Spring Break Pt 4

My latest photography adventure was a bit of a wild goose chase. I had read on WTA trail reports that flowers such as camas and paintbrush were blooming at Deception Pass State Park. Somehow, I assumed that camas must also be growing at Ebey's Landing, which is nearby. Incorrect! Other than common weeds, there were very few flowers blooming. The pictures I did take, to boot, didn't turn out very well.

I did, however, get this cool wide-angle shot of mustard flowers blooming:

Luckily, I had drawn a characteristically primitive road map to a trailhead in Deception Pass State Park just in case Ebey's Landing didn't pay off. I hiked the Rosario Point and Lighthouse Point trails; this venture proved much more fruitful.

I got a sweet top-down view of a paintbrush (Harsh paintrbush, or Castilleja hispida...I think). There was a little patch of these blooming on trail to Rosario Point. This marked the first time I had ever seen a paintbrush of this variety.

And another first: I finally found camas flowers! I believe they are common camas (Camassia quamash). They are just beginning to bloom on the bluffs of both points.

This was my favorite composition. I think the yellow flowers in the background add interest:

There's one little problem with photographing camas: the plants themselves are so short that I cannot use a tripod to photograph them! All the camas pictures you see tonight were shot handheld at ISO 500, which is a higher setting than I generally prefer.

Here are a few others:

I will definitely be returning to Deception Pass State Park in the near future - both for all the nice flowers and also for the forests. The forests are not all as lush as some in the Puget Sound area, due to the fact that the park sits in the Olympic Mountains' rainshadow. But still, they're very nice, have some interesting plants, and have some big ol' trees in the old-growth areas. It was so late in the day when I visited that I didn't really have time to photograph the forests (I started at Ebey's Landing in the early afternoon, and didn't get to Deception Pass until after 5pm). Shame. Next time!!