West Virginia Flooding 2016 - Print Sale Benefiting Nicholas County

Hi Folks - as you have probably heard on the news recently, Central West Virginia was devastated by flooding last week, in many cases setting all-time historic records for water levels. 

The town I grew up in is one of those towns that was hit heavily by the floods - Richwood, West Virginia - and there were many other areas with heavy damage in Nicholas County, including Fenwick, Birch River and Belva. 

http://wvpublic.org/post/federal-disaster-relief-making-its-way-wva-after-severe-flooding

We went down to help hand out supplies and participate in the cleanup last weekend, as will probably be the case for weekends to come.  It was a pretty tough thing to see - the little neighborhood my brother lives in is the same neighborhood my grandmother lived in - and they were hard hit.  As we went door-to-door handing out water and cleaning supplies, I knew just about everyone, and had played in their yards or had dinner in their houses as a boy growing up. 

As a result of all of this, and in a bid to do our little part

ALL PROFITS from any in-stock item sold from now through July 2016 will be donated to the Nicholas County Community Foundation

to provide funds for flood recovery in Nicholas County. 

http://www.samueltaylorphoto.com/print-shop/

I'm not explicitly including any big, custom piece or custom framed print orders in this special, simply because I'm not sure I will have time to fulfill large piece orders in the next month or so - if you wish to have a piece made to support this cause, please contact me directly, so we can discuss in more detail.  I'll be working to update the website with any other "in-stock" items we have. 

You can find more information about the NCCF at their website and Facebook page

http://nccfwv.com/wordpress/

http://www.facebook.com/Nicholas-County-Community-Foundation-130148843729103/?fref=nf

Thanks to all of you for your support.  Hope to see you on the front lines. 

S

Constant - Our First Trip To Otter Creek

Sam and I have a collection of adventures that we want to reinvestigate. We find them without enough time and preparation to really give them the full test and then it takes us a while to get back. They are all beautiful places that left us wanting to stay, explore, and take time to truly appreciate the view, the wildlife, the plant life, or the remoteness. Otter Creek catapulted itself into this little collection of ours after we did a day trip there just a few weeks ago.

Otter Creek Wilderness in early spring:

We arrive sometime around 1:30 p.m. and take off up the trail. It is one of those days where you are pretty certain you will get rained on but you go on the adventure anyways because you’ve never been there before and because you’ve heard great things about the spot and because hiking out wet is terrible but not doing the hike is worse. The first part of the hike is mellow; we walk down a gravel path that leads us to a suspension bridge. It rocks as we cross.

Once across the bridge the trail becomes difficult for about a quarter mile. The ground slides under our feet and the rocks are slick. Our caked boots do very little to find traction. After a little ways the trail veers away from the creek for a moment and leads us to an old rail grade. As we walk, we find all sorts of interesting plants; strange things that are purple and green and fuchsia.

The rail grade leads us to a creek crossing. The water from the spring rain is big and we struggle to stay out of it as we hop rocks across. There is moss creeping and the fiddle heads uncurl around us. As our elevation increases the trillium start to turn their heads to us. We trace the creek on our trail. There are lots of little cascades. I look across the creek at some point and see a meadow of tiny purple flowers growing out of a rocky beach. This place is pretty.

We hike on, finding cool little bits of the timbering history as we go. After a while we come around a bend in the trail that takes us about a hundred yards from the creek. In front of us is a sea of purple, pink, white, yellow, and fuchsia wild flowers. The trees above are umbrellas for all of their little faces. I want to lay in them and breathe in their pretty, light smell. I think, “I could live here with all of you.”

We are running out of daylight so we decide we will turn around when the trail meets back up with the creek. We reach our turnaround spot and between the trail and the creek there is a small camp site. We walk down the path and I get out some snacks. Sam wanders down the creek a ways. When he comes back he says, “You have to come check this out!” I follow him to the prettiest pebble beach. There is a big turn in the stream that hugs the spot.

I don’t want to leave but the real world is calling. This is not one of those adventures that land us in some state of exhaustion and frustration. The hike out is easy and fast. We watch the flowers wiz by us and are nearly out when raindrops start to fall on our heads.

We cross the swinging bridge back to the car. But really, we cross the swinging bridge back to work, bills, peanut-butter-sandwich-breakfasts, late-night freezer meals, 5 a.m. mornings that lead to 1 a.m. nights, and all of the parts of our very full lives. We take each day and we pack it as full as possible. It is not pretty; it is tiring. A lot of times, it is challenging to get motivated. The answer to being motivated is built by doing, constantly doing.

Our full days are why we have a collection of adventures that need to be done over again. We had other things that had to get done but one of these days, we will go back and do Otter Creek and all of our other projects the way they should be done: with backpacks, sweat, tents, food made with a camp stove, tired legs, sore shoulders, waking up to see the mist burning off the river and smelling the dew settle in, and all of the things we missed when we were filling our days with constant doing.

Tamarack - 2016 Best Of West Virginia Open Juried Exhibition

Wow! We got in!

Feeling excited and humbled to have our piece "Milky Way Over Scenic Highway" selected for the Tamarack 2016 "Best of West Virginia Open Juried Exhibition"! It's an honor to be included with some of the best artists in the state.

The show runs from June 19 - August 7 at the Tamarack Gallery, in Beckley, WV.  This is a huge honor for us, as Tamarack is known as one of the premier locations for the arts and artisans in the state.

The piece we were selected for is shown below - and was mounted as a 30"x60" acrylic/plexi print! 

Thanks to all of y'all for your love and support!

Strong Bricks - The Lost Town of Hammond

The logging road is muddy; we slide around coming down the mountain. We parked the red truck at the top and hiked in. The yellow leaves are just barely hanging onto the trees; most of the others have already fallen to the ground lying in a carpet across the forest. It is one of those perfectly warm autumn days that make you wish summer would loop back around and start all over again.

This adventure is close to home, it is just downriver from Valley Falls. Sam found some new creeks to investigate for waterfalls. We do this sometimes, we find a creek on a map and just go hike the thing to see what we find. Sam is driven by finding photos that no one else has, he wants the original image. In a world of documenters, this proves challenging.

Sam and I are both curious people, constantly seeking out the history and beauty of a place we visit and wander into. My eyes are always combing the woods as I hike; I have found all sorts of interesting bits of the past among the leaves. Nearly all of WV has been timbered or mined at some point and the trails we follow are often remnants of some old rail grade or road built for extraction and not much more.

Today we hike the logging road that follows the creek. Rhododendron separates us from the water by just 20 feet or so. We listen for the thundering sound of plunging cascades and fight through the thicket several times to find pretty but unexceptional, small whitewater sections.

Because we are curious we continue down the drainage. We are getting closer and closer to the river, the road wraps around the topography of the hillside, following the valley cut by the creek. We wind around a curve and I look into the woods and see an old brick foundation. It isn’t crumbling but it has toppled at some point. The bricks say Fairmont, WV. They are strong and still hold their pretty color.

I was fueled on. There has to be other bits of forgotten life. We walk down the road and the closer we get to the river, the more certain I am that there is nothing left to see. The railroad tracks are in sight, we can see the old pretty arch out of hand-chiseled stone that supports the bridge over our waterfall-less creek. A remnant of a road goes down under the bridge and we follow it down. We see a rough-cut sign made from trash that says, “Please take all your garbage, don’t trash Hammond.”

We walk under the arches and pass to the same side of the tracks as the river. We walk down the road, it is solid. It is solid. That is strange; roads in the forest are usually soft. Sam says, “Is that brick?” I push the leaves back, bricks line up under them. Cobblestone, we are walking on cobblestone. We follow the bricks and they lead us to more bricks, foundations, piles and piles of bricks, chimneys, and more arches, all of them made of pretty brick. Some of them say Bessemer. Some say Tygart and some say Resist. Everything is made of brick, all of it except the bridge under the train tracks.

We hike out; it is a steep climb to the top of the mountain where our truck waits. I go home and begin researching Hammond. I was half expecting a mine or timber camp. It was neither, what it was: a brick factory. It wasn’t just any brick factory; some of those bricks are in the Empire State Building. They were brought to the Chicago World Fair and were the best fire bricks in the U.S. The town burned in 1950 and never recovered. In 1972 the town was bought by a mining company and the road was blocked. So many stories of success in this state end this way.

I am fascinated by these abandoned structures. Did someone live here, did they work here, was this a place where meals were cooked or was it some kind of machine house? The question that will never be answered fully: how is it that it was here, people lived or worked here in this structure years ago and how is it that they are no longer here working or living in it? How is this structure in the middle of nowhere completely uninhabited? This is a story that spans our state. There are structures that were built for function, we may not have assembled them well, they may have toppled, but their pieces are here still. The structure did not stand but the bricks were strong, the bricks stood the test of time.

Hike to High Falls of the Cheat (Daytripper Waterfall Issue Feature!)

High Falls of the Cheat

“I hiked over a mountain to be here”

By: Carmen Bowes

Photos By: Sam Taylor

The first time I did the hike to High Falls of the Cheat, it was fall and the cinnamon ferns were exploding with color; reaching up towards the sky before splashing into a mass as tall as my shoulders. The fields were golden and swaying in the cool autumn breeze. It held that first crisp hint of colder weather.

Now, driving out the dirt road on this warm spring day, I don’t know what to expect. It is that time of year when things aren’t quite pretty yet. The snow has gone but the rich West Virginia green hasn’t filled in the trees and undergrowth.

Sam & I both have our eyes fixed on the right side of the road. The trail head and wide spot had to be close. We creep by a pull-off and then the trail appears, although we had to turn around and come back to park. The trail is remote. It starts on a back road of a back road outside of Glady, WV outside Elkins, WV and is marked only by a small sign that says “High Falls.”

Footbridge over Glady Fork

We slug on our backpacks and descend into the forest. The trail greets us with a squishy, marshy bottom and leads us over a small foot bridge that crosses a stream just below a beaver dam. The sticks are stacked and crammed into a heap. We hear water trickling through the small muddy cracks. A gate from an old homestead lies just on the other side of the bridge; a remnant of another time.

We walk past the gate and out of the woods into a huge clearing. The hawthorn trees are naked and spiky. They cover the field like some kind of twisted orchard. We cross the West Fork Trail and continue through the clearing. The hardwood trees show scars of lightning and fire. The field is full of briars that were not there in the fall.

The clearing ends and we start the uphill push over the mountain. The woods smell good, the ground is damp and muddy in spots. The trail turns into steep, slippery miniature mudslides in spots. Tiny spring beauties pop up through the disintegrating leaves. As we climb, the floor of the forest becomes mossy. The dirt we have been trampling gives way to rocks covered in green sponge and hemlocks that seem ancient. The smell of the rich, damp dirt is exactly how a forest should smell.  

Along the trail

There is a sweet little campsite off the trail on top of the mountain. It has a fire circle with logs situated all around. It is in the middle of the grove of hemlocks and I think of waking up there, stepping out of my tent into this gorgeous place.

We wrap around the top of the mountain and begin our decent into the Shavers Fork drainage. The leaves from last fall hide the details of the trail. We stumble and trip and nearly plunge down the mountain. Finally we reach the railroad tracks. The river below assumes a pretty, earthy green color.

We turn right on the tracks and walk towards High Falls. I can smell the ancient tar warming up in the railroad ties. In the fall the tracks were lined with yellow evening primrose. They were standing strong and sturdy. They are waiting now, in the dirt and gravel, for the heat of summer so that they can push up again.

We come around the bend and see the train stop that signals the waterfall. We walk the small trail to the water and take in the bigness.  This waterfall is perfect. It spans the whole river, the curtains falling from a big shelf; 18 feet high and 150 feet wide.  

The wind is warm for March and pushes itself across the rocky beach just below the falls. The first time I sat next to this waterfall, I had hiked over a mountain to be here. I was sitting on the vacant observation deck above the falls while Sam took pictures. I was having a snack and taking in all of the power of the place and a large older man walked out on the deck and looked down at me. I looked up at him and it took me a moment to register him. Behind him more men clad in Harley Davidson gear walked onto the platform. I had forgotten that there is a train tour that brings people to this spot; it feels so far from things otherwise.

Today we have it mostly to ourselves except a few other hikers. I find a rock to have a snack while Sam takes pictures. The sandstone on the beach is tinted light blues and purples from the minerals housed within. I watch Sam move around on the beach, he is silhouetted by the waterfall. The rhododendron near the falls flutters in the wind.

We take a last look and turn to make the hike out. It is challenging and steep but we pace ourselves and make it out with enough time to stop by Whistle Stop Café in Elkins. It is strange to drive back to civilization. I think of sitting on the rocky beach staring at the curtains of water and I want to go back.

Walking the tracks.  This is the preferred route, noted in the official trail description!

Wonderful West Virginia Magazine - Spring Image Feature!

Very excited to have one of our images featured in the April 2016 issue of Wonderful West Virginia Magazine!

The issue features "Springtime" photographs, and our image of a Thunderstorm over downtown Morgantown was chosen as part of that feature.  Super cool! 

Prints and licenses of this image are available, just contact us!

First Thunderstorm of 2016!

Good Morning!

I know the first day of Spring is still a few days away, but the first thunderstorms of the year definitely signal the start of Spring for me. My Dad always uses the first thunderstorm as a guide for starting the garden, and living on the top of the mountain, we were very, very familiar with lightning (might have lost a few televisions as a kid).

The storms put on one heck of a show, that's for sure - I had several photos of lightning to pick from! This was my favorite, a bit of cloud-to-cloud, the city below - it also looked close enough that I decided it was a good time to abandon my rooftop shooting location!

Have a great day, everyone.

First Thunderstorm, 2016 - West Virginia

Daytripper Magazine - Lindy Point Feature!

As we have been hinting at, we have been busy!  We are proud to have a feature story on our recent adventure to Lindy Point included in the March issue of Daytripper magazine! We are excited to be working with folks that see our region like we do, and have a focus on local attractions, local economies, and the general goodness of "the two Virginias".  Cruise by their page (link below), and give them a "like", and let them know we sent you!

As for today's image, as you all well know, we like to tell our stories about our adventures, and there is a full write-up plus a set of photos that give the who, the how, the where, and the why of that mid-winter adventure in the March issue.  Today's image is part of that feature, and a great example of the dark skies that are perfect for stargazing, astronomy, or astrophotography in and around the Blackwater Falls/Canaan Valley region of West Virginia.  This photo was from the tail end of a perfect day, and culminated with my lying down in the snow, staring up at the trees, and deciding this was the "capstone" image for this trip. 

View fullsize

So, as usual - thanks for all of your support, and word of mouth promotion - your support and interest are really what have made this show run.