Near Miss at Baker River

On Saturday, I took a gamble on low snow levels and headed to the Baker River valley, hoping to see it in fresh snow. The trip was a bit of a bust: accumulating snow did not quite reach down to the valley floor, precipitation was falling most of the time, and debris from recent windstorms impeded my progress on both the Baker River and Baker Lake trails. But I always enjoy an opportunity to visit the North Cascades, and the scenery was beautiful to see, even if it wasn't as photogenic as I'd hoped.

Below is the only composition from the day worth posting. Patience paid off: when I arrived at this vantage point (along the Baker River trail), mist and falling precipitation obscured the snowy slopes in the background, making this composition much less interesting. Half an hour later, however, the precipitation had eased and the slopes were much more discernible. F/20 was sufficient to get both the foreground trees and the background slopes in focus. I sometimes have trouble with image quality in compositions like this, but it's decent in this one. I framed the shot to exclude the top of the mountain in the background - I think the sense of scale is more compelling that way, and I avoided the problem of a washed-out gray sky.

Happy holidays, all!