High in the Coast Range

[AlanLichty]

This is a drone's eye view looking south from over the Kentucky Creek trailhead near the headwaters of the North Fork Smith River. Driving up to this place I had no view of the surrounding terrain at all for well over 20 miles worth of single track forest service roads given the height of the trees. The trees in the immediate foreground are well over 200' tall and the only real break in the conifer canopy was over the trailhead parking area and even that was a fairly small path to get up above the treetops. I took advantage of FAA Part 107 flight rules and went up just under 400' above the tree canopy to actually get this view. As you can see from this view you can't just go up to a mountain top to see out over the forests.

Everything in the immediate foreground is old growth forest but there is a logging clear cut just above the center of this image. It's easy to spot with the squared off edges of the cut and the single species replanting characteristic of US Forest Service timber sales areas. If I had to guess that clear cut was somewhere around 15-20 years ago. The old growth forest has mixed evergreens with various species of spruce, fir, and cedar trees along with variable age/height in the tree population. Deciduous trees don't have the height to successfully compete with the evergreens so there are only glimpses of color visible from above the evergreen canopy. The visible maple in the foreground is at the edge of the road cut and is a fairly tall maple although it is dwarfed by the conifers surrounding it.

C&C always welcome.

 

[JimFox]

What an interesting view. It looks like a fun area to explore.

 

[Jim Sanderson]

Drones do help expand one’s perspective. Nice shot. A video grab or a still shot from the camera?

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice view. You can map this area with your drone.

 

[AlanLichty]

What an interesting view. It looks like a fun area to explore.

Thanks Jim - explorations need to be on foot since you can't really fly anywhere without being beyond visual line of sight. If I flew even 10 feet away from being directly overhead I wouldn't be able to see the drone.

 

[AlanLichty]

Drones do help expand one’s perspective. Nice shot. A video grab or a still shot from the camera?

Thanks Jim - this is a still shot. I get better camera resolution from stills vs. video and in this case video wouldn't really do much except show you panning the drone. As I mention to Jim Fox you can't fly anywhere above the canopy without losing visual line of sight.

 

[AlanLichty]

Nice view. You can map this area with your drone.

Thanks Jameel - every time I go up in places like this I take 360º worth of shots so I can stitch them together at home and get a good feel for the terrain. Hard to do when can't see the terrain from the ground and can only see the controller viewfinder in flight. I did that all along the Oregon coastline with my (our) old Mavic Air 2 drone.

 

[Peter Michal]

Beautiful view, Alan! An incredible amount of green trees... I've never been to a rainforest (nor am I planning to), but it's definitely an interesting region. Drones are in the advantage today!

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful view, Alan! An incredible amount of green trees... I've never been to a rainforest (nor am I planning to), but it's definitely an interesting region. Drones are in the advantage today!

Thanks Peter - the extent of the coastal forests are quite amazing as they extend from northern California all the way up to Alaska with the drier areas still getting over 2 meters of rain per year. Drones help to get nice images from unique vantage points but our ground based cameras take higher quality images.

 

[Trent Watts]

This looks like an amazing forest Alan. Not easy to photograph but your drone did a great job. Well ... I suppose the drone did have an operator.
It really warms my heart when I hear of old growth forest as we seem to be losing so much to development.

 

[AlanLichty]

This looks like an amazing forest Alan. Not easy to photograph but your drone did a great job. Well ... I suppose the drone did have an operator.
It really warms my heart when I hear of old growth forest as we seem to be losing so much to development.

Thanks Trent - it warmed my heart to find some old growth after years of driving through the Oregon Coast Range looking at what are basically tree farms with single species stands of uniformly spaced trees all identical in age. Until I sent my drone up above the tree tops I had no clue what the surrounding terrain looked like beyond what I could see on the topo maps of my GPS. Given what everything looked like at ground level I consider that a major draw and I already have future trips in mind based on what I saw on this visit in late October. I wish there was a lot more of this left.