Field Notes

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How writers are reacting to Substack’s AI transparency tools

Proof of Life

Erik Hogan — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:13 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Yes. I stood here, alone in the wilderness, and watched the sun silently descend behind the peaks.

Life does not currently offer me set routines, but I try to sit and write often. This usually amounts to smearing words on a page. Ideas filleted open for me to examine. Most I leave there to rot, but sometimes they age well into something worth sharing.

My ideas did not develop into anything significant this week and I was leaning towards not publishing anything at all. However, an issue came to my attention that I do believe needs to be addressed. That issue is about Artificial Intelligence.

Within the past few days Substack, the platform I use to publish Field Notes, partnered with an AI company, Pangram. Now, on any essay in Substack, including my own beginning with this one, you can click a button to analyze how much, if any, was written or assisted by AI.

I only became aware of this after seeing other writers check their own work with it, demonstrating theirs was 100% authentically human written. I didn’t give that too much consideration, but did feel a little conflicted by seeing them do that. As if the necessity to do it pained me somehow.

A friend of mine later contacted me to ask my opinion about this. He showed me this Note addressing it-

Wow. It seems there are significant issues here that demand some attention. I may not have the answers, but let’s dig in.

The beginnings of this essay

First let me describe my current thinking on AI in general. Despite using it very minimally, I’m not going to rail against it. My conclusions are not yet fully settled. I haven’t taken a hard line stance because there is much that I do not know and may yet be persuaded by rational arguments from people who do know. Let’s say that what follows is my working hypothesis about ethical use of AI.

There are undoubtedly beneficial uses for AI. I won’t list them here, but advances in medicine and science are just a start. Much of the debate in favor of it seems to assert that it is ultimately a tool like any other. That it is not inherently bad, but how it is used could be good or bad. I believe this is a valid point.

In that vein, I don’t see it as an evil or a poison that immediately infects upon any contact. Many months ago I gave ChatGPT a test run, just so I could have some knowledge of its capabilities. No, I did not use it to generate any writing. I asked it about topics I was wanting to learn. To explain concepts. To compare and contrast the underlying elements of similarities I recognized across genres. It seemed to do this wonderfully. The experience equated to having personal conversations with the most knowledgeable of experts. The possibility of using it as a tool for my own understanding was profound and continues to loom as a temptation.

As great as that sounds, the AI did lie to me. I asked it for a quote. It gave me one. It took me repeatedly asking for where the quote came from for the AI to acknowledge that it wasn’t a direct quote from the text, but a summary statement aligned with what the author would have said. That’s a big problem!

But let’s take a look at the other side, the one that rejects AI. I actually find myself more aligned with this perspective. With this perspective, the problem mainly relates to creative endeavors such as writing, art, photography, music, etc.

We must recognize that these are the methods of humans relaying the human experience to other humans. These creative outlets are the stuff of life. They are expressions of the essence of what it means to be human. That is why we create them and how we wish to receive them. So, there is a legitimate objection when someone uses artificial intelligence to create a simulation of the human experience and present it as authentic. It is a lie. Yet the simulations are becoming so good that you’re deceiving yourself if you think you can always discern them.

The other protest against AI is in the way it operates. It essentially steals or plagiarizes the creative intellectual property of others to use as source material for what it generates. It does not give compensation. It does not even ask for consent.

Are you willing to use a tool to generate your human perspective for you? Are you willing to use a tool that runs on stolen ideas?

A scene I witnessed, of shifting and fading light filtering through broken clouds.

This seems to be the most common debate. How do we use AI ethically? To what extent and in what circumstances? But I have another grievance with AI that must be confronted before we can even arrive at this question.

In the past few years I’ve seen an unprecedented level of development where I live. Apartment complexes springing up daily, strip malls and fast food restaurants nobody asked for being built. A never ending construction of storage facilities. All of it necessitates the careless elimination of natural spaces.

Add to this the recent assault on environmental protections and public lands nationwide. The repeal of the roadless rule. The massive reduction of national monuments to clear the way for fossil fuel exploitation. We are rapidly losing the last scraps of the wild that we have left.

So, when I see the rampant proliferation of data centers across the country, I recognize them as abominations. The amount of water and power they use. The noise. The pollution. And also just the amount of acreage of usually rural natural areas that are destroyed for their construction. It is truly alarming.

Consider this. OpenAI announced Project Camellia in my home state of Georgia. It will consist of four buildings that sit on 1,400 acres of land! Now, of course they promise closed loop water cooling to minimize water consumption and no raising of power rates for local customers. But this is still 1,400 acres of land! And it sits right on top of an important source of drinking water for the Southeast US, the Floridian Aquifer.

Without a doubt, these data centers are being built to run AI. I, for one, am NOT willing to trade the real world of nature for the ‘improved,’ ‘efficient,’ or ‘utopic’ digital world that AI promises.

Consider the medical field for a moment. The human body is a complex system, meaning that its inner workings are often opaque. You make a small change in it here with a medicine or surgical procedure, but you cannot always know or predict the downstream consequences. In fact, one of the leading causes of death has been iatrogenics- unintended harm caused by medical intervention. Up until the discovery of penicillin people were more likely to die from visiting a doctor than not.

AI is a similar intervention into complex systems. Both the system of the natural world and the system of human beings and their experience of life. We have no idea what the downstream consequences of this intervention are going to be.

Perhaps we should first apply the Hippocratic Oath? Do no harm.

From that basis, I cannot get to the point of asking what type use of AI is ok because I see ANY use of AI as contributing to the construction of data centers and thus causing irreparable harm to the environment.

Would you debate what you strike with a hammer or how hard you hit with it, if you knew that every swing of that hammer hurt your family to some degree?

But let us return to the original concern- that of Substack adding a function for AI to check the amount of AI within an essay.

I do think that the creators of Substack are truly just looking for a way to keep people honest. As an experiment, I did try this out on an essay from a publication I subscribe to today. It showed me that the essay was likely 100% AI generated. In truth, I was starting to have a suspicion, which is why I chose this publication as a test, but I’m still not sure what to make of that.

To be fair, this publication is informational. It doesn’t suggest that it is relaying the author’s personal experience. Honestly, there’s a good possibility that the information in this publication is top notch. But yes, my relationship to it has changed knowing (or believing now, based on the result of this scan) that it is AI.

So if I continue to subscribe to this publication am I contributing to the use of AI, damage to the environment, and intellectual property theft? Perhaps so. Yet Substack has added a function to my essays (without asking me) that allows the use of AI to analyze if AI contributed to them. It violates my working hypothesis of the use of AI without my ability to say ‘no, thanks.’

To be clear, there is a consideration of degree of use here. While I use no AI whatsoever in my writing, photography is a bit more fuzzy. In my editing program there is a button to use AI to remove the dust spots that show up on an image due to dirt on the sensor or lens. It takes about 15 seconds to run and saves me a lot of tedious work. I’ve been using it. That does violate my hypothesis, but at the same time it SEEMS like such a minor infraction as to be inconsequential. Perhaps I’m a hypocrite.

And also, within that program it is not always clear if a tool I am using is AI or not. Some of the masking or selection tools for parts of the image may utilize AI without my realizing it. Should I stop using these? Do I need to abandon digital photography in favor of film?

I don’t know exactly where I stand. Maybe this AI checker is such a small usage, like the dust spot remover function, that it could be considered insignificant? I would like to know if what I’m reading is AI or not. But I’m not sure I want to contribute to AI to find out.

And I’m sort of heartbroken at authentic human creators showing AI test results proving that their work is their own. And the possibility of false positives is now an additional threat we must consider.

So let’s consider why there is a need for this tool, and what is now being asked of creators specifically in the digital space. Because this is just a problem of the digital world.

The digital world was initially a fantastic playground of both information and for connecting with other people across physical space and time in a way never before possible. While false information has always been a lurking threat, the emergence of AI has populated the digital world with an explosion of doppelgangers. The digital world is forever changed.

In the real world (for now) I have no need to run an analysis tool to determine whether the person I’m speaking with is real. In the digital world I do. So, for as long as I continue to choose to participate in the digital world, I am now asked for proof that I am real. I am asked for proof of life.

And yes, I could choose not to enter the digital world. In fact, I would assert that virtually all of the good stuff of life is to be found outside of it. But the cost of using AI is breaking the veil between the worlds. The environmental cost of the development that drives AI is an active sacrifice of real life for a hollow approximation of it.

Another question we are left with, however, is how much to trust the AI checker itself. There are already concerns of false positives. But how can I be assured that there is no bias in the system? I mean, it seems that flagging something as having AI content is perceived negatively. So, could something be flagged because the system doesn’t like the content? I’m currently writing a largely anti-AI essay here. What if Pangram’s AI doesn’t agree with the content and flags this as AI written just so I lose all credibility? That might be laughable at the moment, but is a real possibility the more AI evolves.

Run the AI checker on my essays, if you like. I don’t care what the results show because I know the work is my own and is real. As I state in my Field Notes introduction post, this is a work of exploration, not answers. Using AI to generate my essays would entirely defeat the point of them. I honestly wouldn’t hold it against anyone who did check my work. Like I stated above, I would like to know as well.

But if you ever had questions or doubts, I think the human thing to do would be to ask me. I respond to everyone’s comments. Perhaps my shameless wilderness selfies suddenly have value?

I can show you where I stood. I can describe the freezing nights. I can show you the worn out gear. I can recount to you how scared I was. I can show you the notepads I scribbled it all on.

I can show you my scars. They are evidence of my experiences, the basis of my understanding, and are my proud proof of the humble human life I’ve lived.

Post script-

After writing this essay Substack published an essay of their own responding to some of the feedback about this.

On Substack

Earlier this week, we announced a feature that allows readers to scan text published to Substack to see how much of it is estimated to be written by hand or with AI assistance. We also launched tools for publishers, including the ability to run the program…

11 days ago · 2057 likes · 820 comments

According to this, “These features do not use publisher content, either through Substack or Pangram, to train generative AI models.” So that’s good news. Also, they have now added a function for authors to disable the AI scan for specific posts.

I think its important for authors to be in control over whether they allow the use of AI to scan their posts for AI, so I’ll also put this down as a win. Still, I’m leaving that option available for now. We’re all trying to fumble our way through these new dilemmas, so I’ll leave it up to everyone to decide on their own.

I know there are issues and solutions beyond what I’ve touched on here. This is probably a ‘too be continued’ topic, but one that I really don’t intend to write about regularly.

My friends, I would really like to hear your thoughts on this one! Where’s the line of acceptable use of AI? Is it rational to avoid it due to environmental concerns or do any benefits outweigh that? Am I mistaken about how much environmental harm is being done? Is it a matter of how much we use it or how? Again, my thoughts are a working hypothesis. Help me dial it in!

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Wildfire Skies

Erik Hogan — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:01:55 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Mid summer. Without a doubt my least favorite time of year in Georgia. The heat advisory indicates that it feels like 108 degrees. We’ve had rain, but that just means that when it’s not raining the humidity is suffocating. I went grocery shopping the other day and just the effort of walking across the parking lot left me lethargic for the rest of the afternoon.

This is the doldrums. Too miserable to spend time outside, but stir crazy in the house. It’s hard to think about backpacking right now, even if it were to escape to the relatively cooler rivers or mountains to the north. The sultriness has made me apathetic.

I’ve seen chatter online over the past few days about Canadian wildfires. People are sharing images of hazy orange skies. This led me to think back on a trip I took to the Joyce Kilmer Wilderness area back in late August of 2023. It was an attempt to climb to elevation to escape the heat of late summer, though I don’t remember it being nearly as hot as now.

Though I didn’t think about it before going on the trip, Canadian wildfires were in the news then, too. I spent the second night in Joyce Kilmer at a rocky prominence called The Hangover. That evening as the sun was setting I made a panoramic photo of three separate images, combined in post processing.

While barricaded inside with the air conditioning, I thought it might be interesting to re-visit, and re-work, that scene.

Original

Above is the original panorama photo that I made. Almost three years later now, I cannot remember the steps I took to edit it. Looking at it now, I see that it could easily be cropped. There is a lot of uninteresting dead space in the landscape and the sky on each end. Unfortunately I cannot go back and change the camera angle, though, because the only foreground of interest is also in that dead space on the edges.

There is also a lot of blue in the image. Maybe it’s not too much blue, but it is just in the wrong places.

And finally, though the what foreground I captured stands out, the light on the mountains in the middle distance looks very flat. Let’s see what I would do differently today.

First Re-edit

The above image is my first re-edit of the pano. I took the RAW images, stitched them together, and edited it from scratch. It aligns much more with the way I currently edit my landscape photos.

I cropped away the dead space on the ends of the image. The intensity of blue is reduced and I tried to keep the entire color palate more natural. I then used masks to try to bring out some of the light on the middle distance hills to make the whole scene a bit more dynamic.

But perhaps I can still make it more interesting, without getting too crazy?

Second Re-edit

I did not like that the first re-edit didn’t include much of a foreground. In this second re-edit I shifted the crop all the way to the right to catch the stones an bushes in the bottom right edge. It’s not much of a foreground, but the best of what was available. This also put the setting sun right at the left third of the image, which gives the overall picture balance.

I color graded this edit. Nothing wild, but tilted the shadows to blue and the highlights and mid tones to yellowish orange. I think the end result shows the warmth of the wildfire clouds while displacing the blue of the original edit. It reduces the intensity of the blue and moves it from the sky to the mountains in the distance.

Finally, I used more masks to bring up the exposure of the hills in the middle distance. Even more than in the first re-edit. I believe the first thing that draws the eye in this picture is the sun at the upper left. But from there, the eye can now travel through this illuminated middle distance and come to rest at the bushes and rocks in the foreground on the right.

A comment I often hear is that people want their photographs to appear natural. Like what the scene actually looked like at the time. But here’s the thing- they won’t. Every image taken by every camera is an approximation of what the human eye can see. The human eye has a greater capacity to see simultaneously the darkest shadows and the brightest of highlights than any camera in existence.

On top of that we need to factor in the human experience. Our emotional states, experiences, and recollections contribute greatly to how we visualize a scene in the moment. And, how we then burn it into our memory.

A standard digital photograph is rendered as a jpg file. That means the data that was collected by the camera sensor is already rendered somewhat to give a compressed and ‘best of’ version of the collected data.

Most aspirational photographers, however, take digital photos as RAW files. These files include all of the available light data at the moment of capture. And while they often appear quite flat out of the camera, these files offer much more flexibility to work with in post processing due to the amount of data in them.

When I take a photo in the field, I think of it as such. I look at the land. I recognize how I feel and relate to the scene before me. With the camera I then capture digital information about the light. I am not trying to make a great photo in a RAW file, but instead I am trying to capture the maximal amount of data about the light that I can.

Post processing of a RAW file is where artistry lies. Some may say this is manipulating an image to look unrealistically better. My opinion is that processing is my opportunity to craft the data that I actually captured in the moment. I don’t add anything that wasn’t there. I adjust and manipulate the information in the file in a way that represents my human memory of the experience and feeling of the scene.

Can we get philosophical with this? Just as a digital camera captures information about light, perhaps human experiences are essentially the capturing of data about life and how it works? Maybe it is then up to us to post process those experiences through introspection and philosophical inquiry?

If we take it as a whole, just accepting whatever life hands us, the experience may be flat, one dimensional, and boring. But by crafting our lives through the assent we give to what we choose to value and the actions we undertake based on this, perhaps we can make our lives as vivid as wildfire skies.

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Thoughts on Identity

Erik Hogan — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:22:25 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Thank you for checking out today’s essay. I hesitated to publish this one, as I know it is unfinished. My understanding of the topic is admittedly limited, and thus my conclusions may be off base. Its definitely some philosophical hatchet work!

Read it with that in mind. Field Notes is about the exploration of ideas, not my professing of answers. This essay is my own effort at mental clarification. The only reason it is published is to give myself some real world consequences for my conclusions, and therefore hold my thinking to the highest standard I can. Self induced peer pressure to try to avoid sounding like an idiot, I suppose! Hopefully it works.

Bear in B&W. Slightly different that others I’ve shared.

Who are you? Not who you think you are, but rather, who shows up when everything is going wrong and the consequences are dire? Who are you when things are great, but you’re pulled away from that by a friend in need? Who are you when all alone and there’s no clear direction to choose?

Ethical decisions interest me greatly. Especially those that we must make in haste, without clear information, and in the rapidly changing opacity of life events. Perhaps in order to even be able to attempt this, we have to begin with the foundation of knowing ourselves. We must understand who we are before we can decide how we should act. But who are we?

The air is oppressively still. In July in Georgia the mid afternoon sun falls with unfiltered violence. Humidity from the surrounding vegetation makes every breath a struggle.

I’m prone at 100 yards with my rifle, trying to see the dim red dot of my optic before a tiny steel target blending in with the berm behind it. This range training day is focused on long distance accuracy. The sweat rolls freely off of me. Blink. Squint. That red dot blurs. It streaks in my vision. At times I see two dots. Which one is the illusion?

Salt stings my eyeballs. I swipe it away and look again. Now its a little better. I’ll never be a sniper, but I know I can find enough clarity of the dot to perform well enough for today. I’m getting old, though. How long can I keep up with the expectations of being a SWAT officer? That role isn’t something I bring up often, but it has been a big part of my identity for many years. Who am I if my vision no longer meets the demands of the job? And, though I’m nowhere close to this now, what if visual limitations ever prevented me from making photographs? Who would I be then?

At times I am on the lookout for a particular vehicle. Let’s just say a yellow VW Bug as a standout example. You couldn’t possibly imagine how many yellow VW Bugs are out there until you start looking for that one in particular. Such is the case with ideas, too, and this past week or so it has been the topic of identity that I encountered seemingly everywhere.

shared an ARTICLE recently discussing Jean Paul Sartre and some of his ideas discussed in Existentialism is a Humanism. This book is a transcription of a speech Sartre gave. In it, he asserts that man is the sum of his actions. As Cleary illustrates-

‘[Man] is nothing more than the sum of his actions,’ Sartre declares. Blaming circumstances or claiming you deserve better is, for Sartre, self-deception. According to Sartre, ‘there is no love other than the deeds of love; no potential for love other than that which is manifested in loving.’ You make yourself through what you do, not what you might have done. ‘In life, a man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing.’

Bear in mind that I’m just beginning to tackle Existentialist philosophy and, in honesty, struggling to follow some of the premises. I assure you there is vast depth that eludes me at this point. From my initial contact with its concepts, there are some that seem instantly objectionable and others that resonate with attitudes I’ve adopted long ago.

I recently read Existentialism is a Humanism and this passage already stood out to me. Cleary’s essay highlighted it once more, but clarified that there may be some problematic aspects to it.

I am reminded of seeing the movie Batman Begins back in 2005. At the time, a particular scene affected me strongly. Bruce Wayne (alter ego Batman) explains to Rachel Dawes that he is more on the inside than the playboy persona he presents to the public. Rachel responds “But its not who you are underneath. It’s what you do that defines you.”

For many years this was fundamental to how I lived. Best intentions do not matter if you do not back them up with your actions. It rang true as I was working as a paramedic in the inner city, is what then steered me towards working as a cop, and then later inspired me as a father to take great efforts to introduce my kids to such things as camping and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Thinking on this now, it seems in alignment with Sartre’s statement that we are the sum of our actions.

But more recently I began to question this premise. Ironically, the questions arise from my understanding of Stoicism, which is professed to be a philosophy of action. You see, Stoicism is a system of virtue ethics. One of its foundational claims is that the only thing man truly controls is his own rational faculty. Sure, we try to do good things. However, we cannot fully control the outcomes of our actions. The archer is a Stoic metaphor. The archer draws his bow, aims, and releases with all of the skill and precision he can bring to bear. However, once fired, he does not have control over where the arrow lands. Extrapolating from this, it may not be the results of our actions that matter so much as the virtue and intent that drive the action.

So is Stoicism suggesting that who we are underneath may actually define us more than our actions? There is something compelling in this view. If my camera breaks and I am unable to afford a new one, I’d like to think my identity didn’t shatter along with the machine. If I am the sum of my actions, then so long as I continue making photographs I am still a photographer. If I stop, then I am that no longer. But perhaps I can be defined by more than the overt external expressions of what I do? The Stoic viewpoint supports an “inner citadel” of identity that is unassailable by the outside world.

A complication I see in this is the fact that intent cannot be judged objectively. Action can be. We can observe that a person did this or failed to do that, regardless of why. But we cannot observe the why. I believe it was Seneca who illustrated this by picturing a man on his deathbed. One man sits with him until the moment of his passing out of genuine friendship. Another sits with him only in hopes of gaining his favor and then possibly inheritance. The action is the same, but only the one performing it can truly attest to the virtue behind it.

Is this a matter of internal vs external definition of identity? Perhaps if we are the sum of our actions we are dependent on others’ perceptions and experiences of those actions? Maybe if we are the sum of our rational choices then we define for ourselves who we truly are?

Russell Holt, , offers some clarification of the Stoic position in his essay Decide the Character You Will Keep. He states-

One lesson becomes increasingly clear as we study the Stoics. Philosophy is visible. Not because we announce it. Because we live it. A person may quote Epictetus flawlessly and still lose his temper over a minor inconvenience. He may speak eloquently about virtue while indulging gossip, vanity, or resentment. Knowledge alone changes nothing. Conduct reveals everything.
This is why Stoicism has always been a philosophy of training rather than mere instruction. We do not become better by admiring wisdom. We become better by practicing it repeatedly until it becomes our settled disposition.

So is Stoicism actually also suggesting we are the sum of our actions? Maybe so, just not in the sense of big, overt accomplishments pointed to like diplomas on a wall. It seems to say that the sum of all of our decisions, big and small, moment to moment, move us in the direction of the persons we strive (or should strive) to become. Decisions lead to actions which train our character the way we build muscle. Intentions not backed up by action lead nowhere.

The Existentialists tell us that it is up to us to utilize our inherent freedom and agency to choose our goals, or as they say our projects, and give them meaning. Thus we act, and thus we define ourselves. We don’t find meaning, we create it in our choosing of what we do.

The Stoics might hear this and say yes, but all of those goals lie in the realm outside of our rational faculty. Their results may ultimately not be up to us and lead to disappointment, anger, or frustration. Therefore, the only truly good goal is to define ourselves and give meaning to our lives through the pursuit of virtue, of excellence of character, regardless of external circumstances.

Great Smoky Mountains. This one has slight color. A previous version was B&W.

So where does all of this musing land us? For now I’m still a SWAT cop until the day I decide to hang it up. What happens then?

There is something intrinsically important about confirming intention through action in the real world. Its not the understanding of, but the practice of Stoicism that nudges one towards virtue. But that virtue is expressed in the world in various forms. SWAT cop is just one. Another is as a husband and father. Photographer is another. Who I am is the consistent rational faculty embodied by any given role.

It is that underlying consistency that makes me wonder if Sartre missed the mark a little bit. And consistency is critical. As mentioned earlier, there must be some stable base of understanding who we are and what we stand for in order to make ethical decisions in unclear situations. Thus, maybe we define ourselves through our rational choices and active relation to the world.

I have a lot of learning and reflecting to do still. Stoicism, Existentialism, all of it. Give me some thoughts or feedback on this and hopefully we can expand our understanding!

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Exposure Anthology IV

Erik Hogan — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:02:13 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Its freaking hot you guys! Temperatures are pushing 100 degrees in the afternoons and there’s been no rain for a couple of weeks. 04:30 am workouts still leave me drenched like I’ve climbed out of a pool, only to shower off and instantly be sweating again. And only a few of you will appreciate this, but feeling rolls of sweat dribbling down your torso across patches of heat rash inflamed skin underneath a bulletproof vest while trying to direct traffic around an accident scene produces an almost ecstatic level of mental anguish.

I have a mental list of places I’d like to photograph next. Waterfalls, mountaintops, both unexplored places and those familiar. They’re going to have to wait until the weather becomes less hell-bent on heat and more interesting.

Meanwhile, I’ve been unapologetically barricaded indoors in my free time. So, for the past week I’ve worked on re-vamping a site to make prints of my photos available. I’m not telling you that you need to purchase anything. I’m just saying that if you’re looking at that blank space on your wall and thinking about how much you absolutely love the Southeast US with its mountains and rivers and animals… there are options. Or, if your thinking how an image of the essence of wildness would completely fill that void of space in your life… then just maybe take a look at this site and consider the possibilities.

Guys, in photography I haven’t found anywhere that lays it out to tell me ‘this is how it works.’ It’s basically a free-for-all and I’m figuring it out entirely on my own. If you do use this site to get a print, please give me some feedback. This is all a work-in-progress and the only goal is to offer something of value.

Below are a few highlight photos that are now available as prints in various formats. The print store has many more available, and there are tabs at the top to give context of the various US states they were captured in. Hopefully that gives a more meaningful point of reference.

I’m not going to overwhelm you all from now on with pleas to purchase anything. This is simply a new option available that will hopefully be beneficial to everyone. Let me know what you think!

If you are enjoying Field Notes, you can support my work in several ways. Subscribe/Upgrade, tip, or check out my store. Your support goes directly towards the food, supplies, or gear necessary for the photography, writing, and adventures that I share-

Print Store

Waterfall Chasing: Streams of the Smokies

Erik Hogan — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:24 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Swirling Cascade

The Great Smoky Mountains is a land saturated with esoteric wonder. Dew glistens on ferns whose memories recall epochs of the unknowable past, of ice ages and beyond. Shadowed vales are still home to ghosts of fantastic creatures who once thrived in these forests. Elk. Wood bison and mountain lion, who disappeared not so long ago. Obscure fauna older still, described only by fossils. The moss knew them all. And while the moss holds its secrets closely, it radiates this ancient aura through the stillness of the mountains.

Crowds in the national park converge in the most easily accessible areas. Parking lots at trailheads along Hwy 441 traveling through its midst are overflowing with vehicles shortly after dawn. Visitor centers are full. Any point with a view from the car or where an animal steps within view is a point of traffic coagulation. But these highlights are a noisy distraction from the subtle power of the Smokies, where the weight of time has embraced the bones of the earth.

Of Rocks and Roots and Rivers

This powerful ambiance is evident in its omnipresence here. All it takes is stepping off of the the most common paths. Around the corner from the crowds there is silence and wildness flowing freely with the boulder strewn streams.

A day on my family vacation near the Smokies offers the time and space to go to the park on my own. I have no parking pass, so the first place I must go is the Sugarlands Visitor Center to try to buy one for the day. Passes are not expensive, but the challenge is finding parking at the visitor center to be able to get a pass. I circle the parking lots several times before finding a lucky space.

The trails around the visitor center are easy strolls. Families clamber around the base of Cataract Falls. From there I wander towards the John Ownby Cabin. Buildings are visible through the trees and a steady stream of traffic on a road traveling parallel to the path. So I turn my attention to the smaller things. Mushrooms on the forest floor. A hornet nest in the branches above.

This walk is short and I am left wanting for more. Scanning the map, I see a trail nearby, though no clear way to walk to the trailhead from the visitor center. Undaunted, I tread past a construction area and stride along the shoulder of Hwy 441 with its steady flow of automobiles.

The trailhead isn’t far at all, just less accessible. It is the Old Sugarlands Trail, following the West Prong Little Pigeon River. As soon as I am on this path the superficial mask of the Smokies’ popularity is lifted. This tumbling stream embodies the flowing vitality of wildness. Its voice sings synchronously of loss and of eternity, yet the quiet echoes are neither nostalgic nor remorseful. Just estranged from any contrivances of man.

West Fork Little Pigeon River

A Flow of Time

I do not hike far down the Old Sugarlands Trail. An easy route down to the rocks and the water offers me space and time to photograph the river and simply to exist in its presence for a while.

The next morning I have a plan. Rising early, cousin Kaden and I will take a car with a parking pass for a hike to Grotto Falls. The sunrise is brilliant, but the drive there deceptively long. Not in distance, but in time. The roads are small and windy. We follow other vehicles easing along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, a narrow driving route through this section of the park. We reach this popular trailhead early enough to find parking, but too late to see the train of Llamas packing supplies up the Trillium Gap Trail from here to the lodge atop Mt LeConte.

A steady climb rises before us. There is no shortage of other hikers along the way, though the day is still early and the numbers of other people not yet teeming.

Steep valleys choked with waxy rhododendron fall away down the mountain side. Soft sunlight falls down in an irregular patchwork through the tree canopy overhead. A warm beam lands on a fern arched gracefully over damp shadowed soil. Other delicate ancient things stand illuminated by the gentle brush of the sun. Moss on a musty stump in decay. The coiled shell of a snail. It all could so easily be overlooked, yet here in the Smokies on this slow ascent, these small scenes present as enchantments. As glimpses into long forgotten, arcane truths about the world.

Grotto falls is a unique free falling waterfall. Unique in that it is one of the few places where the trail actually proceeds behind the falls. A cool dampness reigns in the air and, as to be expected here, people are congregating for their opportunity to have pictures made standing behind it.

Salamanders scamper away as I find a photo composition and set my tripod in the stream. Then comes a time for waiting. Not waiting for the right conditions, for the right light, or for weather to shift or the sun to be angled just so. No, this is waiting for a gap in the groups of people. Waiting for my own moment to capture the falls, just without the humans.

Grotto Falls I

Grotto Falls II

Foliage in B&W

We are back at the cabin mid morning. But, it is not long before I learn that Aunt Charlotte wants to go for a hike and so of course I’m going out again as well.

This time we head to the Middle Prong Trailhead at Tremont. It is a wide and flat path, a former railroad bed, following the Lynn Camp Prong. This path gently climbs towards undesignated destinations. I’m not sure how far we plan to go and simply absorb the turbulent wonders of the adjacent river.

Terraced Cascade

Again, there are other hikers here. Fewer than at Grotto Falls, though. Not crowded at all. Rounding a bend in the trail, a buck with antlers in velvet steps into plain view just ahead. It knows we are here, cautious yet not frightened. We watch as he makes his way across the stream to a small clearing of flat land on the far bank. There he stands awash in light beneath the contrasting foliage, prince of a realm that has nearly lost mankind’s appreciation.

Prince of the Forest

Lynn Camp Prong Cascade

Some might call such a hike uneventful. We reach a split in the trail at a crossing of the river and there realize we have come as far as we need to this day. The cold pure water rushes over my skin as I sit soaking my feet. Sunlight filters through the leaves, salamanders hide amongst the rocks, and the only sound is the steady trickle of the stream.

Uneventful it is not. This is how the ancient magic of the Smokies is conveyed from its living things and endless crystal streams into the few human beings who remain open to receiving it. Not through explanations or justifications, but through connection. These mountains, older than our imagination can conceive of, cradle the same wildness that lies latent within us. Immersed in them, we can recognize ourselves.

This wraps up most of my experience of the Smokies in June. Really happy with how several of these stream/waterfall/cascade photos turned out, and that picture of the buck was a happy surprise! I hope they resonated with you, too. Let me hear your thoughts!

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Bears!

Erik Hogan — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:48 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Some of the family arrived a day earlier. We learn by text and photos that a momma bear and three cubs walked past the cabin that evening and went up the road. Dang it! I would have loved to see them. Maybe they will be back!

This trip is a family vacation. A reunion, of sorts, of Heather’s side of the family. Uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces, grandchildren, all coming here for a rare week of time together. The “cabin” is actually a massive three story building with plenty of room for the families, a large kitchen, community area, and even a billiard room downstairs for the kids. It sits on a hillside in a gated community outside of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, overlooking the Great Smoky Mountains just to the south.

In all honesty I’d prefer my tent and immersion in the wild, but this trip is not about me. I look forward to catching up with family and simply enjoying the week.

We arrive mid day. The bears have not returned. After settling in, I spend a long time, hours, on the second floor back deck. The view of rolling hills leading up to Mt LeConte in the distance is incredible. Despite my vigilance, no bears present themselves emerging from the forest below.

By late afternoon a boredom sets in. It’s a restlessness conjured by hours in a car followed by hours sitting on the deck. I need to walk. A hand drawn map of the neighborhood indicates that just beyond the neighborhood “lodge” is a nature trail with a view; a one mile loop.

Announcing to the family that I’m going exploring, Heather’s niece says she wants to go. She and my son are pretty close, working at the same establishment, so he’s coming along as well.

The driveway climbs steeply from the cabin and then becomes a narrow road that contours the edge of a steep hillside. Other cabins to our left are built on massive pylons, holding them suspended in the air as they protrude from the side of the mountain.

Bears! I freeze in place. I’m leading the way as we round a curve to the right. About 50 yards ahead, just a few houses away, a momma bear and her three cubs are milling about at the edge of the road.

I suppose I had been secretly hoping to encounter bears on this walk. I did bring my camera, after all. But I had not considered encountering them with two young 20-something kids in tow. Kids whose safety I’m responsible for.

“Hey bear!” I call out in a low voice, waving my arms overhead. She looks. She sees me. And she is totally unconcerned. That is not normal bear behavior.

I take a few photos, calling out several more times. We begin slowly backing away.

Neither momma nor the cubs care. They pace around, sniffing and exploring. Then they begin walking towards us. We back up more. I clap loudly several times.

The young ones disappear in some shrubbery and do not re-emerge. I believe they’ve gone downhill between cabins. Perhaps to the forest. Perhaps to climb a tree.

But momma keeps walking towards us.

Momma’s Approach I

Momma’s Approach II

I keep the kids behind me as we continue backing away. Momma is undeterred. There’s a vertical cliff to our right and a steep drop between the houses to the left. Nowhere to go but back.

The bear checks a trash can. Empty. But now I see her purpose. She’s checking every trashcan at every house and she’ll keep coming our way to do so.

Trash here is only to be deposited within a narrow window in the late morning, and then is immediately collected by property management. Still, it is alarming to me to realize they do not have bear resistant trash bins here. This momma has learned to be comfortable in proximity with people, feasting on refuse. That can only have terrible consequences at some point, for both people and for the bears.

One house did not comply with the trash schedule. Momma finds a bag, pulls it out, and descends about 25 feet down the hill beside the house to tear into it.

While she’s preoccupied we are able to walk past.

This day’s bear encounters do not end here. We walk past the lodge, heading towards the start of the nature trail. A small, maintained lawn leads up to the wood line, where the trail climbs the hilltop. Just as we begin to approach the forest, a massive crashing through vegetation races away. It is undoubtedly another bear, but the leaves are so thick we cannot see it.

We wait and when we can no longer hear movement we proceed with caution. It is gone. And the trail is also gone. A short distance uphill it becomes a freshly bulldozed track and the beginning of an area of new construction.

The way back home is uneventful, though my son an niece are excited about their story to tell.

I’ve been an early riser my whole life, and that doesn’t change on vacation. I creep downstairs, wincing at the creaking floorboards. With coffee in hand, its out to the back deck to sit in darkness as the whippoorwills sing and the owls comment in the distance. Dawn emerges slowly, but it is one of the most vivid skies I’ve seen in a long time.

Commotion arises in the house as people awaken, breakfast is made and eaten, and everyone prepares for the day ahead. I find myself back out on the deck again when someone says there are bears out by our trash bin.

The cabin has a side deck with a view to the parking lot and trash bin. I can scarcely see it from there. Downhill, on the ground beyond the trash bin and obscured by tree branches is the white bundle of a shredded trash bag. It was just taken out within the allotted time frame, but the trash collector has not yet arrived.

The bag is moving. And through the leaves black fur is visible, too. And a muzzle nosing through the trash. Supposedly its the same momma with cubs, but I don’t see the babies. Or do I? Now the mass of fur has moved away and, in fact, I can make out a small bear or two at the bag.

Speculation peaks, but then the momma emerges from the trees. She’s clearly the same chonky beast I saw yesterday. Now she is returning for more. Rounding the trash bin, she peaks inside. She uses a rail to climb up and, with butt to the sky, plunges her head down into the bin. It’s empty now, but she must have a prize. Momma grabs the empty plastic trashcan, pulls it out of the bin, and drags it away into the forest.

Just then a white truck pulls down the steep hill of our driveway and stops at the bin. Its the trash collector. A middle age man steps out of the driver’s seat. I call out to him- “hey, those bears are right there on the other side of the bin!”

He nods, but doesn’t seem as concerned as I think he should be. Perhaps this is a daily nuisance for him. The man looks down the hill at our trash bag and trash can and the bears are still right there, just about 15 yards away.

That trash collector then whips out an empty white trash bag and thrashes it violently in the air. A huge scrambling clamor erupts below. All four bears, cubs followed by momma, race up a mighty pine tree standing nearby. At first it is just the sound of furious scraping of claws on bark, but in a moment they become visible as they make their way vertically up the tree.

The trash collector says something on a handheld radio, gets in his truck, and drives away.

Cub in Tree

Momma in Tree I

Momma with Cubs in Tree

Momma in Tree II

Momma in Tree III

The bears settle down in the pine. The cubs are way up high, probably three stories, in the treetop. They shift and jockey for perches and cling to branches, but generally seem content. Momma remains much lower in the tree, wedged in between some thicker branches. She’s there as a guardian against anything that might try to climb up after them.

They aren’t coming down anytime soon, and we have an agenda of things to do in Gatlinburg today. Our family is able to get into cars without issue, and we leave the arboreal bears behind.

Rain comes in the afternoon. We pull back up to the cabin wondering, but momma bear and cubs have gone and do not return.

We have no fixed agenda on day three. After a late breakfast and relaxed morning, I’m trying to figure out how to make an escape into the Smoky Mountains National Park. The big problem is that I didn’t get a parking pass for the park ahead of time. There are a limited numbers of locations to purchase one in the park, but these spots can get so crowded that you cannot find a parking space to park at the places that sell parking passes. A true conundrum!

In the meantime, my son has decided he’s going golfing. Not long after he’s left, Heather tells me he encountered a bear in our driveway. Apparently it was on the other side of his car as he got into it. When he put the car in reverse, half of the back up camera was obscured by black fur. He didn’t hit the bear, but was right next to it as he was pulling out.

I step out onto the side deck to look, but there is no sign of this bear.

I decide to just try to go to the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center and attempt to get a parking pass. Maybe I can get passes for the upcoming days, as well. My daughter comes with, just for something to do.

Driving out on the narrow road leading out of the subdivision, who do we see? The bear. This one looks smaller, no babies around. It is walking in the middle of the road and all we can do is follow slowly behind it until our paths diverge at an intersection.

Through the Windshield while Driving

The parking pass attempt is a fail. We circle through the Sugarlands parking lots numerous times and cannot find a place to park. We did, however, continue on for a scenic drive with a few brief stops along the way.

Back at the cabin, its a relaxed afternoon of sipping coffee and reading on the back deck. Then, in the evening, hamburgers and hotdogs are on the menu. Two gas grills on the deck make quick work of the food prep. Most of us are chowing down on the enormously long table with benches adjacent to the kitchen when Uncle Tommy says that a bear has come out of the woods below the back deck.

Sure enough, it is there, standing in a small expanse of lawn between the house and the forest. I can’t tell if this bear is a male or female, but it is alone. Its standing fairly still, breathing hard in the summer heat. Smelling the grill.

Back Porch Bear I

Back Porch Bear II

Back Porch Bear III

Back Porch Bear IV

Window to the Soul

I photograph this bear from the safety of the second floor porch. Then, as it meanders away around the side of the cabin, I scramble halfway down a spiral staircase to the first floor deck for more photos. The spot is still elevated from ground level and separated by a railing below.

The bear isn’t frightened by my contortions, though. It is just hungry and hot. It slowly makes its way around our parked cars, past the empty trash bin, and vanishes again into the woods.

Some of the family who stayed at the cabin during the day over the next few days saw more bears. Maybe a different momma, possibly with four cubs. But this bear on this evening was the last I saw on the trip.

I am left with uncertain feelings about these bears. These are undoubtedly the closes bear encounters I have ever had. Seeing them at this proximity gives rise to a visceral recognition of their power and an awe filled appreciation of the majesty of nature. They are inherently wild creatures, forced out of their element by the circumstances of the modern world. In that sense I feel a strong kinship with them.

I am glad for the opportunity to witness these bears. To photograph them. To share the images that hopefully inspire others to appreciate them. But at the same time, I also recognize that this opportunity is also the bears’ tragedy. They’ve learned to encroach on humans for food. Those cubs have already learned this. Every bear I have encountered in the wild has fled instantly upon contact with me. These bears’ comfort around humans is alarming. At some point some human will do something dumb and get hurt. And that will be the bear’s death sentence. And it is not the bear’s fault.

So, in the end, I look deeply into the eyes of the bears. Sister bear. Brother bear. Sublime messengers of nature’s wisdom, more ancient than human memory. Thank you, and I am sorry.

I do hope these photos of bears gives you a deeper appreciation for these truly remarkable animals. The pictures from the first day aren’t tack sharp as I was photographing on the move while back pedaling, but I think they turned out ok. Questions, comments, thoughts on bears living around people, your bear encounters? Let’s discuss!

Tales of Shadow and Light

Erik Hogan — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 09:22:59 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Restraints, constraints, barriers, and limitations.

Its 4 am on Sunday morning, the time that Field Notes is normally published. Yet, I find myself typing out words at the computer, trying to form an essay. Between arriving back from a week long vacation yesterday afternoon and leaving in a couple of hours to take my daughter to the big city for a volleyball clinic today, time has been a constraint. Opportunity and space to write has been a limitation.

We face innumerable restraints on our freedom to do what we’d like when we’d like in life. This always presents a fundamental choice. We can skip the thing, because the factors lining up against it are too great, or we can do the best we can within the limitations we are presented with. Sometimes option A is the right call.

However, it is my experience that often times the pressure of working within tight parameters and limits can bring out a surprising level of creativity. Not having enough time may be the driving factor for getting the thing done at all. Not having everything that is needed calls forth remarkable resourcefulness.

Working within the limits life imposes upon us becomes an art form of balance and ingenuity within our lived experiences. With that in mind, some self-imposed limitations to our creative efforts can hone our skills, train new pathways of thinking, seeing, and feeling. Stanza, meter, and rhyme limit words, yet give form to a poem. A personal essay in which one does not refer to oneself is a challenge, but demands imaginative sentence and paragraph structure.

Many of you have seen my contributions to Substack Notes over the past couple of weeks and know of my recent efforts with Black & White photography. Personally, this is a huge limitation. I have always had a very strong preference for color as a method of conveying emotion through a visual medium. And it is precisely because I rely on it so heavily that I decided to try removing it from my images.

Black & White photography is my experiment. It is forcing me to look at the world with new eyes- seeing tonality in light, recognizing texture. The emotion may still be present, but seems to arise from association, context, and memory. These images convey tactile sensation and mental conception through the play of shadow, light, and the entire scale of gray in between.

So today I offer you a series of Black & White photos. You may have seen many of these before, and I will link to some of the posts in Notes, for the many of you receiving Field Notes who are unfamiliar with that platform. I am also sharing many of the same photos directly, in the hopes that they appear somehow larger, more detailed, or higher quality in this format. As always, this may not translate if you are reading this on a phone and I encourage you to take a look at this essay on a computer.

This experiment in Black & White started during a normal week. I photographed pets and simple flowers at sunrise, blooming along a roadside. These were made with the additional limitation of being taken with my iPhone. The work continued while in the Smoky Mountains this past week, and while I took these with a DSLR camera I was still away from my computer and processed them on an app in my down time. Some of these mountain and stream views are shared here for the first time.

Fuzz Demon in Monochrome

You may notice the grain in the larger versions of these photos. That is an intentional element I added to them in processing. Another experiment, an attempt at lending them a classic, perhaps senescent look.

The Architect of Chaos

On to the Great Smoky Mountains!

A misty morning view towards Mt LeConte from our balcony

Cloud and Shadow and Light on the Mountainside

Fern in Sunlight

Cascade along Lynn Camp Prong

Grotto Falls

Cascade along Lynn Camp Prong II

Don’t worry guys, I won’t stick with Black & White photos forever. In fact, I plan to re-work several of these photos in color soon. My family vacation to the Smokies presented some REALLY interesting encounters and photo opportunities which I hope to present next week. Stay tuned!

Till then, let’s talk about Black & White! What do you think?

Exposure Anthology III

Erik Hogan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:01:39 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

It’s June and as you’re reading this I’m off on a family vacation. The first larger family get together we’ve had in many years. We will be close by the Great Smoky Mountains, and I’m hoping to find some hiking excursions into the wild areas of the park to see streams, forests, peaks, and maybe even wildlife. I don’t know the agenda, though, so it will be a go-with-the-flow week ahead.

I had high hopes for some wildflower chasing in the mountains this late spring. The schedule got the best of me, though. Perhaps I can find those azaleas or rhododendron this week. If not, I’ll be looking forward to them next year. Or the blooms that come later in July and August, or the changing of the leaves. Attachment is the enemy in the wild. There’s always something upcoming to be looking forward to, even if it is different from what we hoped!

Today, in the spirit of wildflower chasing, I offer an Exposure Anthology highlighting three different adventures of the past.

Shining Rock Wilderness

I learned of catawba rhododendron and flame azalea, perhaps saw other photographers’ images of them, and became keenly interested in finding them in the wild. But I live about three hours south of the mountains, making it difficult to track the season’s blooming schedule.

The Middle Prong Wilderness is where I first sought them in early May 2023, but it was way too early at elevation. I returned in early June, this time to the Shining Rock Wilderness adjacent to it. It was still early for the majority of the rhododendron, but I did find them on some remote mountain tops.

Shining Rock I

Shining Rock II

Shining Rock III

Shining Rock IV

Shining Rock V

Great Smoky Mountains

In 2024 I thru hiked the Foothills Trail, which precluded any wildflower chasing. But by the time June of 2025 approached I had researched and knew when the potential best blooming times would be.

I made 2 short trips to the park in quick succession. The first was to Gregory Bald. No rhododendron here, but after a brief bear encounter, the peak offered a stunning display of flame azalea!

Gregory Bald I

Gregory Bald II

Gregory Bald III

Gregory Bald IV

Gregory Bald V

Riding high on the success at Gregory Bald, I then spent a night near Andrew’s Bald. Timing the light was tricky. The nearest campsite was a bit of a hike from the bald, which limited my time there in the evening and morning light. Nearby passing afternoon storms helped out a bit, though.

Here the rhododendron and the azalea danced together is absolutely stunning display!

Andrew’s Bald I

Andrew’s Bald II

Andrew’s Bald III

Andrew’s Bald IV

Andrew’s Bald V

Andrew’s Bald VI

Well, my friends, there you have it! June’s wildflower chasing from 2023 and 2025. I really do hope to have more from the Smokies this coming week, but no promises. And, with that, no promises for next Sunday’s Field Notes as I’ll be away from my computer.

You may have noticed the captions on these photos. They are just arbitrary titles, but I thought this might make it easier to reference them in a comment, if you want to discuss them. Is that helpful?

Waterfall Chasing: Return to the Canyon of Five Falls

Erik Hogan — Sun, 31 May 2026 08:21:06 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

A human being, though of defined form, is composed mostly of water. Think then, of the sounds of water and how they may intricately adhere to a human’s being.

Delicate musicality from a trickling stream carried across roots and stones. Gentle tapping of raindrops on leaves. Or the deafening silence of mist hovering above frigid still waters of a pond lit by the setting moon. These sounds reflect a deep esoteric stillness within us.

The sound of water is also the crack of thunder in perilous clouds overhead. The din of a torrential downpour hammering the earth, transformed by lightning flash into the pelting thuds of hail. The violence of those sounds infuses a certain lucidity that forever hones our vision of the world.

And then, consider water’s roar. The deeply resonant growling of a river careening through a boulder choked notch between precipitous hillsides covered in primordial forest. The fierce sound of pure aliveness. Of energy. It is a sound more properly felt as the vibrations in one’s chest than heard with the ears.

It is this persistent thundering roar that I heard two years ago in the Canyon of Five Falls on the Chattooga River, forming the border between North Georgia and South Carolina. It is the sound of this water that finds resonance in my spirit. Its echoes have reverberated through my psyche ever since. So now again, I find myself drawn back to the sound of this water.

Two months of worsening drought have been broken by several days of rain. Cloud cover will persist in the day ahead, with possibly storms in the afternoon. These could be the best conditions to be hoped for. There are no trails leading into the canyon. After the closest nearby trail ends progress is dependent on rock hopping downstream, scrambling along the rocky shoreline, and wading to follow the Chattooga downstream past a sharp bend. The series of five rapids lay beyond this bend.

Wetness from the rains will help foliage pop with green vibrancy. Perhaps water levels will be low enough for this route to be passable, while still offering enough flow to see and feel the river’s power.

Clouds hang low, gracing the treetops as I arrive at the Chattooga. The forest drips. Humidity thickens the air and its not long before my skin drips. Rich mixed odors of wet leaf mold and of fresh green things saturate the atmosphere. The smell of decay and of rejuvenation. All is silent. My footsteps on the soft earth are silent. Here, before the canyon, the Chattooga’s waters are smooth. Quiet.

I find myself alone. The day is early yet, but I expected to see kayakers. Maybe even fishermen or someone like me, out exploring. There is no one here but me, immersed in the verdant landscape.

The end of the established trail is familiar. I have reached this point several times in the past. The way forward from here is obvious- just follow the riverbank. That does not signify that it is easy.

A hint of a path meanders through the stones just above the water’s edge. The last time I followed it was in February, two years ago. Easy to discern at winter’s end. Today it so overgrown with lush foliage it is impossible to see the ground. Dripping fern, yellowroot, jewel weed, and more reach thigh high. Every step is a gamble with stones laying in wait to twist ankles. And, scattered amidst the green are clusters of leaves of three. Poison ivy. Thankfully not very much.

The slope of the hillside grows steeper in proximity to the river bend ahead. There are no more boulders to hop. No more shelf of land to pick my way across. I was prepared to get wet on this route and the time has arrived to walk in the water.

What at first was a faint rumble of rapids grows louder as I maneuver ahead. Walking in the water is easier only in that it avoids the overgrowth. Submerged rocks are ever-present, sharp, and slick.

Before me looms an overhanging rock cliff with a deep pool below. Looking at the pool I have a sense that it is deep, but can’t determine just how deep. This spot has turned me back in the past.

A swim would not harm me. I was resigned to getting wet today, but the camera gear in my pack is sensitive. It is secured in a heavy duty dry sack, but this isn’t designed to be totally submerged. There is no alternate route today; I must try. I step into the pool, up to my knees. An awkward log keeps me further from the rocky edge than I would like. The water reaches my thighs. Then my waist. Now my chest.

Retreat. I have to get closer to the rock face. Bending under the log, a second try clinging to the cliff is the only possibility. The water still rises to my upper chest. Grasping at stone finger holds with my left hand, I hold my pack overhead with my extended right arm, moving ahead by inches. Tricky angles and weight balances pull me backwards towards the watery depths, but I manage to hang on.

At last I can reach over the top of the rock. My pack finds a purchase on top and I am able to scramble around and out of the water. That was it! I’ve crossed the biggest obstacle to reaching the canyon!

The Chattooga makes its sharp bend to the right. Sandy beeches sprawl amidst the rocks on the shore and it is wider, flatter now. Various flowers bloom in the greenery and beaded water droplets glint like diamonds on delicate new growth.

Azaleas grow here. Most are in full bloom, at varying heights from the shoreline to the hillsides. All around me blush pinkish white blossoms, glistening from rain.

Massive boulders and shelves of rock spring up past the river’s turn. The water is thunderous; intensely loud. Scrambling through rhododendron branches and across stone, I come to the first cascade in the Canyon of Five Falls.

Of the five cascades, I have seen the first two and part of the third before. Climbing all the way down takes a lot of time. My idea for this excursion was to make my way to the bottom and take photographs on my way back up. Now that I see the lay of the canyon, though, I think otherwise.

Starting at the bottom may take too much time. The day may get too late for photographs. Afternoon storms may come. I do not want to be caught here in this remote, inaccessible gorge during thunderstorms.

So, I begin looking at the first rapid, Entrance Cascade. I choose compositions that highlight the water, the intense green above and around it. I make multiple exposures of varying shutter speeds. Some of these are to test which speed captures the flow in the best way. In other photos I will layer different shutter speeds and paint in different speeds of capture into the flow.

Painting with time. How can I learn to capture my own fleeting moments and paint them back into the timeline where I want them?

Entrance Rapid I

Entrance Rapid composite at shutter speeds 1/13 and 1/40 sec

Entrance Rapid composite at shutter speeds 1/8 and 1/40 sec

Entrance Rapid II

I pick my way further downstream, clambering up and over rock slabs and crevasses. More blooms decorate the forests above. Rhododendron flowers, brilliant among the gnarled limbs and waxy leaves. Discarded purple blossoms litter the ground underfoot.

Corkscrew Rapid is the next. This one is difficult to photograph due to proximity and available positioning for the tripod. Although the entire span of it presents challenges, there are many interesting angles and perspectives.

Corkscrew Rapid I

Corkscrew Rapid II

In the middle of a solid slab of rock lies a pothole. It’s curious in its near perfect circularity and holds a small pool of water filled with yellow pebbles. I remember this pothole. I remember trying to photograph it before and having difficulty fitting it and the river behind it in the frame of my widest angle lens. Now I have a different tool. The wide angle of my iPhone camera easily contains these elements.

I can see the top of Crack in the Rock Cascade downstream, but my time here is drawing short. Clouds grow darker.

The sound of the tumbling water echoes in my bones. I stand watching the sustained forceful flow. Like the water in a human body, this river has a defined shape within each set of rapids. The water takes its form in the negative space, shaped by the topography of the land, the hardness of stone, and the natural force of gravity that pulls it ever downward. It is the form of what it has to be. Perhaps humans are similarly shaped in the image of nature. The form of what we had to become through evolution, in the negative space offered by the physical laws of the universe and the natural environments we are an intimate part of.

Water evaporates, returns to the source, and then courses through the canyon anew. This is the cyclical process of the natural world, where all is connected and everything, including me, has its vital place. Just so, I know I will return here again. And as this river will one day lose its form as it merges with the wide sea, perhaps a human life leads to a similar merging with the wider scope of the natural world, where all becomes one.

But I hope that day is far off, for I still have rivers and mountains to explore.

On the return I see my own trail through the plants on the shore as I rock hop my way back. The cliff and its deep pool below present no less of a challenge. With patience, I make it through.

While picking my way past more poison ivy, I look upstream to see a kayaker floating near. He approaches, so I wave. “You ok?” he asks. I reply that I’m doing great, to which he informs me that it wouldn’t be the first time he found a lost hiker while kayaking.

We speak of the canyon he is about to enter and that I just left behind. There is a trail to it, he tells me, on the South Carolina side. It isn’t drawn on any map I’ve seen, but he explains where I can find it. I thank him and he drifts downstream. Behind him come more kayakers and then two rafts full of people wearing white helmets.

I continue on away from where they’re headed, thinking now about another return. Echoes of the rumbling rapids linger in my mind.

I’m stoked to have made it into the Canyon of Five Falls a second time! I hope all of you find it as interesting as I do. If you read my last episode about the canyon, which I re-published a few weeks ago, how do they compare?

Now I’m really interested in finding that trail on the other side of the river! It approaches from the south and on the opposite shore, so entirely new perspectives on the canyon.

Paradox

Erik Hogan — Sun, 24 May 2026 08:01:03 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

A common understanding of a paradox is simply something that contradicts itself. Readers of Field Notes know that we frequently explore Stoic philosophy through idea and example and therefore Cicero’s work Stoic Paradoxes might come to mind. Cicero uses the word ‘paradox’ meaning unusual ideas that went against the grain of common thought at the time. For now, let us consider paradox as ideas that seemingly stand opposed to one another, yet somehow may both be true.

While ideas, perceptions, and opinions may be paradoxical, we must accept as truth, at least on the experiential level, that nature, concrete existence from its largest to its smallest scale, does not contradict itself. What does this signify for apparent paradoxes?

Nature is a complex system, meaning that causes and effects can never be fully calculated or “figured out” by human minds. Complicated things are intricate, but can be solved with effort. The complex cannot- think of the famous butterfly effect. Complexity gives us opacity, uncertainty, and ambiguity that we exist in the midst of every day.

Life is complex. So, for what we perceive as paradox there may be explanations hidden behind the opacity of nature’s complexity. This is life’s mystery. This is why we must learn to laugh in the whirlwind. And this is the attitude we must maintain as we further explore some apparent paradoxes.

I find myself facing many paradoxes lately. Some invoke a curious smile and shrug while the path continues on. Others rise like some insurmountable cliff. The goal is to probe them and, if the opacity that veils them cannot be pierced, then come to accept the contradiction. If both sides are functionally true, then the explanation is perhaps irrelevant.

Paradox #1. Authentic experience is the essence of a life well lived. It is how we learn who we are, how we forge ourselves into who we want to be, and how we understand our purpose and accept our fates. Theodore Roosevelt explains this brilliantly in a part of his Citizenship in a Republic speech in 1910, the quote now known as the “man in the arena.”

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

However, the value placed on authentic experience by the modern world is rapidly diminishing. We now have cheery social media influencers showing sanitized, idealized versions of life. Highlight reels that skip the struggle in order to sell something. Cinema and TV shows presenting caricatures of humans so that we may look at a screen and love, laugh, conquer, or fear all without having to leave our seats. We have chemical, food, or alcohol indulgence, theme parks, doomscrolling- it all amounts to the same escapism and avoidance of confronting ourselves. And for those willing to venture out into the world there are tourist excursions, points of interest and curated experiences guaranteed to offer all the best parts while eliminating uncertainty and effort.

What of the individual who has gone to hell, found their way back without a map, and who has explored every agonizing edge of their being in order to define themselves and their place in the world? The modern world does not scoff. It simply changes the channel to something a little more entertaining.

All of this is an extension of a change in mentality that took place long ago. We are just witness to its rapidly ballooning effects. explains this pivot point with great erudition in her essay on The Last Heroic World.

The paradox is a personal one. I value authentic, lived experience above almost all else. Solo backpacking in the wild can expose one to extremes of the environment and personal endurance. My career field, while not as extreme as some, at times involves real danger, real consequences, and no easy solutions.

There is great insight to be gleaned from this. I feel strongly that this insight is worth sharing. Yet I do not have the official credentials, degrees, or titles, for whatever they are worth, to lend a recognized authority to anything I say. When I examine my experiences think on how they resonate into the larger context of life, it is not from any basis of higher education in philosophy. When I make a photo of a scene that speaks to my soul, it is without formal instruction in the art.

So, any credibility I can hope to have comes through the demonstrative. I must show myself as an example, if my words are to carry any weight at all. I write of my own real experiences to try to show what I believe, what I value, what I’ve learned. My photos are highlights, for sure, but they come from a place I’ve actually stood and represent a visual and emotional impact that I have felt.

But, in truth, in sharing all of this I have to some degree made my experiences performative, as well. This can’t NOT be the case. A dramatic photo of myself in some remote situation in the wilderness is a true, lived experience. But it is also a posed scene, intended for others to witness.

The authentic and the performative. Can both realities be true?

Now for a tangent, and Paradox #2. The experiences I’ve had, whether in the line of duty or pushing my limits in untamed lands lead to a sublime appreciation for life. This is undeniable for anyone who understands lines of limits and what lies beyond.

Once one has experienced the sublime in nature and can see that nature is omnipresent at all times, a profound gratitude emerges in which truth and beauty are everywhere. But. At the same time, great adventure seems to incite a drive for more great adventure. The term ‘adrenaline junky’ captures this trend, though the experience does not have to be one of heart pounding excitement. It is simply the feeling that one must go somewhere else and do something more to find that sublime edge, all while overlooking the present.

Fortunately, there are sensible voices out there. writes of a web of awareness in On Cultivation. Ensnare everything in awareness and experience. Miss nothing.

tosses questions as sharp as knives in What a Winter’s Training Can Teach Us About Meaning. They are surgical. Instruments of healing, not harm. So, when they cut to the bone this is the best thing that can happen.

To address this, I have also re-focused on being more attentive, observant, and appreciative of the every day. I relieved myself of the pressure to take “good” photos with my DSLR camera for a bit, and the resultant looming burden of processing them later on a computer.

Recent days have been about recognizing the moment. And when that moment comes, I capture it with an iPhone, a camera I almost always have at hand. And then I move on.

Presence, appreciation, gratitude. They coexist alongside a deep yearning for pursuit, struggle, achievement, intensity. Recognition of the exquisiteness of the here and now can co-inhabit my skull along with an irrepressible quest for grandeur. Both of these are true, as a paradox. Any explanation lies behind opacity.

Our final Paradox #3 for the day is a technical one, so let us take a walk in the weeds for a bit.

Photography is about the vision. It is to understand light, composition within the frame, perspectives, tones, and color. The camera, the tool, has its influence, but it does not determine the vision. I have spent time learning to use the iPhone’s camera, so that when this tool is at hand I can use it to the greatest extent of its capability. And to do this I use specific apps to capture RAW image files with the phone and process them on other specialty apps.

Darkness and light exist within a range in a digital image file. There are points of pure black and of pure white, beyond which any visual detail is lost. Typically this is much more of a concern with the whites in a picture, as they can easily be “blown out.” Too bright, no data, no recoverable detail.

Within the last couple of years technological advancements in certain digital display screens have allowed for a greatly extended upper end range of whites. This is now referred to as high dynamic range, or HDR1 . The results are brilliant; truly stunning displays of light.

Sounds great, right? So where is the paradox? It lies in the fact that only certain screens can display HDR images. iPhones have HDR displays, as do some MacBook computers. Newer Android phones may. Some computer monitors may, but many do not. Older phones likely do not have HDR displays. Without an HDR display you are presented a lower resolution version of the image, sometimes with a greatly altered range of darks and lights. It can appear not at all the way the image was processed and intended to appear.

As I process photos using the apps on my phone, I see it in HDR. If I share that image online, you may see the HDR version or the lower resolution version, depending on what device you view it on. This is truly is the Schrödinger’s Cat of photography. The photograph is simultaneously breathtaking and a hot bag of trash. You manifest which version by looking at it. Is this a paradox?

Let us conclude with an experiment. The other day was an ordinary one, but as I turned down an empty road just after sunrise I saw a striking scene of light rays streaming through the humid air. The sublime beauty of an everyday setting, demanding only my full appreciation. I parked and captured three RAW file photos with the iPhone.

The photo at the top of this essay is one of those. I downloaded it and processed it on my computer. Good or not, I’m confident the image is as I intended it.

For the other two, I processed them twice- the same RAW files, once on my computer and once on the app on my phone. Here’s the thing. The images on on my phone look good. Really, really good. I then downloaded those finished files to my computer and and inserted them below. That exact same file that looks so good on the phone appears glaring, egregious even, on my computer screen which is not an HDR display.

What will happen when this essay is published? I truly have no idea. Until I look at the published version on my phone, I won’t know if the HDR image translated to my computer will translate back to HDR or if it will remain the low quality version.

As a control, I’m presenting both versions of these two images. The photo on top is the file processed on the iPhone. The hopefully HDR version. The version below it is the same RAW file, but processed on my non-HDR computer. It comes close to the HDR version I see on the phone. Close.

RAW file processed in HDR in the Lightroom app on iPhone

Same RAW file as above, processed in Lightroom on computer

RAW file processed in HDR in the Lightroom app on iPhone

Same RAW file as above, processed in Lightroom on computer

Perhaps I have gotten us lost in the weeds here a bit. This last paradox, a photo being both terrible and brilliant at the same time, is likely of interest only to a few of you.

In any case, this is all just an attempt at feeling my way along through the opacity and mystery of life. It might just be true that we each find our own clarity amidst the complexity. It’s a paradox.

How do you all see the HDR photos? Is there a huge difference between them? If not, you may be seeing the HDR version. I actually do hope that’s the case, even if it means I lose the illustration of my point.

Anybody else recognizing paradoxes? These aren’t the only ones I’m experiencing. Perhaps I’ll explore more in the future. Till then, let me hear your thoughts!

Not to be confused with the HDR of several years ago, which is the process of merging several photos of different exposure levels together into one image that contains detail in both the shadows and the whites.

Exposure Anthology II

Erik Hogan — Sun, 10 May 2026 08:01:21 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

It has been a busy week in my little niche of the world. Work stuff, training, driving to the big city to pick my sister up from the airport. And let’s not forget today is Mother’s Day! So give special recognition to the sacred caretakers of life, whether they are mothers, soon-to-be mothers, perhaps-one-day mothers, or mothers in spirit.

With all the business there has been little time to scratch out thoughts on paper. And after reading a recent essay Against Anger, I recognized myself not as angry but frustrated… very often frustrated by all of the inconveniences that seem to thwart my plans at every turn. That frustration is certainly a sneaky step-child of anger. A remedy was suggested- adopting a more go-with-the-flow attitude and aligning with what the universe presents, as opposed to trying to control what cannot be controlled.

Brilliantly simple? Yes. For the definition of happiness, according to ancient Greek philosophy, is a smoothly flowing life. Is this easy to switch on and adopt straight away? For me, driven by goals and a bullheaded determination to pursue them… not at all. But I’m working at it.

So, I find myself this week without an essay I’ve deeply ruminated on or a new adventure to relay or new photographs to share. Here I offer you another Exposure Anthology. Since we’re on the topic of a smoothly flowing life, in alignment with nature, why don’t we look at some smoothly flowing rivers I’ve known years ago.

Minnehaha Falls near Lake Burton in North Georgia. This is one of my earliest Waterfall Chasing adventures with my daughter back in November of 2020. Just happened to time it perfectly with the rising sun!

This image is a re-edit I did a few years after taking the original photo.

Here is Bull Sluice on the Chattooga River that forms the border of Georgia and South Carolina. Another early Waterfall Chasing, this image is from March of 2021.

These two below are different views of the Chattooga, near Dick’s Creek Falls. September of 2021.

And a moment of calm near the Chattooga’s headwaters in the Ellicott Rock Wilderness in July of 2022.

Sunrise over the South Fork River at Watson Mill Bridge State Park, Ga. May 2021. And here is Watson Mill Bridge-

Moonset over the Middle Oconee River at Ben Burton Park. Athens, Ga in June of 2022. In this period I was aggressively trying to learn editing techniques and enlarged the moon in Photoshop. Definitely looks a little odd to me now!

Here’s a sunset over the same river at the same park in November 2022.

I could go on and on, and in time I will. This is just a small sampling, keeping the memories and images alive. Thanks for looking!

It’s hard to pick just a few photos to share! Remember, if you want to see more I always invite you to scroll through my photography galleries. Here’s a link-

The Virginia Triple Crown Loop: Dragon's Tooth

Erik Hogan — Sun, 03 May 2026 08:33:35 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

No one slept in the shelter at Lambert Meadows last night. Had I known that, maybe I would’ve. Still, it’s a good thing this dark and cold early morning. My food bag is locked away in the bear vault near the shelter. I won’t have to worry about waking anyone as I retrieve it and make my coffee for the day.

It was another night of rough sleep. Not cold in my quilt, just unable to find comfort as I shifted back and forth on the inflated sleeping pad. At 4:30 am my eyes drifted open. I slept more, but after another shift and roll I blearily checked the clock. It was very dark still, but 6 am. With a long day ahead, that was as late as I was willing to try for sleep.

Now the coffee is done, the tent, quilt, and sleeping pad all packed away and the quiet morning sky is just starting to lighten. All the other campers nearby are still asleep, but it is time for me to go. Another time check. 6:05 am. What the hell?! I read the clock wrong earlier and got up at 5. Ah well, its good to get an early start on the day.

From the campground, it is an uphill backtrack along the Appalachian Trail but not too far. Scorched Earth Gap is the name of the saddle between Tinker Mountain and the next big peak. I passed through this notch yesterday evening with hardly a pause. Here I divert from the AT and begin a long downhill grade on the Andy Layne Trail. Echoes of a Great Horned Owl call hauntingly from somewhere in the shadowed vale below.

Dawn approaches as I descend from the mountains towards the valley below. It begins softly, as a timid blush of the sky beyond the interlaced branches of the forest. A whippoorwill sings in the shadows. But the sun grows bolder by the minute. I stride along the trail, searching for rocks and roots in the path ahead and as I look up again the sky smolders a passionate orange. Distant hills stand painted in lavender hues beyond arboreal silhouettes and the sun emerges into the sky with fiery glory. I walk on and the sun continues to rise and the land is engulfed in radiant, golden light.

Still hiking down the hillside, the daylight begins to reveal a wondrous world of springtime flora. Fiddle head ferns, vibrant blooms, and flourishing green foliage in the understory adorn the landscape with an infectious vitality. I cannot help but find amazement in the freshness of this natural world. It carries a spirited and palpable sensation of vigorous and dynamic life that seems to infuse my steps with energy.

The land is still under the veil of shade at the lower elevations nearing the base of the valley. I’m about to cross this valley, going from the ridge with McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs to the ridge on the far side with North Mountain and traversed by the North Mountain Trail along its crest.

A stream follows along the side of the trail and suddenly the forest floor is dotted with the most vivid blue amongst the green ground cover. Virginia Bluebells, I believe.

It’s still early in the day and I step from the edge of the wood line to the open fields of the valley. This is the valley I have looked at from on high for so long over the last day or two. Now that I’m here I feel a weird disproportionality, as if the observed expansive distance does not equate to the the minimal time and effort it took to get here.

Sensations of spatial awareness aside, the scenery is magical. Sunlight caresses the gentle slopes of the surrounding hillsides. Open meadows stretch before me, awash in morning light. The air is crisp and cool inspirations into my lungs leave me feeling alert and alive.

An obstacle blocks my path. At the edge of a wide grassy pasture, a sign tells me the Andy Layne Trail has been diverted. It doesn’t tell me why or how far the detour will take me, but I have no choice but to follow it.

Through the frost coated field, I come to a parking lot and a road. Following the road a short distance brings me back on track to the Catawba Valley Trailhead. The detour was a hiccup, not a fiasco.

The Catawba Valley Trail takes me straight up the hillside to the top of the ridge. There are no water sources up there and I’ll be on it for many miles, so I’ve filled up with as much water as I can carry. Its a tough climb, but not as strenuous as some I’ve faced in the past. Just a slow grind, but soon enough I make it to the North Mountain Trail.

My concern has been the one fuel canister I brought on this trip. I don’t even know if the one I grabbed was a full one. So early this morning I tried cold soaking another coffee for the day, rather than having to do a second water boil. I placed the grounds in my water bottle to jostle and steep as I walked. Now it’s time to try it. The cold coffee is actually somewhat tolerable, but filtering the grounds through my lips and teeth is a tedious mess. I suck the brain stimulating juice from the bottle through pursed lips and then cast the bitter grains from my mouth widely on the forest floor, hopefully in an acceptable leave no trace way.

This trail rides directly atop the ridge. Maybe it’s not quite a knife edge ridge, but it comes close. The rolling ups and downs of its rocky knobs and troughs propel me forward at a good pace. It is mid-day as I reach the summit of North Mountain. Although there are no clear views between the trees, it’s a good spot to stop for a few and eat lunch.

Distances visible across the valley from here are surreal. I can see Tinker Mountain, where I sat so long yesterday. I can see the notch between Tinker and the next peak that I crossed earlier this morning. It is hardly believable that I’ve traversed that distance in this time frame.

With food in my belly and the early afternoon warming up, I feel lulled by the undulating terrain and become lost in thought. There’s a noise behind me and “Hello!” It’s a bicyclist, of all things! “Oh, hey!” is all I can manage to reply as he cruises by. Strange encounter, but why not!

I’m still thinking of the bearded man yesterday morning and his foretelling of me thru hiking the Appalachian Trail some day as “inevitable.” What a powerful concept. Is life truly fated? A series of causes and effects, set in motion at the inception of time itself? From a rationalist perspective this could hold true, even if the factors involved are so intricate as to be entirely incomprehensible to the human mind. But, even if true, I’ve only ever considered this as relevant in retrospect. We can see events that have happened in the past as fated because of such-and-such causes that we know about in hindsight. However, while we may predict the future we cannot know it with certainty. Human agency is still a factor and we have the freedom of choice. So, the future is influenced by our own decisions to a greater or lesser degree. How could fate possibly account for the human power of choice?

Perhaps this is all just a matter of orientation. We could choose to believe that everything is fated; that there is a fixed outcome already written by events that have unfolded in the past. In that case we must infuse meaning into our lives by developing our roles in life to their highest potential. Not because it changes the outcome, but because of a moral imperative to strive for excellence in fulfilling our duties. We can meet our fate screaming and crying or we can meet it with dignity and courage. The choice seems clear.

On the other hand, we might choose to believe that the future is not certain and we can affect the course of events. In that case there is still an imperative to pursue our development towards excellence. In the face of uncertainty, we find purpose in working towards favorable outcomes and can do this most effectively by working towards becoming better human beings. That is where we discover our own significance.

Whether the future is fated or uncertain can never be known, but does it really matter? It comes to the same thing. In either case the burden of defining existence with meaning and fulfillment is our own. No one is going to do that work for us. Our obligation remains to live according to our human nature. That is, to endeavor to become the best versions of ourselves. So, our ethical obligation to ourselves and others is a lifelong arduous pursuit of virtue and excellence demanded by both fate and uncertainty. And the pursuit is the reward.

That man told me that “when its your time, everything will line up for you and your hike will be… inevitable.” Could he have foresight of fated outcomes? I doubt it, but simultaneously I recognize that I am here hiking the Triple Crown Loop now and this experience seems like it has been… INEVITABLE!

By mid afternoon I begin a dry, dusty descent from the ridge. A road crossing is upcoming and beyond that some sort of Boy Scout campground with a water source. I had in mind making camp there tonight and reaching Dragon’s Tooth in the morning, but at this point it seems too early to stop for the day.

There’s a parking lot at the trailhead and three other backpackers reading a sign. It mentions a protected ecological area and it’s clear that the Boy Scout campground has been closed. The backpackers mention camping at Lost Spectacles Gap at the junction with the Appalachian Trail, but I’ve also heard mention of camping actually at Dragon’s Tooth. I’ll wait and see what it looks like when I get there.

The gap is wide and open with a number of good spaces to pitch a tent. But it is still only 4 pm. Dragon’s Tooth is less than a mile from here, but I know it will be a difficult, rocky climb. Do I head there now? Should I gamble on being able to camp there? If I stay here I will have to do it in the morning, adding to the eight more miles back to my truck and the six hour drive home.

I’m going now.

Though it is less than a mile, this section of trail is as strenuous as the warnings say it is. The path consists of stairways of stone, sometimes just footholds carved into rock or white blazes painted on the side of a cliff. I’m grasping handholds while trying to find balance with the weight of my backpack pulling me. How dangerous would this be by headlamp in the dark?

Dragon’s Tooth. It is a massive, jagged spire of stone jutting into the sky. The trail comes right to the base of it, dwarfing any visitors. This also makes capturing its scale in a photo challenging.

There is wide, flat ground here with space to camp, but that’s not my concern at the moment. I’m just grateful to drop my pack for a while and feel the chilly breeze on my sweat dampened shirt.

With camera in hand I wander the site, looking at the expansive distances to the west. Just like at Tinker Cliffs, the sky is clear and the light not great. Still, there are interesting compositions to be found using gaps in the rock to frame the views.

I won’t stay the night at Dragon’s Tooth. Any view to the east is blocked by trees, so sunrise here would not be worthwhile. Also, I do not want to risk the climb back down this trail either in the dark of the morning or after sunset today.

This third jewel of the Virginia Triple Crown is a captivating location, but after spending enough time here I make my way back down to Lost Spectacles Gap. There, those other backpackers from the parking lot have set up camp and I pitch my own tent nearby. While I’m tempted to try to make conversation, I’ve walked 18 miles today and really just want dinner and rest.

The night is not nearly as cold as the previous two. Just breezy and I lay listening to the near constant soft flapping of my tent fabric. With a deep sigh, I’m up and preparing for the last push of the Virginia Crown Loop. My fuel canister has lasted this far. It roars to life one last time for a triumphant morning brew.

Sunlight. My experience of the Virginia Triple Crown is defined by sunlight. Clear skies let those rays fall unhindered and they shine with unmuted brilliance.

Early spring is also such a unique time of year to be hiking. Tree canopies are still largely absent, allowing the vision to reach across the miles. Yet new growth is abundant, if delicate and small. Perhaps it radiates its own brilliance, the yellow-green glow of intense vitality. The forests are coming alive before my eyes after winter’s dormancy.

Once again I descend from elevation. There is a stream crossing and then quite unexpectedly, a gate. I am back on the Appalachian Trail and it is easy to follow, yet beyond the gate are numerous other tracks. They are cow trails and presently I come upon some cows walking nearby.

The forest gives way to expansive grassy pasture laid upon gently rolling hills. Grazing land for the cattle. I find myself once more immersed in the pastoral lands I witnessed from the peaks the past two days. This time the scenery is even grander, circled by Appalachian peaks.

I cross a small road and soon climb up another grass covered hill, deceptively far and steep. The grass and the cows trigger memories from my childhood of walking the Austrian Alps. The mountains are certainly different, but the feeling of open space is nostalgic.

Soon enough the forest envelops me again. This is the last ridge, the last stretch of this loop. Azaleas bloom in abundance, with butterflies and bees hovering among the flowers.

Around a bend, through the trees, the McAfee parking lot becomes visible. This loop is connecting back to the beginning; the circle almost complete.

Backpacking a loop feels different to me than a thru hike. The thru hikes I’ve done, though modest in length, have been transformative. They are the manifestation of an esoteric transition in one’s way of being, in that you very literally do not go back to the beginning. You do not go back to who you were before.

A loop hike is more closely aligned to an experience of renewal. It feels like a cyclical immersion into sacred nature with its attendant cleansing and re-energizing of the spirit. Like the coming of the Spring, it propels new growth. Yet it also carries the understanding that this momentum will wane over time. The call for immersion in the Green World will come again, a constant imperative to chase the light. It is inevitable.

This episode got kinda long, so if you stuck with me to the end, I appreciate you! I was trying not to drag this out for another week. Speaking of that, I’m tossing around the idea of writing about these trips differently in the future. No idea how just yet, but it seems like these Adventure Story formats are a bit played out. Sure, every experience is different, but there’s only so many ways I can describe walking through mountains and keep an audience engaged.

Anyway, thank you all for reading and let me hear your impressions of the Virginia Triple Crown Loop!

The Virginia Triple Crown Loop: McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs

Erik Hogan — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 08:02:20 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

My hand lashes out with malice in the darkness of my tent, scrambling to find my phone and stop its clamorous wake-up alarm. It is 4:30 am and I feel guilty at disturbing the other backpackers in the nearby shelter and tents.

The night was rough. I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. Temps have fallen below freezing, yet my down quilt keeps me pleasantly warm. I could just lay here a little longer…

Minutes pass, but a female voice breaks the silence. Distant at first, she’s speaking at a loud conversational volume and it grows louder as she draws near. The backpackers at this site are still sleeping. She’s a hiker on the Appalachian Trail, already heading towards McAfee Knob for the sunrise.

I lay still, bundled in my quilt, as she passes by. But, following right after, there is a male voice on the trail. He speaks so loud that he’s either totally unconcerned about disturbing people or completely unaware of our presence here. That’s it. Time to get up.

Still no movement from the others nearby. The roar of my stove in the vestibule of the tent makes me wince, but coffee is non-negotiable. The water takes an excessively long time to boil. It’s due to the cold, but now I’m thinking of my fuel canister. I only grabbed one as I perhaps over-confidently packed for this three night trip. Did I really think that would be enough? How many boils do I need today, tomorrow, and the next? What if the canister I grabbed wasn’t full?

A lonely whippoorwill sings in the distance. Nearby tree trunks stand starkly illuminated by my headlamp as I start the hike to McAfee Knob. It’s an uphill climb, but not yet terribly steep. My body will warm up soon with exertion, but for now I am grateful to have brought gloves. The rhythmic swinging of my hands gripping the trekking poles is making them painfully frigid.

A slight curve in the trail reveals the sky has faded from black to indigo. Profiles of black hills stand in the distance and between them a tender orange glow. The half moon lingers in the sky above. I pause to try to photograph with my phone, hand-held in night mode.

Snapping twigs draw my attention, but not in an alarming way. Eyes glint in the light of my headlamp. Its a deer. Only about 15 yards from me, she ambles past totally unperturbed by my presence. I stand still, transfixed. Deer are everywhere back home and I see them regularly. Yet, somehow this one seems like an ethereal embodiment of Nature. Purity in motion. Fading into the darkness, she seems to invite me to transform myself by settling into attunement with my surroundings. But this morning I have an objective.

I pass through an open power line cut and then plunge back into the woods. Voices and lights arise behind me. Its the tramily I met yesterday. They slept in the shelter and, because they hadn’t pitched tents, could sleep a little longer. Now their adapted trail legs are letting them rapidly overtake me. I ask, as they pass, if they saw the deer just a few minutes ago. They did not.

Earth spins in space at a rate so fast it is incomprehensible to us. It’s incomprehensible because we are adapted to it from living on this planet. So, we perceive the sun, the moon, and stars all making steady slow progressions through the sky. This perception holds true until every single time I am trying to make it somewhere before sunrise.

Now, yet again, I find myself in an exhausting race with the rotation of the Earth. The sky grows brighter by the minute. My lungs are heaving and a whippoorwill has started a non-stop musical cadence- whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will. I’ve lost this race many times before. But not today!

Sweat rolls down my brow as I reach the mountain top. The trail leads me to an east facing rock cliff. Two other hikers sit silently nearby. Across a wide valley, successive ridges of dark mountains stand in contrast to the thin orange glow on the horizon. I pull out my camera, my tripod. The composition I find is a nice one, but as I’m taking the photo I realize this is not McAfee Knob.

A quick map check shows side trails and the knob a short distance away. Time is dwindling, but I snatch up my gear and relocate.

Overhead, the skies are clear and the horizon grows brighter, a warm promise of the sun’s approach. Those ridges of distant peaks now splay across the entire panoramic view before me. Terrain is becoming visible in the valley. The unmistakable prominence of McAfee Knob juts from the rock precipice just ahead. A number of people are here, all taking turns to be photographed standing on it.

The tramily is here. They are speaking with a large framed older man with a large beard, wearing a ribbed puffer jacket. He’s rather loud, gregarious, and talking in a thick Alabama accent. The man is also playing music over speakers. It’s the type of music I would enjoy listening to anywhere else, but here my initial reaction is repulsion- a disturbance of this sacred place at the holy time of sunrise.

That man continues talking with anyone around him. But he exudes an unapologetic, authentic aura so strong that I soon accept both him and his music as entirely natural to our circumstances.

The sun is coming. I set my tripod, plan compositions, and wait. Light intensifies and, though the music plays on, all voices hush. In a decisive moment Helios’s piercing rays radiate over a distant peak. The Earth has turned and a new day is born.

I busy myself with my camera and watching the scene unfold. The others nearby are shadows between me and the rising sun, only distantly lingering in my awareness.

Soon the tramily excuse themselves and head out, excited for an upcoming town day. I suddenly find myself in no rush at all. Light creeps across the valley floor while I eat breakfast and photograph and simply sit still.

The bearded man, still silhouetted between me and the light, asks about my trip. He asks if I’m a thru hiker. “One day,” I say and can’t help but notice my own words draped in a tone of yearning.

“Well, brother,” he replies in his deep pitched Southern drawl. “When it’s your time everything will line up for you, and your hike will be… inevitable.”

Something about the way he says this so confidently gives me chills. We continue talking for a few more minutes, but then I gather my things. It’s time to continue hiking.

On the trail, with McAfee Knob behind me, that word “inevitable” sticks in my mind. I realize I never asked that man his name. And thinking back more, he always stood between me and the light, such that I cannot even picture his face. He remains in my memory as an Odin-like figure, embodying wisdom and the wild, knowledge, freedom and even death. How else could he know?

It’s daylight now as I walk a long, easy descent from McAfee. Then comes the ridge line, fairly level with rolling ups and downs. It allows for a steady pace, though I don’t mean to go fast. Through the trees and across the valley is the ever present razor sharp ridge I will be hiking along tomorrow. It appears so distant it is hard to imagine being there.

A power line cut parallels the right side of the trail. I pause, hearing the guttural croak of a raven. It circles overhead once, twice, then a third time. Mustn’t that be significant? Huginn or Muninn keeping an eye on me.

Another hiker passes in the opposite direction. Only minutes later I hear movement in the power line clearing. Three spooked deer come racing past from somewhere behind me. They were startled by the hiker, but for some reason not by my passing.

Delicate buds, tender new vegetation, and fresh flora catches my eye in the mid morning light. I stop frequently for snapshots. Another noise from a peak ahead draws my attention to yet another deer. I cannot change camera lenses without a great deal of movement and noise. Slowly, I ease forward. No use. She sees me and springs away, white tail held high, before I can get a photo.

It’s only noon or perhaps just a little past when I begin one of the steepest climbs yet. Still not a terribly difficult ascent, I presently arrive at Tinker Cliffs.

At Tinker a protracted line of rocky precipices offer sweeping views of the valley and mottled green mountains. The entire long length of the North Mountain ridge is laid out before me. Crossing that tomorrow will be a big mile day. For now, though, I’ve already reached my second destination.

Two ravens circle around these cliffs, squawking and playing in the air. Vultures silently glide by from time to time. Mid day sunlight isn’t great for photographs. I sit. I eat lunch. I wait.

Questions come to mind as the lazy hours drag. Will clouds come to lend atmosphere to the sunset? Can I wait here that long? I’d love an afternoon coffee to help pass the time, but that leads me to recall the fuel canister problem. Could I cold soak my dinners if I run out?

An inexplicable sadness settles upon me. Recognizing it, I make myself appreciate and fully absorb these stunning views, imprinting them in my mind. In just a few days I’ll be back at home and back to work and all of this will be as if a dream. The sun’s hot on my skin, but the breeze still chilly. The ravens croak. Bees and flies hum and buzz. I make the coffee. I’ll deal with the consequences another time.

After 4 pm it is clear the clouds aren’t coming. Sunset here will not be worth a hike in the dark and nighttime camp setup. So, I make photos with the light offered me in this moment, pack my backpack, and start walking again.

Lambert Meadows shelter and campsite on the Appalachian Trail is a slight detour from the Triple Crown Loop I’m hiking. I will have to back track in the morning, but not far. Walking into the site, I find other backpackers already setting up camp. We exchange greetings, but mostly keep to ourselves.

Thankfully, the water boils quickly as I prepare dinner. Others a talking nearby, but I hear noises in the leaves. Squirrels? No, it’s a group of four deer. Camera in hand, I try to creep close. Nope. Spooked again.

These deer aren’t too shy, though. They keep hanging around the periphery of the campground and I listen to them moving on the hillside as night settles in.

Even a little cloud cover would have made these photos much more interesting, but you take what you get, am I right? Sunrise at McAfee was truly special. A short hiking day, the time at Tinker Cliffs gave me plenty of time for reading and reflection. Any of you have one of those days with almost too much time on hand? That’s about to change in a big way the next day, stay tuned!

The Virginia Triple Crown Loop: Heading North

Erik Hogan — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 08:42:41 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Tent, sleeping pad, quilt. These and a few other pieces of gear necessary for life in the woods all rest together in their designated spots on my shelves. Packing is as simple as gathering them up and stuffing them into the backpack. Perhaps this is too easy, because the minimal effort of preparing for this trip does little to settle my vague and undefinable disquietude.

I’ve never backpacked in Virginia, nor in fact have I ever driven so far for any backpacking trip. How cold is it six hours to the north in early spring? Will my truck hold up for the drive? The trailhead is a very popular one. What if there is no parking when I arrive? These types of questions will continue to haunt me, I suppose, as I incrementally push the boundaries of where, how far, and how long I backpack.

Tires hum a tune of monotony as the highway stretches to the horizon this late Tuesday morning. Spring has been hot and dry in Georgia, running full tilt towards summer. Early flowers bloomed weeks ago and were gone while winter’s lethargy still lingered. By now the trees have leafed-out to their full green canopies.

Georgia fades behind as I cross into South Carolina. The hours accumulate along the roadside and as I watch them piling up a change in pavement and road sign welcome me to North Carolina. The trees slipping past are a noticeably lighters shade of green. More delicate and new. Tires hum. That uneasy feeling preceding the trip settles a bit just with the act of going, but still I remain alert for some angry dash warning light or the repetitive ticking of a screw stuck in a wheel just before a flat. But no ill fortune comes.

Creeping further north, I see less green adorning the branches. It is replaced by a pastel patchwork stretching across the land. Light pinks and peach colors; buds on still on the verge of unfurling. Redbud trees are blooming, their vivid magenta eye catching in the brown-gray forests. Those blooms ended weeks ago back home.

The hills of Virginia host trees that are still mostly bare. In a very real sense, at least as far as the seasons are concerned, over the course of a few hours I have traveled about six weeks back in time.

Some sense of worry is natural in the face of any challenge, especially one that is bigger in some parameter that past challenges. The key is to accept worry’s warning, ensure preparations for known conditions, and then begin the thing undaunted. I’ve learned from responding to chaotic scenes as a police officer that the mind loves to catastrophize when confronted with the unknown. As soon as facts begin to present themselves training, experience, rationality, and virtue can be brought to bear to address them. But a sense of self confidence, knowing that you can handle the unknown, must be earned.

Tires still hum on the highway. The road pulling me towards a backpacking adventure is now highly familiar, set apart from past trips only in its length. Somehow the Virginia Triple Crown Loop that I’m about to start feels… inevitable.

The drive north flows smoothly. Until it doesn’t. A wreck ahead brings traffic to a stand still. The navigation app re-routes and now I’m driving down narrow rural roads. Picturesque, but clogged with other drivers re-routing.

I arrive back to the interstate having lost an hour, but from there the final leg of the long drive is nearly over. Pulling into the McAfee Knob parking lot along the Appalachian Trail at about 4 pm, I find numerous other vehicles, but also plenty of open parking spaces. While the breeze carries a chill bite, the sun is warm and it is, at long last, time to begin walking.

Almost immediately upon reaching the Appalachian Trail a young woman, thru hiker by appearances, approaches from behind. She asks if I’m thru hiking, because she found a thru hiker tag that had been lost by someone ahead of her.

No, not thru hiking. My response echoes with… perhaps regret? Self consciousness? Envy? Something compels me to describe my route and she extols Dragon’s Tooth because she passed it yesterday. Then she’s off ahead of me. With several hundred miles of trail behind her, her trail legs are fully adapted and I could not hope to keep pace with her, had I wanted to.

Tender foliage is just beginning to unfold on the tips of branches in this section of Virginia. Late afternoon sunlight, unobstructed by clouds, backlights the young leaves and sets the green aglow like a million emeralds scattered amongst the twigs.

The rocky trail climbs a ridge line of mountains, but does not feel steep. Mountain heights here are not as great as those I know further south. As I gain vertical elevation I can see through the trees. A sprawling pastoral valley with scattered buildings among fresh verdant fields lies nestled between here and a sharp mountainous ridge to the north. Atop that ridge is the North Mountain Trail I will be hiking in a couple of days.

A few gaps in the trees give me pause for photographs. I stop frequently just to marvel at the fresh growth of spring here, vibrant in the late sun. It is like getting a second chance at a brief window of springtime that passed me by at home while I was unprepared for it.

This stretch of the AT requires camping at or around the shelters along the way. Without knowing how late in the day I’d be starting the hike, I hadn’t planned exactly which one. The goal is to reach McAfee Knob for sunrise in the morning and so the closer I can get today, the better. It’s early enough when I reach John’s Spring Shelter that I pass it by without concern.

Evening is settling when I arrive at Catawba Mountain Shelter. It’s the last one before McAfee. The young lady from earlier is here and we introduce ourselves, because we hadn’t done that earlier. An older man and a college age young man soon arrive. The three of them are a tramily, a trail family of thru hikers who form deep friendships as they hike together along the way. I’ve me thru hikers before, but they have all been at the very inception of their hikes and hadn’t had time to form tramilies yet.

The tramily is sleeping in the shelter, so I pitch my tent a short distance away. I return to the table there to prepare my dinner and listen to them talk as I eat. They speak of being ahead of the “bubble,” the large influx of thru hikers who all start the AT at a similar time, and envision what it’s like reaching the end of the trail at Mt Katahdin, and of their excitement for a town day tomorrow because they stink so bad. Their words are spellbinding, a sacred conversation not to be interrupted. I sit in silence and just listen in wonderment.

The tramily discusses just how early they plan to awaken tomorrow to get to McAfee by sunrise. It reminds me that there is still a hike ahead before that point and I’ll have to pack up camp before even starting. Its going to be an early day.

I retreat to my tent to sit for a while before turning in. An owl hoots not far away and later it’s a pair of ravens, Odin’s scouts and messengers, croaking in the distance. Though I’ve only hiked a couple of miles today, the road has left me wearied. Two and a half days of walking are ahead of me. What challenges, or perhaps blessings, will the Fates present me? Darkness falls and as I lay waiting for sleep to carry me away a whippoorwill begins singing in the night.

With traffic, the drive to Virginia took me about 7 hours. That didn’t leave much time for backpacking on the first day, but it got me into the wood for a start. I haven’t been able to do a backpacking trip since late October, so maybe its that time gap that left me a little uneasy about the trip. Whatever, things started to fall into place quickly once I was there.

Stay tuned- next week we’ll see McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs and what lies beyond! As always, let me know what you thought of this beginning!

Keep reading part II-

Exposure Anthology I

Erik Hogan — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 08:01:27 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

You guys, I’m breaking the fourth wall for a minute. Let’s talk. Lately, in regards to my creative efforts, I’ve felt a tinge of despair. As in- what is really the point of all of this. Its heartbreaking to think that all of the effort that goes into making my photos results in an image that only lives in the digital ether, fleetingly displayed at the whim of an algorithm. I won’t belabor you with the details, but I’ll just say that I’m working through it with philosophy as my guide. But I do feel that the tinge of despair has been bleeding through into some of my essays. If it has been palpable I apologize. It was unintended.

Having said that, I find myself torn between a genuine satisfaction of showing up here every week and the stress of maintaining the schedule. Looking back at past essays, I see the typos and grammatical errors, and rushed photo edits. I don’t want to compromise quality.

I just got back from backpacking the 35 mile Virginia Crown Loop this past week. The experience was worth writing about and I think I have some compelling images to present, but obviously haven’t had time to work on them. I want to take the time to do it well.

In that vein, my idea is to start a new type of post. I’ll call it Exposure Anthologies. Exposure as in photography, and also as in exposure to various experiences in the wild. Anthology, as in a curated selection of photos from my archives that deserve more… exposure! Maybe you’ve seen the photos before, maybe not. It’ll probably be centered around some kind of theme with minimal writing.

Hopefully this means I won’t miss weeks or fall into an irregular posting schedule. Those of you who comment and share my essays are an incredible support and I want to keep your confidence that I’m still getting after it. However, this will give me time and space to polish what I’m working on before sending it.

It’s mid April now, so for this first Exposure Anthology let’s look at some photos from past Aprils!

2025

A year ago I backpacked the 60 mile Georgia Loop as a last minute alternate to the Bartram Trail which was cancelled due to a huge wildfire. Mostly foggy and wet, it was a dramatically different April than this year.

Camp along the Appalachian Trail, North Georgia

Blooming Bloodroot along the trail

Appalachian Trail thru hiker in fog

2024

In April of 2024 I spent a couple of days in Panthertown Valley, North Carolina. I had a very unique experience of backpacking through a solar eclipse!

I didn’t want to risk damaging my camera trying to photograph the eclipse

Granny Burrells Falls

Red buds and clouds

2023

My daughter and I went on a day trip to Raven Cliffs Falls on Dodd Creek in North Georgia in April of 23. Lots of waterfalls and cascades on the short hike to Raven Cliffs.

Small cascade along Dodd Creek

Ultra long exposure of Middle Dodd Creek Falls

Raven Cliff Falls

Wow, this goes all the way back to the very first Field Notes post! And I didn’t even share all of the photos!!

Ok, I hope this has been of some interest and value to you. Thoughts? Input or suggestions?

Spring: On Resonance and Dissonance

Erik Hogan — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 08:23:02 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

A cherry tree stands in my front lawn, a venerable and noble sentinel before the seasons. Though some branches die and fall to the ground in winter storms, this tree has endured here since long before I’ve lived here and I’ve now been here long enough to see my children come into this world and grow to young adults and begin to leave our home on their own, so for a generation of man. Those years raced by like clouds on a windy day.

Over the years I’ve come to know this tree, who holds his post like a doorman to my domicile and yet somehow more accurately it is me who has been assigned as his caretaker for two decades. And so we’ve become friends. While it seems like we’ve just now escaped the threat of winter weather and of more hard freezes, the springtime offers a non sequitur of temperatures and in the afternoons I sweat. In that afternoon light I notice the blossoms beginning to grace the branches of the cherry tree.

Spring has already come and as soon as I perceive these blossoms I know what follows, because the tree and I are friends and have learned each other’s temperaments. The blossoms will erupt with unimaginable exuberance, a luminous display of delicate white. And it will be gone in just a couple of days’ time, an ephemeral dream.

So it goes. I watch the explosion walking my dogs. One day it rains. Later, the sun is setting, but the light still filters through the blossoms and its all so very vibrant and so very sad because I cannot ask it to remain any longer than it does, until my impetus for creativity returns.

My better camera rests on my desk, either recovering or collecting dust, I cannot say. This rapidly warming weather has stirred up a restlessness, a yearning for action, and dissolved any patience for manipulating digital images on a screen. I grow frustrated at constraints that keep me from running away, unhinged, into the wild. These blooms are somehow silently provocative, and I am urged to “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs…” The dogs of what, exactly? We don’t live in a reality where anyone lets slip the dogs anymore, let alone cries ‘Havoc!’

But I drift. With phone camera in hand, I capture what images I can. Why? I don’t really know. Maybe just for proof that I was here and saw the world in some kind of way.

I look at that cherry tree today and all of its blossoms are gone, replaced by green leaves, supple and unfurling. I look at the photos I made and see the awful noise, the lack of resolution, and my better camera still sits on my desk unmoved. Maybe its not the device or the quality of the picture, but the perspective that matters, and I tell that to the tree, but I won’t see its blossoms again for another year and now I carry that regret.

Yet the earth still turns and the clouds of time race by overhead so quickly that its already now Azalea Season in the South.

It speaks to the age of my neighborhood, that the azaleas are well established here. I see them in the morning when the blooms are lit aglow by soft sunrise beams and I almost can’t contemplate them over the incessant singing of birds, as if the cardinal, phoebe, titmouse, wren, and sparrow all conspire with the flowers to crush me with overwhelming elegance.

The azaleas are spellbinding. Wondrous. And again I witness them in the evening while walking my dogs and again leave my better camera resting on the desk. The blooms are here, right before me, right now and the fact that I don’t appreciate them more is a tragedy, but the springtime fever has me yearning to be challenging myself in rough country far away. To be anywhere but here.

The wild beckons and I do have plans to go far away soon and my camera will be with me. But I am starting to grasp the fact that the camera will remain my excuse and will never provide me those opportunities.

There is a confluence occurring during the fleeting impermanence of spring. The urge to do great and adventurous things collides with disheartening missed opportunities, but when the chances do appear amidst a busy schedule the work falters before a dwindling hope that any of these efforts really amount to much at all.

What is this and what’s going on here? Is it just about sensing the transitory nature of time and the fear of not doing or seeing enough in this lifetime? No, it is more than that. It is a recognition of what resonates, and yet a dissonance in the approach to it. The observation of the immense beauty of nature right before me, yet still dreaming of adventure far away. The making of horrible photos with an inferior but convenient tool and cringing while sharing them, but taking pride in the compositions as a reflection of my perspective of the world. It is the discrepancy of investing enormous effort into learning and creating with the fading hope that it will lead to some measure of material success, when in fact it is already paying dividends in the realm of the transcendental- in gaining personal agency, in the orientation towards the truly good, in loving my fate.

In the 17th century, the samurai Miyamoto Musashi wrote The Book of Five Rings and several other treatises on sword fighting. He repeatedly describes the gaze and about “looking at” the reality of what is before us vs “looking in” towards intent and soul. So perhaps the balance demanded by springtime is just this; really seeing the glorious blooms and recognizing their bittersweet transience as a metaphor for the life that we have, and also looking in to what that means for our humanity and our pursuit of meaning.

And just maybe it is this “looking at” while also “looking in” all along that gave rise to a profound 20 year friendship with a cherry tree.

I’m heading out on another backpacking trip this coming week. A walk into the unknown! More to follow, but in the meantime, let me know your thoughts on this essay-

A Retrospective

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:02:49 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

Hey everyone. I’ve had a crazy busy week at work and honestly did not have time to create something new to offer you guys. I also did not want to try to present something half thought through.

Instead of ghosting for the week, I thought I’d suggest another look at The Georgia Loop. I hiked this 60 mile trek that combines the Duncan Ridge Trail with the Appalachian Trail exactly one year ago.

I believe this series comes close to what I’m trying to achieve in Field Notes- the nebulous interweaving of visual perception through photography, the minimalist experience of reality in backpacking, the pursuit of conceptual clarity through philosophy, and a touch of high stakes insights into life from policing experiences. Its about the search for lucidity with comfort, distance, and illusion stripped away, as experienced and unified by one mind.

With that said, click the photograph below to view my photo gallery from The Georgia Loop.

Now, if you’re interested in more you can read the essays I wrote about this 60 mile walk through the mountains of North Georgia below.

Attention

Erik Hogan — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:56:41 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

I sat down at my desk to write. In between adventures, I didn’t have a ready story to tell. This was to be a writing exercise, free form and almost stream of conscious, scratching onto the page with a pen to see what ideas would surface. It’s practice. But then a notification flashed across my phone screen. The urge to check it was too great, so I did. And just like that, my attention was snatched away.

On a thru hike of the Foothills Trail in the wilds of South Carolina is where I first became truly aware of my attention, or lack of it. It was five days of backpacking. I allowed myself no stimulus in the form of music, podcasts, social media, or anything else. My mind wandered desperately in the beginning. Songs from my memory played on repeat in my mind, conversations were re-hashed, I daydreamed. Day three is when it all settled. The voices became quiet and I discovered that I could remain focused in the present. My attention was restored.

All of this has me thinking about attention as a human ability and why it might be important. The common imperative is that we should ‘pay attention.’ Perhaps before we do we should answer for ourselves- how much is our attention worth?

I have a notion that humans are on a trajectory of dwindling, or maybe fracturing, attention. This fracturing is accelerating in the modern era, but it is not a new phenomenon. Prior to the invention of writing humanity thrived on oral traditions of relaying history, legends, and myths. It is believed that people had an incredible capacity to remember these stories, perhaps even on the first telling. This ability was diminished when we started committing words to wet clay and papyrus. Could that be due to the fact that we were required to pay less attention when others spoke?

Now consider the act of writing. The physical act of scrawling meaning onto a page in the form of lines and squiggles. Doing this requires a sustained level of focused attention. Is that same level asked of us when we type on a keyboard? Characters appear with the press of a button. Mistakes can be deleted entirely. Sentences, paragraphs, or entire pages can be altered or moved instantly. Does this ease of application and correction suggest that we pay less attention as we write? Has human attention been diminished by typing?

Today we are seeing a dramatic acceleration in the curve of the attention decline trajectory. Enter the ‘smart’ phone and with it social media. The devices are ubiquitous, in our pockets everywhere we go. The apps keep us scrolling with short form content. Images, clips, memes, all rewarding us with brief hits of dopamine in the brain. Our scrolling is by design. The platforms are crafted specifically to keep us going. For, you see, in the modern world our attention has become the currency with which we pay for stimulus, our fix of dopamine.

It is the ads that drive the dollars and the ads need our eyes. Content must be short and explosive to catch the attention, spike the emotion, reward with the dopamine. And if one dares to turn away those small red notifications on the icon on the phone screen arise, quietly alerting that something has been missed. Something needs to be checked. The algorithm is hungry for our attention. The app draws us back in.

And it is not just social media that plays this game. Any news source. Any political stunt. The headlines are there to grab our attention, to focus us on the bright and shiny thing over there that they say we should be concerned about. And in the meantime we forget that last overreach, wrongdoing, or outrage. Or we are intentionally distracted, blinded, from the ulterior motive accomplished in the shadows. It is the art of harnessing attention for manipulation.

The brain rot from all of this scrolling, headline surfing, and slavery to the phone is real. We are complicit in being manipulated and exploited. We freely hand over our focus, and thus are the agents of the destruction of our own capacity for holding attention. Is that because we don’t see the value in retaining it?

Where is humanity headed? The pace of technological development is breathtakingly fast. Perhaps what we are seeing regarding shortening attention spans is humans adapting to their conditions. Evolving, in a way, to what is demanded of them. Maybe a computer-centric world requires multi-tasking and quick thinking, something that is best accomplished by a mind accustomed to skipping from topic to topic, lightly handling information before scanning for the next stimulus. Could this be the fittest mind for the future?

I think of the future often now. AI is already here. Its consequences are anyone’s guess. Those looking at its positive potential implore us to adopt it, learn it, harness it. Leveraging its capability will allow us to build generational wealth they say. Perhaps so, but I worry that outsourcing reasoning and sustained creative efforts will be another assault on attention. I’ve been thinking and writing this essay over the course of two or three days. With a few prompts, AI could deliver an equivalent in mere seconds. How long before the patience to create our own works vanishes?

These are real developments over the past week or two- autonomous humanoid robots are being tested on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine, the company that makes Claude AI, Anthropic, believes there is a chance that Claude has become conscious, computers are being built running on human brain cells rather than silicon chips and one of these has learned to play the video game Doom. Welcome to the horrific dystopian present. And, by the way, those brain cells in the machine are rewarded for their correct actions with hits of dopamine. Yes, the same that we receive by sacrificing our attention to the social media algorithms.

This is not the future. It is happening now, and it is not going away. But what happens if I choose not to give it my assent? What if I value my attention and want to maintain or even strengthen it? You’ll get left behind, they say. The future economy is fully online, in the realm of AI, and without embracing it you will become obsolete, they tell me.

But what if I am ok with that?

Attention is the new currency and we spend it freely, perhaps because we feel like we’ve lost nothing when we do so. So what exactly is the value of attention and why would we benefit by keeping it?

The truth is, I can’t exactly define its value. Will an undivided attention make us wealthy? Help us get the cars, pay off the mortgage, retire early? Will it make us fit? Hansom (or beautiful)? Help us get the promotion, the credit we deserve, get the girl (or guy)? Maybe, but maybe not.

I see something more fundamental involved with attention and it has to do with authenticity. How long can you sit with yourself without distraction? Can you write for an hour with nothing to say, just to see what ideas develop? Or hike for three days with no entertainment stimulus? When I do these things I begin to pay attention to the narrator in my skull. I become familiar with him and start to really see who he is.

This may be the inception of presence. Of being the person who turns heads with their energy just by stepping into the room. That’s not to say we should value other people’s attention. What I suggest is that one can be so focused, so attentive to the moment, that their attuned state of being is instantly recognizable. Could we become that person by giving full attention to all that we do? I would like to think so, but I’m certain it won’t develop if we look to our phones more than to the world around us.

Being present in the world and understanding our authentic selves are foundational steps for our development towards our highest attainment as humans. Only on that basis can we reliably choose what we value, rationally frame how we interpret events, and decide how to act. This all relies on our attention. It is critical in formulating who we are as autonomous and free individuals.

After all, you’re the one who knows himself, which is to say you know how much you’re worth to yourself and at what price you sell yourself. The price differs for different people.
-Epictetus Discourses I.II.11

If our mastery of our own attention is pivotal to developing who we are, then when we ‘pay attention’ to whoever asks for it we are essentially selling ourselves. Epictetus urges us to not sell ourselves cheaply. So, where would we find ourselves in the not too distant future as the rare few who have retained our attention spans in a society that has traded theirs for algorithm dopamine? Scarcity of a desired thing translates into value.

With this in mind, our attention could be one of our most priceless possessions.

I fail at mastering my attention daily. I check alerts on my phone. I sometimes scroll social media. I use AI to remove sensor dust spots from my photos. I have obviously typed this essay at some point. But I try to make these conscious choices.

And yet, I push back in the opposite direction. I read physical books- Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov demands a lot of my attention right now, write with pen and paper, sit or walk for periods of time without distractions. Maybe by saying no to the phone, to the headlines, to the screens, I’ll be able to retain what is left of my attention span. And with it I’ll be able to just sit for a while, watching birds flit through the under story of the forest as wind sighs through the canopy above, and content if progress leaves me here to fade into the mist.

I won’t tell you I’m doing things right, just that I’m trying. It is a good fight!

What do you think? Is attention all that I’ve made it into in this essay? How much do you value yours and what steps are you taking to hold onto it?

Waterfall Chasing: Lower Camp Creek

Erik Hogan — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 08:32:13 GMT

Welcome to Field Notes!

First- I am strongly introverted and am quite happy with that aspect of myself. The idea of public speaking or even being recorded while speaking doesn’t appeal to me one bit. However, I stress the importance of challenging ourselves to do uncomfortable things, and so I accepted an invite to be interviewed by for her podcast Change the Game. It turned out to be a fantastic conversation! If you haven’t already seen a link, you can LISTEN TO IT HERE.

Next- If you are interested in a related essay, sort of a part one to today’s story, check out the CANYON OF FIVE FALLS.

Now, on to the adventure!

Trout lilies are blooming. A delicate yellow bloom rising from between mottled leathery green leaves catches my attention. The few I saw earlier on the shaded banks of the creek were downcast, petals demurely folded. Sunlight has become harsh now in the late morning, but this flower stands radiant. Scanning the surrounding forest, I am suddenly aware that the hillside is covered in them.

Perhaps I can capture a stunning photo of the lily. If I take time here, I may yet come away with a small victory in what feels like a day of setbacks and defeats. Sprawling prone on the damp leaf litter with the sun to my back, I inch as close as the focus of my 50mm camera lens will allow. A squirrel rustles in the leaves uphill, but I tune it out. The aroma of rich earth lingers over the ground, comforting as a warm blanket, but I tune that out as well. With breath held, I press the shutter button. Zooming in on the LCD display reveals that the image is not sharp.

Can I prop my camera on something rather than holding it? What is my shutter speed, ISO, aperture? Re-focus. Let the heartrate settle and hold as still as possible. Click. It’s still not as sharp as I want.

Try again. Re-focus. All of my mental attunement is directed at this lily. All except that small part of my subconscious that hears the persistent noise in the leaves uphill and thinks it’s not a squirrel. A deer maybe? I will look in a minute.

Hold the breath. Press the shutter button. Zoom in on the display. Yes, this photo looks sharp!

My body reacts faster than my mind understands why, launching me to my feet. Violent crashing through the leaves above. The sudden adrenaline spike feels like a moment of freefall. All of the hair on my arms and neck raises. I look uphill just in time to see a mass of dark fur racing down directly towards me.

It’s too late to react. The thing is already upon me by the time my mind orients to it just enough to think “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?!”

The Canyon of Five Falls has lingered in the dark corners of my mind for two years. A remote section of five dramatic rapids along the Chattooga River between Georgia and South Carolina, I was only able to visit a portion of the canyon on my first venture to it. I’ve wanted to return; dreamed of those fierce waters ever since.

There are no trails that lead to the canyon. The difficulty of reaching it has been my only hesitation to go back. The previous route took me up a steep and sketchy scramble through rhododendron covered cliffs. There must be a better way.

Maps reveal a possibility. Camp Creek Rd gets close. Shooting off from it, a short Forest Service Rd looks like a place I could park the truck. From there, a short bushwhack through creek valleys should lead to the southern end of the canyon. Once in the canyon, I am confident I could rock hop my way through it to the north. So that’s the plan.

Two days of rain leading up to this should make for high water flow in the canyon. Even in the dark before sunrise I can see that the skies are overcast. And those clouds are projected to last through lunchtime. Perfect conditions for photography.

My excitement begins to build as the daylight grows and I reach the low mountains of North Georgia. Dense fog settles in and I am already imagining misty moody photo compositions. A panicked coyote skitters across the highway ahead of me.

It is still very early, but as I turn onto Camp Creek Rd and begin driving down the length of it the fog suddenly lifts entirely. Houses line the road. I have a long way to go yet, but begin to wonder about where I can park that won’t be a problem for a resident. And now the clouds above are already beginning to part. The day is beautiful, but an uneasy feeling of time pressure builds.

And then the road ends. A house sits just off to the left, but ahead is a glaring red stop sign and other signs emphatically warning End of the Road. Vehicles associated with the house are parked on the shoulders, making it difficult to turn around.

I am only halfway down what the map shows as Camp Creek Rd. This early on a Saturday morning, I won’t knock on that door to ask what lies beyond the signs. And I also clearly can’t park here and start hiking. Is the adventure over before the day has even begun?

Water Gauge Rd! I passed the sign a little while back. That is the road I took to access the canyon the last time. Out comes the mapping app. That trail along the Chattooga ends at Camp Creek. I could bushwhack up the creek and skirt around the south side of the hill I scrambled over two years ago. From there, a pass through a low elevation notch should give me access to the canyon. It is worth a try.

I hurry, but had forgotten how long and slow of a drive Water Gauge Rd is. The dirt track is marred by ruts and pits, turned into ruddy pools after the recent rains. I’m grateful to be back in my four wheel drive truck for this. All the while that promised cloud cover shifts, cracks, and opens up to the blue sky beyond.

The end of the road is just as I remember it. I hasten to park, grab my gear, and start down the trail. At the very end of February, buds on branches are everywhere, but few have unfurled into new leaves. The forest is still highlighted by beech trees, greedily clinging to last years coppery foliage.

The hike to the Chattooga is short. Even so, the number of fresh blown down trees is readily apparent. Some have been cleared from the trail. Some haven’t. How many storms have thrashed this land since my last visit? Fortunately, so far most of the trees are small. Soon the river sprawls ahead, wide, languorous, and brilliantly greenish blue.

The trail parallels the river, heading downstream. Another short walk leads to the confluence of Camp Creek and the Chattooga. There is no bridge and my destination is ultimately on the far side of the creek. I skip across. Here the trail ends and the bushwhacking begins.

The terrain on this side of the creek immediately becomes steep. Loose and damp underfoot, the earth easily gives way. I push further, struggling with every step. It is a fight against vegetation ranging up and down the hillside. A grappling match with gnarled and woody rhododendron.

Ahead the topography is precipitous. Larger downed trees block the way, as well. I cannot continue here. The opposite side of this ravine looks easier. Flatter. Scrambling down into the creek I gingerly making my way across slick green clad rocks and up the far bank.

A different challenge emerges here. This slope is covered in dog hobble. The wiry shrub, as its name implies, tangles the legs and makes any progress grueling and slow.

Sweat rolls down my face. I check the map, but the marker for my position has hardly moved. More struggle advances me just a bit further up the ravine, but then steeper terrain again blocks the route.

Sunlight is hitting the treetops. That cloud cover that was promised is mostly gone. The only option left is to try to rock hop directly through the creek, but maneuvering this way is little more than a crawl, slick and stooped low.

The creek bends around a massive mossy boulder on the left bank, leaving a wide pool ahead. I see no way around. Do I plunge ahead, soaking my shoes and dealing with those consequences? But it is such a warm day. Couldn’t I just take off my shoes and walk in the water?

Water in this mountain stream is shockingly, painfully cold. A few steps is all it takes for the pain to well up into my core and for my mind to scream for release. A few steps, though, is all I need. Just enough to get from one large rock to the next.

And so I grind my way up Camp Creek. Slowly. Carefully. A progression that seems to be measured in inches. Inches stretched into minutes, long series of minutes, by the weight of adversity. The cold has made my feet sensitive, and the stream conceals. Below the water are many, many rocks. Some I can see. Others lay just below benign looking stretches of smooth sand. Each one I find is a jarring and hurtful pause.

Camp Creek’s beauty is undeniable, though. It is small, but majestic in an unassuming kind of manner. I creep past numerous delightful cascades of water carousing through collections of venerable boulders, a celebration of the juxtaposition of motion and stillness as old as the mountains themselves.

Persistence leads to progress, if such slow forward movement can even be described as such. By now I’ve learned to ignore the cold of the water entirely, but the unpredictable jagged rocks I step on I cannot. Every footfall becomes a calculated risk.

How late is the day now? Mid morning, at least. I check the map. It does not look to be that much further, but I then compare the distance to how far I’ve come. It does not look good.

Ultimately, this is not impossible. I could get there. But it is the cost of getting there that leads me to recognize defeat. The clouds have all dissipated, meaning sunlight on the river in the canyon would be harsh. Unforgiving, even. And just getting to the canyon would take me a good portion of the rest of the day.

A deep breath in as I survey my surroundings. And then turn around.

The return downstream allows me to take my time and enjoy being where I am, without a destination ahead. Simply, I exist in a creek in the mountains completely alone, yet surrounded by life and natural processes more ancient and complex than I can possibly conceive. Moss draped hollows infinitely older than all of humanity. And yet, there is belonging here. Understanding. I am part of this place and, though I stand solidly akin to a boulder in this frigid flowing creek, the water flows through me, as well.

I stop on the way back to make several photographs of the cascades along the lower portion of Camp Creek. Who else has ever come this way? Who else has photographed these scenes? Possibly no one.

Back at the Chattooga River one more idea comes to me. A vague memory of reading about a waterfall or rapids lying a short distance upstream. I now have time to explore, so why not?

This may or may not be an official trail. It seems to follow an old road bed, but quickly becomes choked with fallen trees. Some I can circumnavigate by climbing uphill around the upturned root balls. Others I clamber over or crawl underneath.

The day is brilliant. The sunlight warm. The torrents of the Chattooga move through rapids below and gleam with light so bright I cannot look at it for long. Copper beech leaves seem to glow with a radiance all of their own. I realize that despite failing to reach the Canyon of Five Falls today, I am very happy.

Looking down at just that moment, I see a superb feather lying at my feet. A gift from the wild. I tuck the feather in a loop on my pack strap.

If this was a trail I had been following, it dwindles into a mere suggestion. The point I intended to reach isn’t much further, but the terrain has become very steep, dropping 50 yards or more to the river below. And then, an impossible tangle of blown down trees and knotted rhododendrons stands before me. This is as far as I go.

I accept this defeat, as well. But then, scanning the landscape, I notice the abundance of trout lilies blooming all around me. How best to capture them in a photo? I’ll lie down, get as close as I can.

My concentration is interrupted by a crashing through the leaves uphill. I jump up just in time as an animal comes rushing down at me. It’s gotten to me by the time I realize it is a dog! A floppy eared tan dog with a large radio collar! And immediately behind it come five more!

Panting. Tails wagging. Somehow not barking or baying. These dogs seem ecstatic, elated to have found me here. They rush up to me, sniff around, jump up, paw my chest, disappear into the rhododendrons only to come crashing back and enthusiastically discover me all over again. My cheeks grow sore from smiling so wide.

I’ve not often been so confused in the wild. At any moment I expect some camouflaged hunter to come following behind them. But no one comes. No voice calls them. It isn’t any hunting season that I am aware of, but these dogs all share the same collars. They are obviously here for some related purpose.

Steadily I make my way back. The dogs follow along for quite a while. Some fall off behind me but one or two persist, disappearing and returning at widening intervals to check on me.

I make it back to the short trail that leads to my parked truck. The mysterious dogs have all stopped following, preferring to run rampant in the remote forested hillsides along the Chattooga.

I grab my pack strap and realize that the feather stashed there has fallen out somewhere along the way. I drop my hand, brushing the pocket of my pants. That’s when I notice my pocket knife has fallen out, also lost in the forest. That was a good knife. It had been with me for many, many miles. Fortune gives, and then she takes even more. All I can do is laugh to myself, alone in the convocation of trees.

It has been a great day to fail.

So I didn’t get to the Canyon of Five Falls that day, but the setback has only strengthened my resolve. Maybe this day will prove to be an interlude in a series of visits or attempted visits.

How do you all handle failed attempts like this? Ever had one that turned out to be a great experience anyway?