Fog Path

Trees in Fog

Drei Eichen

In the mountains just east of Heidelberg, above the Boxberg housing area, is a road junction and turnout called “Drei Eichen” - “Three Oaks”. You can park there and walk on fine trails all over the mountain. That is what I did one weekend afternoon. As I started down the trail, the weather was becoming a little overcast, but I was used to that in Germany. Then, as I got into the woods and away from the road, the fog began to appear, and intensified pretty quickly. I liked the atmospheric look, and made a couple of exposures before realizing that the afternoon was getting along toward dusk, and with that and the thickening fog, I might have trouble finding my way back to the car. So I packed up the 4x5 (and trusty tripod), and headed back, moving along at a pretty good rate. I had made a picture of a path which branched off before me on the way into the woods. What I had not noticed was a path that joined the one I was hurriedly retracing from a fork that had been behind me as I was coming in. Uh-oh! Did I remember having made an angle, or had I come fairly straight? I thought straight - let’s hope, or I could be spending the night up there with no way to let my wife know where I was and that I was ok - not good. It was with considerable relief that I heard, before long, the reassuring sound of cars on the road, and soon arrived back at the parking.