Boulder River in winter

On Monday, I visited the Boulder River trail near Darrington, in search of snow-free hiking and, due to the waterfalls and river scenery, photographic possibilities even in this relatively dreary time of year. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of color I found. Obviously, mossy evergreen trees made for a lot of green. Decaying foliage and dormant shrubs also added contrasting hues, which I was able to use to my advantage in this first shot, my favorite of the bunch. Featured here is the double waterfall maybe a mile and a half along the trail; an obvious side trail leads to this vantage point. F/16, 0.6 seconds. This shutter speed sufficiently blurred the background waterfalls, while still capturing some of the water's turbulence in the foreground; longer shutter speeds blurred the foreground water too much.

Next, a view of the same set of waterfalls, from the hiking trail. I was worried about the high contrast between the waterfalls and the dark trunks, but was able to use Lightroom bring both into an acceptable range. The image quality in the darker areas isn't fantastic, but I think it's good enough. F/20, 1.6 seconds.

Here's a view of a different waterfall, farther along the trail. The waterfall is closer to the center of the composition than I'd prefer, perhaps violating the Rule of Thirds, but the trunk and branches seen here were the most attractive way to frame the falls. F/20, 3 seconds.

Another image from the same vantage point. The sense of depth is not as strong as in the composition above, but I still like it. F/20, 2.5 seconds.

Lastly, a vertical composition from the double waterfall. The image quality here is not as good as in this post's other images, but the image might still be usable, at least at some print sizes. F/20, 1 second.

In contrast to the warmth of my Sugarloaf trip the previous weekend, temperatures on Monday hovered in the upper 30s in the valley - "back to our regularly scheduled January," as my hiking companion accurately put it. Considering that it was dry, however, with good lighting and interesting scenery - not to mention the fact that I didn't make it out at all for photography last January - I'll take it!