Silver Falls State Park on the first day of 2013

Yesterday was a great day to go hiking (as is today). So I decided to go to Silver Falls State Park. Walking from the store to the South Falls, I saw some rays of sunlight coming through the trees...

 If only a deer was in this meadow, then it would be perfect.

Near the South Falls Viewpoint, I saw something that I would think is quite rare--sunlight coming through both trees and waterfall mist creating rays of rainbows.

Below are two pictures of South Falls with rays of sunlight. Unfortunately, those same rays created spots on the picture.

The picture above is how this waterfall actually looked, it was taken with my digital camera on the 'candle light' setting; while the one below is how it was taken with the 'landscape' setting. Which picture do you like best?

Winter has started to take a hold of some areas of the park. On this rock cliff, water dripping off moss and branches has created small icicles and blades of ice.

 

 Once more, I was testing the difference between the 'candle light' setting (above) and the 'landscape' setting (below). While the landscape setting makes a waterfall look like a solid stream of water, the other setting shows more details.

 

 I am not sure what kind of mushrooms these are.

 

The 'candle light' setting works great for close up pictures.

Good to know.

 

The North Falls looked nice with the mist rising through the trees.