PhRT to Spruce Pine

Ed Selby along with Stu Haluski and I set off February 26th on our winter PhRT or Photography Road Trip. It is a chance to get away from everything and shoot. This was my second trip, the group which includes Brian Garrett, has set off on 3 PhRTs so far. This time around we hit Spruce Pine North Carolina. Great little town, blink and you will miss it. Ed’s family has a place near by which made for a really nice bonus night of family fun, great food and even better conversation.

I set out on this trip with two photographic goals. One was to shoot something, a leaf would be nice, frozen in ice. Well there is about a foot of frozen snow on the ground… so that is very likely not going to happen. The second was to shoot a frozen waterfall.

We set off from Atlanta on the trek to Spruce Pine… we got there much faster than we though we would. That speed had nothing to do with Stu helping Ed navigate the roads or Ed driving to fast… We just didn’t make any stops on the way… we always stop along the way… Maybe next time.

I have no idea what time we arrived but we checked into out home base, also know as Pine Valley Motel. Nice enough place, but than again we really don’t want to spend any time in the motel. Then we were off to dinner with Dad Ed and his wife Sharron. Dinner and conversation was awesome…

Ed’s dad Ed gave us a couple circles we could drive to shoot anything and everything you could imagine in our cold location. I really don’t think we knew where we were going to go until we got up the next morning… but that is the way we like it.

Saturday started off with some food (yes we eat a lot on these photo trips). Then I found some frozen water! First real PhRT photo of the trip. OK not the most spectacular of images but hey a frozen fire hydrant is cool… right… That shot done and we were off to aimlessly drive around looking for photographic opportunities.

Needless to say they were everywhere. We found an old barn (ok), small creek (better), top of Carvers Gap (awesome) and an UNFROZEN waterfall (cool but not frozen)

That all happened the first two days of the PhRT. The night leading into the last day it started to snow in town. While it was not snowing heavy at all, we figured that the Gap was getting slammed and decided to head back up to the top again in the morning to see just how different it was. Along the way we stopped to see this and that…

Once we started getting closer to Carvers Gap we knew we were in for a treat or a nightmare… I think we got a treat. While the snow was now 4 feet deep and the wind was beating on us, we had a blast making images.

The previous day I had shot a temperature gauge on the “map wall” … well I just had to shot it again and the difference is amazing to me. This is just 13 hours later!

Oh… I did get my frozen leaf… not exactly like I saw it in my minds eye, but I like it.

All in all I think the trip was a fantastic success, great shots, great fun and a safe return to the family… We are already planning the next PhRT… where will it take us next?

The gallery below has a lot more images from the trip. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks

Chris