Another in my line of goofy self-portraits while out hiking, this one taken last weekend on the trail from Multnomah Falls to Larch Mountain. I didn’t make it all the way to the top of Larch Mountain and took this on the way back down, a fallen tree made a nice bench in front of the large tree.

This is a whimsical take on Rodin’s The Thinker, I also posed in the classic pose but I didn’t like the shot as much since my hat threw my face into shadow. I didn’t get the classic pose quite right anyway, my right elbow was on the wrong knee and my left hand was wrong as well. I guess I’m not only no Rodin but no Dante in front of the gates of Hell either.

It’s funny how when you see the self-timer light on the camera blinking, you realize you can’t remember the details of a famous pose. This happened to me in the Tetons a couple of years ago, I was trying to do the Heisman pose and realized I didn’t remember the details of that one either.

This was only my second time out hiking this summer and I felt all of my 40 years by the time I got back down to Multnomah Falls. I was sore all over and pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to move the next day, but thankfully the only thing still sore 24 hours later were my calves, and even they weren’t doing so badly.

Perhaps I don’t have one foot in the grave after all.