The Blaine Franger Photography Blog: Mt. Hood Timberline Trail

*First of all, those of you reading this on a Facebook note, please scroll to the bottom of this note and click on "View Original Post" and it will take you to my blog, the photos are much bigger and better! Feel free to love a comment here or there too. :)

I had the opportunity to join my brother Colin, Kristin (bro's girlfriend), and sister Lindsey on a little 3 night 4 day backpacking trip on the Timberline Trail, which is a trail that goes all the way around the perimeter of Mt. Hood. It's about 40 miles, but with all my little sidetrips for photos and a few wrong turns, it was probably closer to 50 miles in the end.
Not sure how to describe the whole experience with words, so good thing I brought 3 cameras along. :)

I was trying to do one giant post with photos from the entire time but I quickly realized that it was too much, so I'm splitting it up into single days!

Day 1 (super late start so it was less than a half day):

First glimpse of wildflowers (lupine)-

I took a few self portraits on top of this sweet ridge, I was happy to be outside finally!

Not sure what this plant is, but it's everywhere!

Hiking with a view! The remainder of these photos are taken in the "Paradise Park" area and it turned out to be my favorite area of the entire trip... just 5 miles in from Timberline Lodge.

Look at those WILDFLOWERS!

Last light on Mt. Hood

Mt. Jefferson, looking south

Amazing colors at sunset

Check out all those stars!!! Has to be millions upon millions.... fascinating.

Longer exposure of the stars-

That completes some favorites from my pro camera, now here are a few from my snapshot camera.

The start (I didn't sleep a single second the night before and had been up for about 48 hours, I was basically a walking zombie... Then hiked 6 miles on no sleep... eeek.