Last Camping Hurrah?

Not long ago, I took what might end up being my final camping trip of the year, to the North Fork Quinault area of Olympic National Park. Earlier this year, I'd had dreams of an August trip to the Mount Adams area, but with fires and smoke there and elsewhere in the Cascades, I couldn't risk it. I decided that the Olympic Peninsula would be a safer bet, with much less haze and lower shower chances. It ended up being a pretty solid choice. The North Fork Quinault Trail, which I did as a day hike, had a fun mix of forest and open views, with some nice stands of old-growth trees. And the area was not crowded at all; I think it gets overshadowed by the nearby Enchanted Valley trailhead and the more well-known Hoh Rainforest.

My favorite image from the hike is this one. The sunshine was a bit filtered by clouds at this point, helping me avoid overexposing the highlights. F/16.

Next, looking up the North Fork Quinault River. I experimented with a couple different shutter speeds here; the one I liked was the shorter one (1/30 of a second). Somehow, it does a better job of depicting the rapid motion of the water. I often do like the silky effect of long exposures of water, but it didn't do it for me this time. F/13.

Here's another view over the North Fork Quinault. F/18.

Next, an old-growth cedar trunk. The highlights did get a bit overexposed (especially upper right). F/16.

One last view of the North Fork Quinault River. I like the color contrast between the river and the berries on the left. F/16.

That's all for now! I'm sad that my camping season might be over, but I'm grateful that I got three solid trips in this year. Besides, fall often ends up being a good time for hiking and photography, so I still have some fun outdoor times to look forward to this year!

Trout Lake

Yesterday, I took a short hike to Trout Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. I wanted a hike that I could do with ample time for photo stops before the heat of the day. The trail goes on to other lakes, one of which I visited on a prior hike (more than ten years ago!). When I did that, though, due to the distance and elevation gain, I was barely able to make it back to the trailhead in daylight after having taken time for photo stops. The higher lakes are beautiful, so maybe sometime I'll camp nearby and get started on the hike right at dawn, when I can get at least some of the climbing done before the hottest part of the day (perhaps even in a slightly cooler weather pattern) and not feel rushed.

Here's my favorite image from the morning, looking over Trout Lake with fireweed in the foreground. F/5.

Here's Trout Lake again, with the sky visible this time; I like the wispy clouds. There's a bit of haze visible, perhaps from wildfire smoke, but thankfully it didn't obscure the view too much. F/16.

Next, another fireweed shot. I was taking a bit of a risk with the high contrast here, but it highlights the early-morning feel, which I like. F/4.5.

Other than the lake, there's a lot to see on the short hike, including some views of the surrounding topography, the West Fork Foss River, and a handful of massive trees. Due to the lighting contrast, I didn't try to do any deep-woods or river photography. But I was able to get this shot of a cool cliff face visible through an opening in the forest. F/14.

Salt Spring Island

I recently returned from a multi-night camping trip on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia! We stayed at Ruckle Provincial Park, which has a walk-in campground with a stunning eastward view over the water. "Walk-in" literally means walk-in - we had to use a one-handled wheelbarrow to carry our gear the quarter mile from the car to the campsite. This would have been annoying for a shorter trip, but for three nights at the campsite, it felt worthwhile.

The scenic highlight of the trip might have been getting to see the full moon rise over the water. I hadn't checked any moon information before I left, so it was a pleasant surprise! Early in the trip, I noticed that the moon was nearly full, so I was ready with my camera gear for the images you'll see below on a subsequent night.

First, a composition with a narrow depth of field. I like the strong sense of depth in this one. F/6.3.

Here's another composition from the same vantage point, with a wider focal length and depth of field. It's not quite as striking in the small format of a computer or phone screen, but I think it would look good at a print size. F/14.

On our first morning on the island, I spent some time meandering the trails of Ruckle Provincial Park itself. I enjoyed being able to start a hike without a drive, and the trails visited a lot of outcroppings and bays with views over the water. The winds were somewhat breezy that morning; in this image, I tried to work with that by using a longer exposure to intentionally blur the grass. I think it works. F/18, 1/6 of a second.

Next, a view from another of the outcroppings, with Garry oak trees in the foreground. I have mixed feelings about the amount of empty sky at the top right, but zooming in further would have eliminated either the cool branch shapes at the top of the image, or the colorful madrone tree at the lower right, and I was simply too attached to both. F/14.

On the theme of madrones, here are two more landscapes featuring these trees, along with the coastal views characteristic of the park. Both F/16.

Next, a sunrise from my final morning at Ruckle. Processing sunrise shots is tricky; they always remain a work in progress until I am able to see them in print. I don't know whether this is an issue unique to my camera, but I've had issues with the brightest parts of a sunrise or sunset showing up as green once printed. F/14.

I also had some fun photographing the rocks on the shore just before sunrise. I'm not sure why the lighting ended up being so uneven, but I still like the picture. F/14.

While camping, we also took a quick trip to Mount Erskine Provincial Park, which features a short and occasionally steep/rough hike to a viewpoint. With the very bright conditions, I had trouble getting a lot of good shots, but I like the one below, looking toward Vancouver Island. The water color really was that striking. F/14.

That's all for now! I enjoyed the chance to take a longer trip, and to do photography in situations I usually don't - in a beach setting, at sunrise/sunset, and involving the moon. Hopefully I'll get the chance to try more new things this summer - stay tuned!

Esmeralda Basin 2024

First camping trip of 2024 is in the books! I went with a tried-and-true destination: the Teanaway area, to hike the Esmeralda Basin trail. This is one of my favorite hikes because there are usually plenty of early-season wildflowers, the uphill grade is fairly reasonable, and the views from Fortune Creek Pass are stunning. This time, I was able to manage my time so that I was able to spend ample time at the pass and work on several different shots. Due to the wet and cool June we've had, the wildflowers were a bit early in their cycle - no lupine yet, for instance - but the early bloomers were still abundant.

First, some phlox; best guess is spreading phlox (Phlox diffusa). I don't think I've photographed these before! Certainly not recently. F/4.5.

Next, Columbia lewisia (Lewisia columbiana). I can't get enough of those striped petals. I've photographed these before here, but it's been a long time, so it's nice to have a new perspective of them. F/4.5.

This next one is from the pass at the end of the hike; I found these little white flowers blooming there that I haven't seen or noticed before. I think it's a variety of anemone, and I have it narrowed down to two - Drummond's anemone (Anemone drummondii) or cliff anemone (Anemone multifida). I'm guessing the former due to the small size. F/4.5.

There were a lot of fun little gardens of shooting star blooming throughout the hike, particularly near streams; here's one such scene. Best guess is Jeffrey's shooting star (Primula jeffreyi), although there are several species of shooting star in Washington. F/6.3.

The last of the wildflowers is scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata). F/5.

Now for some mountain views! Here's Mount Daniel from the pass. F/16.

Lastly, Hawkins Mountain. I thought the foreground trees were interesting - some of them are growing upright, and some are growing in more of a dense mat, perhaps due to the harsh and windy climate at the pass. F/18.

That's all for now. Enjoy the improving weather!

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 macrophylla). 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.

April-May Roundup

Good morning! I've gotten a bit behind on blogging, so in this post, I'm going to combine a few recent trips. The last month and a half or so has been busy, and I've had some bad luck with weather, so I haven't gotten to do quite as much spring photography so far as I would have liked. Still, I think I've made the best of the time I've had, including the first overnight trip of the season!

The first image is from Soaring Eagle Regional Park. Gusty winds and unexpectedly abundant sunshine made forest photography difficult, but I did get this nice closeup of springbeauty (genus Claytonia, I'm thinking; I don't know the exact species). F/5.

The next image is from the May Valley Loop in Squak Mountain State Park. It ended up being quite a rainy morning, so I wasn't able to do much photography. I'm intrigued by the possibility of a return spring visit, though; the forest is very lush, and I think I'd have a decent chance of catching some forest wildflowers. The yellow flowers in the image below belong to Oregon grape; they made for a fun contrast with the greens of the forest. F/16.

More recently, I hiked to Barlow Point off the Mountain Loop Highway. Apparently, it's the site of a former fire lookout, and although the trees in the area have grown in since then, there are still some nice views of the surrounding terrain. First, the best view from the top, framed by foliage. I like the contrasting greens of all the different trees. F/16. 

Here's another mountain view from Barlow Point, this time with more of a depth-of-field concept. I liked the vivid yellow-green of the cedar in the foreground. F/5.6.

Most recently, I took a quick trip to the Lewis River area, with the intention to hike the Lewis River Falls and spend the night in a cabin nearby. I did so, but the hike was a challenging one for photography for a couple of reasons. The first was the weather - it rained in the morning, and then in the afternoon, the lighting conditions seemed to change every few seconds, making it hard to set up a shot.

The second challenge was trail conditions. I was able to hike from the Lower Falls to the Middle Falls, but turned back before I could reach the Upper Falls, because there were a lot of downed trees and damaged sections of trail. It might have been passable without all my photography gear, but as it was, I didn't want to risk it. Plus, it just wasn't very enjoyable. The upshot of the early turn-around was that I had more time on the return hike to photograph scenes that I had passed by earlier due to the weather.

First, Lower Lewis Falls framed by a maple tree. F/16, 1/3 of a second.

And here's the top of the Middle Falls, framed by spring foliage. F/16, 1/2 of a second.

Next, a cool crescent-shaped formation in the river rapids. The foreground tree trunk is a bit dark, but this was the best I could do without overexposing the rapids. F/16, 0.4 seconds.

Lastly, looking down on a stream through alder trunks. If you look closely, you can see the river through the trees in the distance. F/16.

Until next time!