I started up the Craggy Gardens trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway on a morning when fog held the forest close. The air softened everything—trees became silhouettes, sounds felt distant, and the path seemed to appear only a few steps at a time. As I climbed, the trail turned into rough stone and old timbers, slick with moisture and scattered with early autumn leaves. A faint shaft of light slipped through the canopy and landed in the mist ahead, as if the woods were briefly opening a door. I made this photograph because it captured the feeling of moving forward without seeing far—trusting the next step, letting the forest reveal itself slowly, and finding calm in the unknown.
