Some Proper Mountains

Yesterday's trip took me up the Mt. Baker Highway to the Hannegan Pass trail. It was a very sunny day, which actually proved a bit troublesome (sunny days = high contrast), particularly since I hadn't prepared adequately and thus didn't get out the door as early in the morning as I would have liked. I thus found myself photographing while the light was worsening, and didn't any photographs from the pass/end of the trail itself because they would have coincided with midday when the lighting is worst. Oh, well, many lessons learned.

On the way there, I stopped at a spot on the access road that features a view of Mt. Shuksan over what I think is a channel of the North Fork Nooksack River. I've been here before, and I think I identified the waterway incorrectly as Ruth Creek. The first image looks at Shuksan itself.

The next two feature the water itself in the foreground. For some reason, these compositions aren't as compelling as I had envisioned, but I thought I post them anyway. I think part of it is that the water still looks like it has glare, even with the polarizing filter. We'll have to see what can be done in Lightroom to improve color and contrast. I used shutter speeds of 1/2 second and 1/3 second, respectively.

Next, the landscapes from the Hannegan Pass Trail itself, in the morning before the sun got too high. Below is a view of Ruth Mountain and the valley of its eponymous creek, with paintbrush in the foreground.

Next we have some cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) with part of Nooksack Ridge in the background. I think this one turned out rather well despite the high contrast of the sunshine.

Pictured below is a peak that was unnamed on my map. With the leaves framing it, and the lack of snow on the mountain, this image almost connotes "jungle." I suppose the lower and middle elevations of the Cascades are jungles in their own way.

Once the sun was too high to do any landscapes, I made some closeups in what shaded areas I could find. This first one features miner's lettuce in the foreground (Claytonia perfoliata) with Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa) in the background. F/5.

This is one that I don't think I've photographed before: Fendler's waterleaf (Hydrophyllum fendleri). F/5.

Finally, columbine (Aquilegia formosa). I thought that the sun-dappled background, if I managed to blur it enough, might be interesting, with its different shades of green. This composition probably would have been better with just a solid green background, because that would have detracted less emphasis from the flowers themselves. As it stands, though, I think this was a decent use of the conditions at hand. I used F/8 to preserve some recognizable shape in the background flower.