Forest Park, Portland

12/30
Money is getting low which demands means its cheap(er) entertainment time.
I decided to go to the mythical Forest Park. This is a 4200 acre park. It's on big hill and if you don't know where you're going it's a bitch to get there by bike.

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As I passed through downtown this caught my eye.
There was a whole series of similar work, mostly portraits, inside by a photographer of the name Stu Levy. Each photo seemed to be constructed from a grid of 4x5 photographs, each one precisely composed to fit edge to edge with the others, generating an even larger scene. Upon closer inspection you can tell they were not taken concurrently but during several different episodes, perhaps with days or weeks in between each instance.
Relevant gallery on his website


After wandering a bit I continued onward, across downtown toward the northwest side. I believe I missed the easy turn off somewhere, and ended up going the extra long, traffic congested route. I eventually made it there with about an hour or two before dusk.

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one of the many bridges in Portland. I think this one is the Burnlington Railroad Bridge

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looking back towards downtown

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it's quite remarkable how green everything thing is around here

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ferns, everywhere.

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laying the bike down for a sec to get some pictures with the stereo camera

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Soon I noticed that the particular elevation I'm at is a borderline area at the edge of freezing. All of the moisture in the air was frosting the trees, ferns and mosses over and you could distinguish the different layers.
You can kind of see it in this photo.

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It was getting dimmer out by the minute. Should have brought a tripod.

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Frost and ferns

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Here you can see a trail down in the valley below. It was about 100 feet or so down.
Something I forgot to mention earlier is that the hills/mountains underlying forest park are VERY steep.
Here's a topographical map, courtesy of google, to illustrate the elevation changes.
It is centered approximately where I was.


View Larger Map

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One wall of the trail was a covered with tiny ferns.

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Upon closer inspection I noticed tiny icicles forming


It was really starting to get dark and the batteries in my camera were failing so I decided to head back. I'd definitely like to come back out here early one day and bring a lunch, do a bit of hiking.

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