Rowena Crest Hike

First off ... WOW!

Secondly, I love my husband.

Why?

Last week I was seeing all the photos photographers were posting of the wildflowers at Rowena Crest, especially ones at sunrise like this, this, and this. 

John and I are very busy on weekends and our schedule opened up for Sunday and so I told him that I wanted to go out to Rowena Crest and take photos of the wildflowers and showed him the photos that inspired me. He said yes. I was just thinking, morning light, sometime before noon. That would even be pushing it, since he works swing (3:30 pm till midnight or later) and his sleep schedule is way different than mine (I work 7:00/7:30 am till 3:30/4:00 pm).

Sunday morning came around and I was awake at 3:45 am, he was asleep. I think I dozed, and then John woke himself up at 5:00 am and asked if I was awake and if I wanted to still catch sunrise .... uh, YES!

We made it out to Rowena Crest and missed sunrise, but I was still happy as a clam since it was 7:00 am once we parked and hit the trail. We headed up to Tom McCall Point and saw lots of people in the fields of wildflowers hauling their camera gear, taking photos, and taking it all in. John and I kept going up, I leading the way and stopping every once in awhile when something caught my eye.

From the look of the trail, only 2 other people had gone up the trail past the first couple mini plateaus of wildflower patches and at least one person had already come down and most of the way up we came across a young women on her way down. But before we crossed paths with her, I came across something wonderful.

A doe and her yearling. I quickly changed from my 11-16mm Tokina to my 70-210mm Canon as they walked up the hillside out of sight (John is a wonderful assistant, handing me lens and carrying my pack, and as a deer spotter). I quietly worked my way up the trail and caught some photos of them sauntering off across the wide plateau with Mt. Adams in the background.

A little bit later up the trail in a giant field of Balsam Root (the yellow wildflowers that look like sunflowers) and I was focusing on some Indian Paintbrush (bright orange/red flowers) when John is saying "11 o'clock, 11 o'clock" ... another doe and this time her twin yearlings were out in front of us and up the hill a little bit in the mass of yellow flowers. I captured some photos of them and we watched them head down to oak groves which were far from the trails so that they could chew their cud in shade for the morning and doze in the afternoon.

It was a wonderful hike, with beautiful weather, and great company.

I hope you enjoy the photos I'm sharing with you. Thanks for following along!