Shelter from the storm

As soon as I heard about about @strypes’ Foot In Frame Friday Photo Contest, I knew that I had to enter. I have more pictures of my feet than I would care to admit, and the vast majority of them are the bare feet on a beach variety that you can find a zillion examples of on Instagram. This shot is a little different though, so it seemed like an obvious choice.

Taken with my Nikon D50, f/5.6 at 1/125 sec. ISO 400.

My boys and I started a hike to the top of Rainbow Falls in Jones Gap State Park (in the upstate of South Carolina) early one cold winter morning. Light snow was in the forecast, but it started coming down pretty heavily as we neared the falls. The flakes were big and the snow started to accumulate quickly, so we only stayed at the top for a few minutes before starting the nearly 5 mile hike down to our car. I wasn’t too worried about getting the car out, but there was no one else around, and those narrow mountain roads can get a little dicey in heavy snow, so I wanted to play it safe. The kids were having fun, but I still wanted to set a decent pace for the hike back. We made good time, but about half way down, they were both pretty tired and hungry. We decided to stop and have a snack at a cave that they remembered (really just a ledge with an overhang, but it’s a cave to a kid). We only planned to stop for a minute, but we ended up sitting on that covered ledge for half an hour enjoying the snow and the beauty of the outdoors.

Eventually we made it back to the car, and it wasn’t too much trouble getting back home. The boys played in the neighborhood, made snowmen, and all the other things that kids do on a snow day in the south, but no amount of sledding could top their adventure at Jones Gap. Hopefully it’s a day that they will remember for a long time.

For reference, here’s a shot looking back at the “cave”. Taken with my Nikon D50, f/4 at 1/60 sec. ISO 400.