When I was bicycling in NZ years ago, one my nicest days of riding was up the Haast River Valley. I started off in the morning up the coast a ways and turned up into the valley at lunchtime (it was a Sunday and the pub was closed, so had to make due with a couple of sausages from a petrol station -- oh, well, a beer or two would have been nice).
The afternoon wind pushed me gentling up the river valley on a sunny beautiful day. I had planned to camp where the road leaves the valley and heads up over Haast Pass, but I made such good time and the mosquitos and black flies bothersome, I headed up the pass. Bombing down the backside of the pass on the washboard gravel (metal in NZ-speak) road, I saw a camp of a few bicyclists off a ways, but just waved and kept going towards a hot shower and food at a motor camp further down the road.
The next morning in the camp's tea shop, I met the bikers I saw the day before. I mentioned the great day of cycling I had the day before and as a wildland firefighter, I knew to take advantage of the afternoon up-canyon winds. The two woman cyclists looked strangely at their male companion. It turned out that that he, too, was a wildland fire-fighter (from Arizona, the gals were Canadian). Appearently, he got his winds mixed up and had gotten the gals up very early for the ride up the valley. They fought a headwind all morning up the valley and had made camp along the road, too exhausted to make it to the motor camp!
So why this long, seemingly OT story? Well, there is a madness to my method (or is that, method to my madness?). Anyway, I find photographing along the creeks in the redwoods best generally between 10am and 2pm as the light falls down gently from above through the centuries of redwood growth. Also around noon, the morning up-canyon winds stop and the air can become quite still in a form of balance before the afternoon down canyon winds start. A truly magical time that those who have been raised on the adage of the best light is early or late in the day might miss.
So unless there is a weather front moving through, I try to be in a good place around noon, set up and waiting for that magic.
Vaughn
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