Wanted to share a few pix of a recent obsession of mine while hiking. And as a disclaimer, I want to attest to the fact I’ve not been sampling wild mushrooms picked off-trail.

As a preface, I remember growing up in Texas and in the summer seeing all kinds of animal shapes in the clouds overhead (as did many other kids.) I even naively thought about taking photos and publishing a book about them. Never did.

This new, but related obsession started a few years ago. I usually make these sightings near the end of a long day of hiking, when I start to see shapes in the plants and trees on the forest trails. And with a digital camera, I’ve found I’ve now got enough gigabytes to waste a few frames to record some of them.

This first one was spotted back in ’04 when we did the Berg Lake hike up at Mt. Robson (north of Banff). We’d taken some novices backpacking and were on a long 12-mile hike from the lake back to the car when I spotted what looked like a bear made of moss and a rock. Gary, the one with the bear spray, agreed to pose next to the "creature" (and actually said he took a lichen to it):



In ’06, I found this weathered-wood lizard transformed from an old snag on the Wonderland Trail around Rainier:



And we just got back from the Little Beaver/Big Beaver loop at North Cascades NP where I spotted two more of these fantasy mammals. The first is not a silverback, but a greenback gorilla sprawled over a rock near the end of Day 1:



The second, from Day 2, is something of a hybrid: a unicorn crossed with a Clydesdale with a front hoof up like a Lipizzaner stallion. Someone else might see something else (like a dog -- a horned rottweiler trying to "shake hands"):



Anyone else have this weird obsession? Is it attributable to the endorphins produced from a long day of backpacking? Should I seek help? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />