There's coal in them thar hills!

...Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it? Nevertheless, there was coal fever back in the day, especially in and near the Cascades I believe, even if it was not as romantic as gold fever. Yesterday I went hiking on the Coal Creek Trail; this will be a long post since I was there for a large part of the day. The trail is 3 miles each way, so 6 miles total. They're relatively low-impact miles, since most of the trail is relatively level with only one rough hill.

The area was mined for coal beginning in the latter half of the 19th century; the mines used electricity from a steam plant along the creak. The area was also the site for a railroad that was intended to connect Seattle to Walla Walla after the first transcontinental railroad had connected to Tacoma; this railroad, however, was never finished. The site of an abandoned farm also sits on the trail.

Disappointingly, there was not much in the way of historical ruins. There was debris of bricks in the paths, a dilapidated old shed from the farm, bits of coal tailings along the trail and the creek, some concrete from a few mining structures and an old hotel, a mine airshaft, and some bits and pieces of the railroad. It was fairly obvious that some sort of mining had gone on there once, but there was nothing really picturesque. The old shed was the most intact thing there, which wasn't saying much. Everything else was pretty subtle.

But, the natural parts of the park were pretty cool. One of the biggest highlights was the waterfall. My little book says that the rocks are this color because of iron oxide (not exactly sure what this means).

The area where the farm used to be was still clear, if overgrown.  The sun was out while I was there, and there were some dark rainclouds rimming the horizon, making for some interesting scenery:

Then, finally, the forest scenery, as most of the park was wooded. Maples - mostly bigleaf, and also vine near the creek - really predominate this park, although there are some stands of alders and other trees.

This was my first experience using a book I bought, Hiking Washington's History by Judy Bentley (my information came from that book and park signs). I'm taking a class in Pacific Northwest history this summer, and I'm excited - a large component of the class involves self-directed "field visits" where we visit historical sites and museums and do independent reading/writing about it. Just my sort of thing, and hopefully the start of many fun adventures! If I visit outdoor historical sites, I can serve two purposes at the same time: classwork and photography. Whoopee!

...And we're back

It's been a little while since I've posted, primarily due to my computer going kaput (fixed now; thankfully, I didn't lose any pictures) and school stuff. But last week I went to Discovery Park, and I finally got the pictures sorted.

I found some cool grass, flowers, and a weird red grass sort of thing with little red bulbs on it. I'm not exactly sure what that's all about.

I think this is a vetch of some kind. American vetch? Not quite sure.

I think this is a lady fern.

This was in the midst of our sunny week last week. The air was still a bit cool in the shade, but overall everything was quite nice.

Also, I managed to catch another sunset! My second of the year! Hopefully more will be in store this summer. I need to re-learn how to take pictures of sunsets. The last one was spectacular enough that I simply had to point my camera at the sunset and go. Times like this, though, when the sky is clear, require a little more care. The place I chose this last week when I photographed the sunset was too "busy" - I had aimed for a place with some interesting objects against which to frame the sunset, but in fact there were too many objects and it was difficult to isolate anything. Oh well, a couple decent ones came of it:

When in doubt, just put everything in the frame. Sometimes it works...hehe, don't take that advice, please!

More Near Escapes!

Today I went to Lord Hill Regional Park, that eternal tempter and taunter. It seems that I run into the most trouble at this park - getting lost without food or water, getting stuck in the mud, etc. It's a beautiful park, but it's temperamental. Some parks invite me to them - like the Meadowdale park, with its short hill and long, level trail along a stream. Lord Hill Park, in contrast, dares me to come back. I had what might have been a near miss today, and left the park exhausted and thirsty as usual (I need to start planning my provisions more thoughtfully).

The highlight of the morning was intermittent, occasionally dense fog. It all began peacefully enough, as you can see:

Far into the park though, at the beginning of the Devil's Butte Trail, I heard an odd recurring noise. At first, I thought it was someone singing - but who would be singing at 7AM way out here? As I got a bit farther down the trail, I thought it might be someone in distress calling/moaning for help. But there was not enough urgency to the sound, and it recurred to regularly. Then I remembered: at the park entrance, the information kiosk mentioned that a few cougars and bears lived in the park. Now thoroughly spooked, I tiptoed my way back the way I'd came, noticing a large pawprint on the way. Maybe I was already on edge, but it didn't look like a doggie print. It was also rather recent. Maybe it was just a dog's print, but I didn't stay long enough to find out!

As you can see, God celebrated my escape by making the sun come out!!

Discovery Discoveries

This is a long one, but hang in there!!

The other day - last Thursday? - I went to Discovery Park, and it was an historic trip: It marked the first sunset I've photographed so far in 2011! School business and plenty of clouds and rain had conspired to keep me from doing so until now. There were some clouds in the west when I got to the park, raising the possibility of yet another "sunset dud," but I persisted until sunset and, as you can see, the clouds lifted at just the right moment:

I also played around with taking some relatively close-up pictures of grass. These next two, I think, are some of my best grass pictures to date, despite the fact that I didn't really get them the way I wanted them. I had been hoping to get the whole grass "head" in focus, but I just couldn't get the depth of field wide enough while still being able to handhold (the grass was too low to the ground to use a tripod). Still, I got part of it in focus, and I think it looks alright:

I also took some interesting shots of the historic chapel there at the park, because there was a fully blooming tree right next to it, which I think "interacted" with it quite nicely:

Last but not least, I discovered some secret forest trails! They're not on the map, as is the case with many minor trails at Discovery. These ones wind around through the forest just north of the viewpoint in the South Meadow area. You have to duck under branches sometimes, but it's worth it. The woods are pretty on their own, and there's one little meadow that looks like it might have lupine growing in it. If so, it'll be fantastic this summer!

Woodland Wanderings

This short recent photo adventure was devoted mostly to experimentation. As is typical, not everything I tried worked, and the pictures that did work were not quite satisfactory (in most cases, this means not quite as sharp as I would have preferred). But anyway, when I looked through them again I liked them better than I had at first, so here are the most interesting:

I finally figured out what this shrub is, after wondering for a while - I think its a red elderberry shrub. In June or July those flowers will turn into bright red berries. "How neat is that?"

A picture of opening (or perhaps "unfurling" is a a better term?) ferns. Both this one and the flower picture above were excruciatingly difficult to get sharp.

And an obligatory trunk picture. I dunno. I kind of like it. Also I used flash, can you tell? Hopefully not. When I use flash, it's usually in a situation where I want its use to be completely invisible.

An Inefficient Trip to Discovery Park

On an impulse, I went to Discovery Park yesterday afternoon. My main motivation was a desire to photograph the blooming bigleaf maples - and, as always, see what else I could find.

Bigleaf maple flowers. I love these trees in their full spring raiment.

I say my trip was inefficient for this reason: I came home yesterday with 217 new pictures on my camera. I kept 68 of them. 12 of these ended up on my Picasa. And only four of them will end up on my blog. It's sometimes a bit daunting, potentially even demoralizing, to consider that I spend most of my time in the field taking shots that I will end up deleting immediately thereafter. Sometimes I will take 10 or more shots of a certain subject. But for all that time, and all that error, it only takes a few shots that worked - even one shot that worked - to make the whole evening worth it. I always have to tell myself that I am not spending my time taking worthless images, but chasing that good one. Besides, I like spending time outside period, regardless of whether I am "producing" anything out of it or not.

Here is another good one:

This is my favorite time of year - mid-spring into early summer, usually spanning from mid-April through perhaps early July. The grass is thick and green, the trees are bright, the forests are lush, and we are treated to a kaleidoscopic display of flowers. The weather's better later, in August especially, but things start to brown up, leaves start to look a bit tired, and there aren't as many flowers (though there are still some good ones).

Discovery Park, taken lying in the grass, one of my favorite things to do.

The Temperate Jungle

That word, "jungle," was running through my mind all morning this morning as I tromped around through Meadowdale County Park. Puget Sound forests aren't technically "rainforests," but they can still be very lush, especially along streams, near the water, and in rainy years. The forest at the park fulfilled all of these criteria. The shrubs are all very happy now, and in this park, fed by the stream and rainwater funneling down the ravine, many of them are as tall as I am.

Stream shots are surprisingly difficult to pull off, and the one above is one of my better ones to date, I think. One of the largest difficulties is finding an adequate setting for your polarizing filter. If you polarize the angle too much, you might eliminate all the light reflecting from the stream itself, which of course ruins the effect. On the other hand, to little polarization and all the leaves give off a distracting glare. Also, the long exposures required take a lot of physical discipline, at least for me. If I move or breathe - or even think about moving or breathing - while the camera is still running, I foul up the whole thing. (I keep the camera strap around my neck at all times for protective purposes).

More jungle shots:

I also took some closeups. Not all of them worked, and most of them had a smaller depth of field than I would have cared for - but I needed the shutter speed, even with the ISO jacked up a bit (I had it at 400 for the closeups, and usually don't take it much above that, because the image quality starts to degrade). Here are the highlights, a vine maple opening up; a large-leaved aven (I think); and a plant I haven't identified yet, since it looks similar to several plants in my book.

My camera doesn't like really deep/pure yellows and reds; it sometimes loses detail because, as I read somewhere, it "overexposes" the color. I was having that problem this morning, and need to research it further.

I also took a picture of a flower I had never noticed before. According to my book (if I identified the flowers correctly), they're called Pacific Bleeding Heart. They're pretty small and low to the ground, so it's easy to see why I've missed them before. But I think they're rather pretty.