First Hike of Summer 2024

Yesterday, I hiked to Barclay Lake (near Index) for my first hike of the summer. As a photography outing, the day was a mixed bag. On the plus side, I enjoyed some periods of light winds, and I had good visibility of the surrounding peaks (particularly Baring Mountain, which is the star of the show on this hike). Making things more difficult was intermittent broken cloudiness. These bright clouds made overexposure of the sky (or underexposure of the foreground) more of a problem, so I didn't get the big view shots over the lake that I wanted.

First, an image of Baring Mountain that did turn out more or less the way I wanted, with an alder tree in the foreground. F/18.

Next, a view of Barclay Lake near the end of the trail. This isn't the most iconic view of the lake, but I like how all of the elements come together: the remnants of snow, the bright green new leaves, the lake's surface, and the broken clouds. I had to wait a few minutes for the sun and clouds to align just right for this picture; when the clouds went back to covering up the sun, the trees were too dark and the detail quality was poor. F/14.

Lastly, here's a view of Barclay Lake from a cloudier moment in time. I was drawn to the contrasting greens at this vantage point, particularly the bright-green new growth in the foreground. I think the different shades of green here don't all stand out against each other as much as I'd like, but the sense of season comes through quite well. F/14.

Spring detail work

Good morning! I'm going to combine my two most recent hiking trips into a single post, because I took a similar approach to my work: hiking slowly and focusing mostly on closeups of flowers and other details. After some bad luck weather-wise this spring, it was nice to have a couple of hikes where weather conditions were conducive to photography - dry, overcast, and light winds.

Middle Fork Snoqualmie

Most recently, I hiked the Middle Fork Snoqualmie trail for a few miles. First, a flower I don't think I've photographed before: false lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum dilatatum). F/5.6.

Next, the flowers of vine maple (Acer circinatum). The vibrant leaves of the vine maple get all the recognition, but I enjoy their flowers, too. F/5.

Here's another look at vine maple flowers, with the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River in the background. F/5.

Next, some deer fern (Blechnum spicant or Struthiopteris spicant) opening up for the season. I always enjoy deer fern's distinct fiddleheads this time of year. I was looking down a fairly steep slope when I took this picture, which allowed me to get a forest background without including any sky (which probably would have overexposed). F/8.

Lastly, a deep-forest scene with Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa) blooming in the foreground. F/5.

Perry Creek

Before that, I hiked the Perry Creek trail off the Mountain Loop Highway. The trail's big views of Hall Peak notwithstanding, this is one of my favorite locations for detail/closeup work. The frequent transitions between woods and open slopes make for a rich diversity of plants. A lot of the plants in this post, in fact, are ones that I haven't identified confidently yet. I'll keep working on it, but I didn't want that to delay the post.

First, a flower that looks like it's in the currant/gooseberry family (genus Ribes). F/5.6.

Next, some valerian flowers. I suspect these belong to Scouler's valerian (Valeriana scouleri) rather than Sitka valerian, due to their shorter height and pinkish hue. F/6.3.

I enjoyed the color contrasts of the scene below: the white flowers, the green leaves, and the yellowish moss are all very distinct from one another. I believe the flowers are large-leaf sandwort (Moehringia lateriflora). F/7.1.

Next, vine maple (Acer circinatum) flowers with a bit of Hall Peak in the background. I like the composition here, but I'm not happy with the lighting - the flowers and leaves ended up too dark. Perhaps I can keep finessing it in Lightroom. F/9.

Finally, a visit to Perry Creek wouldn't be complete without some shots of Hall Peak down the valley. I've tried views like this before; while these newest attempts aren't perfect, these show a bit more of the peak than the ones I've tried in the past (see visits from 2020 and 2022), which is an improvement. They also show more texture in the clouds. F/16 and F/18, respectively.