Tag Archives: Wilderness Hiking

Backpacking, Hiking, National Park Service, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Back to the Beach

Some little paintings of my time there, inside that tent at sunset, and below, low tide watching sea otters herd the kids around the little bay. They’re simple paintings, but make good memories seeing them again here. 

I went back to a wilderness beach hike with my little Six Moon Designs tent and my paints. I had plenty of great nature to worship, including an amazing belly-up humpback whale and a Steller’s sealion, both washed up without much injury as far as I could tell. I’m telling you, it is thrilling to walk up to a 30-foot whale on a wilderness beach, a sort of primal experience I will remember for awhile. As I walked up to it, sounds seemed to become sort of diminished, as if I were walking into a quiet room. It was a long way from the water, as you can see in the photo – a minus tide put the waves very far away and the whale seemed oddly out of place.

Then this guy:Exactly above my tent in the top canopy of a Sitka spruce, this bald eagle started in at about 5:30 am, broadcasting its discontent at not seeing breakfast out in the ocean I guess – or, who knows what. Soon the ravens got involved – and it was all over for a sleep-in morning. The Starbucks was made early! Later, I watched this eagle spot a fish at least 300 yards out from where it sat on a treetop, taking a long glide off the branch and catch it! How could it see that far?

I just recently finished three large paintings for Redwood National Park through the Save-the-Redwoods League. In one, I painted the canopy fern mats that develop in ancient trees (not just redwoods) that come from centuries of needle litter building up on branches. These become pockets of leather ferns, huckleberrys and critters. The wandering salamander live generations in those mats, and marbled murrelets, an endangered sea bird, nest on them.

Walking out of the hike to the trailhead, I spotted this one on an ancient Sitka spruce, not far above my head. It had all the components, leather fern, black huckleberry and maybe some salamanders hidden away in the roots. It all seemed to tie together that my work is my play, my hiking is directly tied to my art. It’s just all one. A symbiosis, if you will, of cause and effect.  Symbiosis is interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both. Art and nature, I am who I am, therefore it seems I have to paint and write about it, hopefully to the benefit of nature.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

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Click here to go to our main website – with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Commissioned paintings, New Painting Post

Ozette Loop Trail

Ozette Loop Trail, a boardwalk journey into the green tunnel. Yes, I paint private commissions that interest me – and this one did.

This is a recent commission that traveled across the country. The lovely question: “My daughter and I came to the Northwest to visit family and we hiked the Ozette Loop. Could you paint something to help us remember our fantastic trip?” – or something like that. Anyway, I wanted to share the painting here because, while it certainly IS the Ozette Loop, as anyone who has hiked that world-class trail will agree, it’s actually what I THOUGHT that 6 MILES of boardwalk feels like. It just goes on and on through the green wall of ancient old-growth, cedar, spruce and alder. Sometimes it’s a hand-split cedar boardwalk, sometimes it’s new stuff, sometimes you think you’ll fall through and sometimes even plastic Trex appears momentarily (how COULD they have done that?).

Nancy Cherry Eifert paying attention. One wrong step and a busted knee at least.

There are places where this path is really old, like the section in the photo. You need to watch it carefully, not gaze around at the canopy overhead. It’s a leg-breaker awaiting. Sometimes it’s gravel, but not so much considering it’s 3 miles on each of two sides of the triangle. The middle side, of course, is 3 miles of wilderness beach, boulder and gravel walking down the coast – and the real reason most of us go there. That part feels amazingly remote but it’s really too good to share. It’s a place stories come from. It’s a place to camp, sit beside a beach fire and watch the sea otters play in the shallows. Maybe another hike’s in order next summer.

Thanks go to Jennifer and her family in Connecticut. I got to make a painting for you – and me.

All images enlarge with  a click. Yes, I paint commissions.

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
Larry Eifert

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

Click here to go to our main website – with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.