Often times, I have songs stuck in my head. When I am out hiking, I often find it helps keep a tempo or rhythm. Sometimes I get a playlist or a jumble up of songs in my head. Sometimes it is not even the lyrics.
Anyway, I find that the songs can portray something in the scenery and inspire a picture. Other times, I hear a song and think of a picture or place. I am not sure why I do this. It could just be part of my odd memory bank! I do not know for sure.
One song that I just listened to, Make It Rain by Colbie Caillat, always reminds me of this one scene that I saw during a backcountry hike with a couple friends (park rangers at the time) in Rocky Mountain National Park. Our destination was Rock Lake in the Gorge Lakes region of the park. This meant getting up early to drive from Estes Park over Trail Ridge Road to Milner Pass Trailhead.
The day started off gorgeous with a few high clouds, but mostly sunny. We bushwhacked our way to the lake in fairly good time. There are fish in the lake and we took our fly rods to try our luck. We spent maybe an hour or so fishing, then decided we better start heading back. The afternoons in the summer months are notorious for thunderstorms.
Well, we did not miss out on the thunderstorm. In fact, we kind of hiked right into it and had to hunker down as it rumbled its way past our location. The hail, lighting, thunder, and rain surrounded us for quite awhile. By the time the storm subsided, we were all drenched. It did not matter where the next step was. It squished.
Even after driving all the way back over Trail Ridge Road to return home, I was still described as looking like a “drowned rat.” That hike is engrained in my memory. The one photograph I snapped that shows the curtain of water sheeting in over Forest Canyon always comes to mind when I hear that song – Make It Rain; it most certainly did! It became a song in a scene.
JUST PhotographIN' 