Green River Extravaganza, pt. 1

I had this most recent Monday off, and it was dry, so - why not go take some pictures? Let me tell you, there's nothing like visiting a state park on an off-season weekday. I had lots of pleasant hiking trails and well-kept bathroom facilities with running water all to myself. They must be crowded in the summer, because there were all sorts of signs about limited parking, not being allowed to save parking spots for others, how if you leave the park you might not be able to get back in if all the parking spots fill up. The commotion that those signs suggested was altogether absent. The grassier picnic areas did have some traffic by the afternoon, but the trails were deserted.

I visited two parks, and the first was Flaming Geyser State Park, which sits along the Green River. State and county parks next to rivers in rural areas are always risky - sometimes they can be nice, but sometimes you end up plodding through Grassy Purgatory, or endless paths through mown grass lawns, blackberry bushes, and uninteresting forest. Flaming Geyser has its parts that fall into the Grassy Purgatory category, but it has some very lovely sections as well. The River Trail on the east end of the park, and the Ridge Trail on the southern end, are the highlights.

First things first: I saw two types of flower that I'd never encountered before! First is Scouler's corydalis (Corydalis scouleri). I wonder if they're related at all to Pacific bleeding heart, because the leaves are a bit similar. Scouler's corydalis is a much larger plant, though. I used f/3.5 to blur the background and also to progressively blur the flowers, with only a few of them in focus.

Below is - well, I didn't find it in my book, but using Internet resources, my best guess is Cardamine nuttallii var. nuttallii. If I see it again, I'll take a closer look at the whole plant to get a better handle on what it is. I used f/4.2 to blur the background. I think it actually appears weird to have the flowers hovering in mid-air like they do in the image below, without any context. Still, it's the best image I got of them.

The star of the show at Flaming Geyser, florally speaking, was salmonberry. Little pink salmonberry flowers were everywhere. The next two images feature salmonberry flowers with Christy Creek in the background. In both cases, I used narrower apertures (f/13 and f/16, respectively) to make the background identifiable as a creek. I thought it would be fun to put these flowers in context.

The next set of two use basically the same angle, one including the sun and one not. I am not sure which one I prefer. For both of them, I wanted some identifiable detail in the background forest - and also to "star" the sun's rays - so I used apertures of f/14 and f/18, respectively.

Below is a salmonberry petal, lying on some leaves of the same plant. I used a very wide aperture, f/3.8, because I wanted to focus only on the fallen petal in the foreground.

The next two feature new growth on what I believe to be Sitka willow. I really liked the color of the water, which was reflecting the sunlit opposite bank, and wanted to use it as a background. I tried a variety of compositions and the two below feature the most compelling foregrounds. I used f/25 and f/20, respectively, to get some identifiable detail in the water. I wanted waves to show up; I didn't want the water to be reduced to a solid color.

To be continued…………….!