kenai Fjords National Park
• Kings Canyon National Park
• Kobuk Valley National Park
• Lake Clark National Park
• Lassen Volcanic National Park
• Mammoth Cave National Park
• Mesa Verde National Park
• Mount Rainier National Park
• National Park of American Samoa
• North Cascades National Park
• Olympic National Park
• Petrified Forest National Park
• Redwood National Park
• Rocky Mountain National Park
• Saguaro National Park
• Sequoia National Park
• Shenandoah National Park
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park
• Virgin Islands National Park
• Voyageurs National Park
• Wind Cave National Park
• Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve
• Yellowstone National Park
• Yosemite National Park
• Zion National Park

Happy Birthday to the National Park Service from Wilderness Volunteers!

More information about our National Parks:

National Park Birthday Invitation:

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/centennial/birthday-invitation.htm

Centennial Events at the NPS:

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/centennial/events.htm

National Park System Timeline: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSHistory/timeline_annotated.htm

Volunteer and Give Something Back to our National Parks:

Wilderness Volunteers is partnering with 17 different NPS managed areas in 2016 to help them complete critical projects including trail construction and maintenance, invasive weed removal, archaeological survey, and planting native flora. There are still openings on some of these projects for fall 2016. Find out more about giving something back to our National Parks with Wilderness Volunteers on our project homepage.

  

A Brief Introduction to Animal Track Identification

Have you ever been in the backcountry and run across an interesting animal track that you wish you could identify? With some instruction, a few careful observations and maybe a couple of measurements you can likely identify what animal left the track in question and gain some insight about wildlife in the area you are visiting.

Tips:

• Look for tracks in wet and sandy places like stream beds, beaches, or sand dunes. Snow also is a great place to find tracks. 
• Good quality impressions make it much easier to decipher tracks.
• Look at gait (an animals manner of walking) clues when you can. An animals gait can help you narrow down the range of possibilities. 

• Try to pick out identifying characteristics (how many toes, are there claw impressions, etc.) 
• A flashlight held at an oblique angle can help bring out details in a track.
• Size can often be a defining feature. 
• Take along a notepad to sketch tracks and relevant observations/measurements.
• Animals like bears, skunk, beaver, opossum, badger, raccoon, weasel and otters have five toes on both front and rear feet.
• Members of both the Felidae (cat) and Canidae (dog) family have four toes on the front and rear feet.
• Claws are typically visible on prints from members of the Canidae family (wolves, coyotes, foxes, dogs, etc.).
• Claws are typically not visible on prints from members of the Felidae family (mountain lion, bobcats, lynx, house cats, etc.) due to their retractable claws. 
• Rodents such as mice, squirrels, prairie dogs, marmots, muskrat, chipmunks and porcupines have four toes on the front and five toes on their hind feet. 
• Deer, reindeer, elk, antelope, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, wild boar and moose have two toes.
• Raccoon prints have long toes and resemble tiny human hands/feet.
• Opossum prints have the front fingers spread very widely and rear print has a distinctive thumb-like toe.
• Beaver have large webbed hind foot prints.
• To differentiate black bear tracks from brown bear tracks:  
• #1 find the lowest point of the outside (largest) toe 
• #2 find the highest point on the front edge of the palm pad 
• #3 draw a line through the two points and extend across the track. If more than half of the smallest toe is above the line, the print is from a brown bear. If more than half is below the line, the print is from a black bear. 
• Bird tracks can be classified as follows:
• Anisodactyl tracks/ perching birds: 3 toes pointing forward and one long toe pointing backward. (eagles, ravens, hawks, doves, vultures, herons, etc.)
• Game bird/ ground birds: 3 toes pointing forward with short/absent toe pointing backward. (turkey, quail, pheasant, ptarmigan, partridge, coots, cranes, grouse, etc.)
• Palmate tracks/ water birds: 3 webbed toes (ducks, geese, gulls, terns, etc)
• Totipalmate tracks/ ocean birds: 4 webbed toes (pelicans, gannets, boobies, cormorants, etc.)
• Zygodactyl tracks: 2 toes pointing forward & 2 toes pointing backward (woodpeckers, roadrunners, parrots, owls, osprey, etc.) 

click image for larger view

(please note tracks are not to scale)

Here are a few tracks that you can use to test your track identification skills (scroll down for the answers):

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

Happy tracking!

Some great resources for more tracking info:

• Track identification quiz: http://boyslife.org/quizzes/6662/animal-track-identification-quiz/
• Alaska's wildlife tracks: https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/education/educators/pdfs/wild_wonders_issue2.pdf
• Michigan track ID sheets:  http://www.hikingmichigan.com/PDFinfo/ForestStreamAnimalTracks.pdf
• Animal track photo library: http://www.naturetracking.com//
• How to save animal tracks as plaster casts: http://education.usgs.gov/kids/assets/tracks.pdf
• Animal tracking cards: https://outdooraction.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/files/articles/trackcard_0.pdf
• Winter tracking: http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/tracks1.pdf

#1 mountain lion

#2 black bear

#3 turkey

#4 brown bear

#5 moose

#6 otter

#7 wolf

Lightning Storm Safety

A recent death of an Arizona teen from a lightning strike in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness Area has brought to mind the importance of proper practices during lightning storms. Each year over 20 million strikes hit the ground accounting for nearly 70 deaths per year. While many of us know the correct behavior and techniques during lightning, a safety refresher in this time of increasing summer storms could be the difference between panic and action. Here are the top three things to remember if caught in a lightning storm.  

Image Source

1. Count the Distance

In order to gauge the distance you are from a storm, count the seconds between seeing a flash and hearing thunder. Sound travels at 1.6km every 5 seconds. If the flash-bang is 30 seconds or less, avoid danger places or go to a safe place until the storm has passed. If the flash-bang is 5 seconds or less, the storm is less than 2 miles from you and you should immediately find cover and assume lighting position.

2. Dangerous Locations

LOTS of dangerous locations here...

Areas to avoid if a lightning is in your area include:

• Summits, ridge tops, or exposed locations like meadows or open slopes.
• Near water of any kind including rivers, lakes, and even indoor plumbing.
• Near tall objects like trees or rock spires.
• Inside shallow caves or under rock overhangs. 
• Near any conductive objects, like metal tools or metal pack frames.

Steering clear of these areas will better you odds of avoiding lightning strikes.

Image Source

3. Positions of Safety

Proper practices in a lightning storm include:

• Disperse your party 20 to 40ft apart.
• Seek shelter in a stand of uniform height trees, in a crevice or ravine, or deep in a cave.
• Assume lightning position by squatting on a insulating pad with only your forefoot touching the pad and your heels together. Cover your ears with your palms while tucking your head down. See diagram for reference. 

If you practice these techniques, coupled with adequate preparation and attention to signs of inclement weather, you could reduce the amount or risk posed to you by lightning storms. Stay safe in storms this summer, and enjoy time in the wild!

Equipment Spotlight: Tenacious Tape Gear Patches

A New Approach to Gear Repair:

The warmth, light weight and compactability of  down jackets make them a backpacker's ace in the hole but one down side has always been their susceptibility small rips or tears. Left unattended all that warm down escapes pretty quickly through fairly small rips or tears.

Repairing a hole in the past has typically involved unsightly repair patches/duct tape or and expensive trip to a gear repair shop. The folks over at McNett have a new solution: Tenacious Tape Gear Repair Patches. Application is easy: just peel off the backing and stick to the gear needing repair. The adhesive is advertised to stay put "rain, snow, or shine" on "outerwear, outdoor gear, water bottles, luggage and more".

The patches come in a variety of fun decorative shapes & sizes to cover just about any size tear. They are also available in black, color, and reflective tape.

After recently finding a sizable rip in the back of my down jacket I decided to give these gear patches a shot. I picked up a camping set in black at a local outdoor store for around $10.

The precut tree shape seemed about the right size for the tear- it peeled off the backing easily & seemed to adhere to the jacket material pretty well. It helped to have a flat surface behind the jacket to get the patch on without any wrinkles or flaps. The matte black color of the patch made it not terribly noticeable against the black of my jacket.

After three months of regular wear, two weeks in the backcountry and one wash the patch is still in place and looks good. Having previously used duct tape, glossy gear repair tape, and a needle and thread to repair jackets while on service projects I really like the fun shapes and simplicity of these patches!