A Mountain Excursion

Fairly Impressive? I think so. This was the start to a wet, but easy hike up this valley. Below: A series of three photos that amuse me.

Katrina and Greg on the rocks. Kat scanning for Tahr, Greg looking at a map...and me behind the camera a point over.

Katrina photographing me. No clue what I was trying to photograph.

The photo Katrina took of me while Greg photographed the both of us.

Sun bands and mists. Behind us...Helms Deep from the Lord of the Rings. In front and on the horizon...the hills of Rohan.

At the top of treeline. This was the last tree. It took us 6 hours of hiking, climbing, sweating, and scouting to get to this point.

Taken on the hike back down. A bit of perspective of degree of slope. Nice Back drop.

Our "hut". It was a might bit primitive. It did keep the sand flies from eating us alive and had it been raining...we would have at least stayed dry. But as it was...I wouldn't book your next holiday in this high class highland retreat. Sure it has class....but its a place only a hunter could love. And yes I would go back.

A random shot of sedges, grasses rocks and moss. A micro environment. Interesting and perhaps one of my favorite photos of the trip.

Greg and I on the rocks on the hike up. This really was a bugger of a hike. My legs hurt for a couple of days. Its too bad the Tahr had moved back up into the high country.

Me on the rocks. I have no idea what I was doing or when this was shot. I think this was after we hit camp and were trying to figure out how to get out of the valley and up onto the upper slopes.

Lunch time. Or was it dinner? Food. Kat and I debating the theory of a "watched pot".

My favorite photo of Greg. Looking Sheik and stylish packing his .243 cal. rifle up a creek, through the canyons. Great shot.

All in all I took about 140 photos. This is but a small sample of this trip. We would have needed one more day to get high enough to get to the Tahr. They were just out of manageable reach. There is no water in the hill country and absolutely no place to camp. Its necessary to climb from the river bottom, up the canyon walls and onto the ridges, steppes and mountain tops to find Tahr. Unless you know exactly where to go....it could take ages to find them, reach them, harvest them and still get back to the valley before dusk. Not the safest place to be tramping about in the dark.

It was a good trip. I hope to have the opportunity again.