Winter's Green

Well, this is a bit embarrassing, but only a few read this blog, and a significant portion are out of the United States (The Irish readers were easy to figure out, but I have recurring hits from Germany and Russia as well. Hmm.)

A few days ago I devised Operation Find Snow And Take Pictures Of It Without Dying Or Having To Buy Anything. The snow levels earlier in the week had been rather high, but dropped with the passage of a cold front. National Weather Service forecasts for the snow level had kept changing, but generally ran between 1600 and 2500 feet above sea level for the day before I was planning to go out. I had a brilliant idea to visit Wallace Falls State Park; the trailhead is at 300' or 400', well below snow level (i.e. I wouldn't have to drive in any snow), but the lakes and upper reaches of the park are about 1800-1900'. The low snow levels after a warmer week would mean that I would find snow, but not so much that I wouldn't be able to hike in it without snowshoes or other gear. I'd seen trip reports on the WTA website that described snow at the higher levels of the park and featured some very nice pictures. I was hoping for a similar experience.

But doing photo trips counting on a specific kind of weather is always a gamble, and this time I rolled a snake eyes. There was no snow at the top of the park, and a glorious cold, sleety drizzle started falling on me after a few minutes. I hadn't taken any pictures on the way up because I was in such a hurry to get to the non-existent snow. On the way down, however, I took a few, hoping to at least partially mitigate my failure.

First of all, some pictures of mossy things. This first one I really like; the foreground is a bit dark, but not so dark that I couldn't successfully tweak the lighting. The second one is okay; I would have preferred the ferns to be sharp, but there was too much breeze (it was dark and the shutter speed had to be very long - I think it was 5 or 6 seconds).

Next, some interesting color contrasts that one would only see in the winter. The second of this pair turned out better than I had expected, and better than it looked in my camera's little playback screen. I wish I had taken more along those lines. The red of the bushes (salmonberry? I didn't actually look closely enough to figure it out) stands out well. Winter is long, though...

Next, these interesting trees:

And finally, these semi-close-ups of young tree shoots on a mossy log. The moss in the background didn't show up as well as I would have liked. Still, they turned out acceptably well.

...So, all in all, a bit of a disappointing day but not entirely unproductive. Maybe sometime soon I'll get another shot at low snow levels. Maybe even (gasp) there'll be snow in the lowlands! Barring that, though, at least I can have a good time in a wintry forest even without any white stuff.

TTFN!