A visit to Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve

In my years here in North Carolina, I must have passed the entrance to Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve a dozen or so times without stopping there on commutes to visit Lee Ann’s son’s family in Cary, N.C. We changed our route to their home eventually, and we no longer pass by the preserve on a regular basis.   

But while doing my research on the Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C. (see two posts immediately previous to this), I “rediscovered” the preserve, which is a short jaunt from the amphitheater. So I decided that must have been a sign to drop in on the preserve with my camera, which is what I did on Thursday, May 1. The pictures you see in this post was from that visit.

The park gets its name from the fact that it is populated by a large number of Hemlock trees, which is rare for this area of the state, and that the landscape — at least on the trail I followed — had a considerable number of bluffs and, consequently, its paths in some parts follow a radically undulating course to say the least. 

If you read the second of two installments of my blog post about the amphitheater, you learned that I tried something new with my Canon 6D. I changed the setting of my light metering mode from spot to matrix (evaluative), at least for the landscape photographs I knew I’d be taking there. I knew I’d be taking the same type of images at the preserve, so I stuck with the matrix metering mode on this shoot. 

There was a significant difference between the two shoots, however. The preserve is entirely in a densely wooded area, so the lighting for the majority of my scenes would be dark. Nevertheless, there were pockets of sunlight seeping through occasional openings among the trees, as you can see in the lead-off photo, which was of one of several overlooks on a trail I followed. So I thought the evaluative metering would help me obtain an reasonably balanced exposure in my shots. 

And for backup, I bracketed each composition for three exposures — one at normal exposure, one for one stop above and another for one stop below the normal exposure. 

I had high ambitions to try and cover all three primary trails (four if you include a short one designed for children) in the preserve when I got there, but that didn’t happen. 

I started on the Swift Creek Trail, a loop course of about eight-tenths of a mile. While the preserve website mentions that the trail has “a long stairway,” it doesn’t indicate just how long it is. Now that I’ve done the trail, I can say the stairway seems a lot longer ascending than it does descending! 

You descend the stairway in the early portion of the trail; you climb it on the return near the end. I found the climb kind of brutal, which is why I didn’t try to knock off the Chestnut or Beech Tree Cover trails afterward. Perhaps for another day. 

I did see a couple walkers (mostly elderly) and two joggers on the trail. I encountered the latter early on, so I didn’t see how difficult the stairway ascent was for them. Given that there is a Cary municipal park (Harold D. Ritter) on the opposite side of the creek and a couple of greenways nearby, it’s also possible they know the lay of the land very well (I don’t) and know a way to exit the preserve and trail before having to go through that brutal ascent. 

There are some helpful educational signs along the trail, and the website says one can spot hemlocks from the overlooks that are provided along the early portion of the creek trail. I paused at all the overlooks, and I can’t say that I was able to spot any hemlocks, based on the pictures of those trees that the preserve showed on the signs. On the other hand, I was able to spot other vegetation of spots of interest that signage elsewhere made a point to highlight.

Some of the photos below don’t need explanations via captions, so some won’t have any; as noted above, what you see in the preserve is largely what you’d come across in a wooded area. But I did take certain pictures for specific reasons, so for those I’ll use captions to captions.

To view a full gallery of images taken on the Swift Creek Trail in the preserve, follow the link in this sentence. 

Above: An artwork along the side of the main education center in the preserve, not far from the parking lot. 

Above: I thought it curious that the solitary tree with the slender trunk grew in a snake-like form from the overlook mulch near the fenced area and bench. 

Above: At another overlook on the stairway descent, I heard some chatter far below and saw these two people emerge from behind some trees. It was a difficult get to get optimum focus at 300mm that far away. 

Above: I was still on the descent when I grabbed this shot of the upcoming overlook. It did not occur to me until I got home that I was so challenged by the loop trail's final leg that I didn't stop to get pictures during the stairway ascent.

Above: This is the one shot of the actual stair separation that I grabbed. It was on a curve during the descent, where spatial separation was not bad. It doesn’t do justice, however, to the larger spatial patterns I experienced on the straighter portions of the ascent. The bottom of the leadoff photo shows the wider step spacing.

Above: When my post-processing was said and done, this was my favorite image from the visit.

Above: Because of the cool light reflection on the foliage and the dainty orange coloring in the leaves, this probably was my second favorite image. 

Above: I took this upward stair on the descent. I had turned around to get it after I already walked a ways on the level boardwalk. I think that at this point, it was occurring to me that I was going to have to do some climbing on the loop back.  

Above and below: Some interesting tree trunk intersections along the way. 

Above: This was the only live creature (other than the handful of walkers and joggers) that I came across on the trail walk. This, too, was shot at 300mm after I got as close as I thought I could before I feared I'd chase away the bird. After taking this shot, I stepped about three feet closer to see if I could get a better zoom, and it flew away. 

Above and below: Images of the same scene but with different points of focus. The one above locks in on the deformed tree trunk, the one below on the illuminated leaves behind it. I like the second one better. 

Above: An interesting cluster of leaves dangling from a very thin tree limb. I’m betting it didn’t last much longer before dropping to the ground. 

Above: A rare crop of ground cover along the path. 

Above and below: Different sections of the same fallen tree trunk that were on opposite sides of the path on the return portion of the trail loop. Nearby was the second photo below.  

Above and below: These two formations were only a foot and a half apart from each other on the path’s edge, but the one below had some splayed lighting (the magenta-looking splotches on the top) while the one above was entirely in shade. 

Above and below: Scenes from the children’s play area near the education center and (in the second photo below) the outdoor education pavilion.