Misery and the Blues

Well, I went and did it: a camping trip to the Blue Mountains of southeast Washington. I spent two nights at the Misery Spring Campground, which is roughly thirty miles south of Pomeroy. For the most part, I explored scenery along the roads near the campground. The sunny weather, while certainly welcome for tent camping, precluded much in the way of extensive day hiking - I needed to be situated to take pictures in the early morning and late evening. Thankfully, the forest roads did not disappoint, and the traffic was quite light; the road south from the campground in particular was very quiet made for a nice walk. In fact, it was from that road that I saw a herd of elk! First time I've seen elk in the wild!

The Blue Mountains are different from anywhere I've been. In terms of flora, they remind me a bit of the east slopes of the Cascades, with maybe a drier assortment of plants. The terrain is quite dissimilar, though, with broader ridges and plateaus and extensive river canyons. I'm hoping to do some reading this summer about the natural and cultural history of the Blue Mountains. In terms of culture, I'm sure the region has been and is significant to Native tribes, although I'm not familiar with specifics; I do know that U.S. settlers on the Oregon Trail dreaded the range, and sheep and cattle grazing began on the 19th century.

I've gotten slowed down identifying the plants from this trip. First, some of them are difficult for me as a nonspecialist to distinguish, such as varieties of aster. Second, my guides don't cover this region well. But I have at least a general idea of what most of them are, and may make some more specific discoveries and updates as time goes on.

First is the big prize - the view overlooking the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness from a viewpoint near the campground; in this image, the view is roughly southwest over the First Creek drainage. The flowers in the foreground are penstemon. The polarization of the sky is a bit uneven, but I think I can lighten the upper left part of the image. F/22.

Next are a couple views from Forest Road 40 over the Tucannon drainage. The first in this pair features paintbrush as the most prominent flower; the second, penstemon. F/22 in both cases.

The next pair consists of views from the same stretch of road early in the morning, when there was some interesting pink color in the sky. In present JPEG form, the color shows up better in the first image than in the second, although I think I could bring it out in both. F/22 in both cases.

The last view is looking more or less south from the viewpoint toward the Wallowa Mountains. F/18.

Now, a few landscapes other than the views. First is a view of a nice clump of paintbrush in an area that appears to have burned not long ago. F/29.

Next is a meadow of penstemon and other flowers. F/25.

Lastly, a few flower closeups. The first is aster. Note the rich color of the sky - one interesting aspect of photography at high altitudes is that the polarizing filter works more effectively. In some situations, you can make a clear sky look practically black. F/8.

Next is a penstemon. F/4.

Next is what I believe to be a buckwheat of some kind. F/4.

Finally, an opening flower that I haven't been able to identify but might be a knapweed. If so, it's likely an invasive plant, but I think it's cool picture. F/4.2.

Gold Creek

Yesterday, I went to the Gold Creek trail near Snoqualmie Pass, taking advantage of the even overcast lighting in the morning. The advantage of the Gold Creek Trail is that there are some quite scenic sections early on that can be reached without too much effort, allowing me to get the most out of the early morning. Another advantage is that, compared to other trails along the I-90 corridor, it's lightly used. This gives me time to set my tripod on the trail and get a proper composition without tripping anyone.

Something unique about this trip was that I made frequent use of the heavy artillery - for I think the first three images, definitely the first and third, I used my ultra wide lens. Sometimes it feels a bit silly carrying it around, given that I use it far less often than the other lenses, but it can sure come in handy.

First, a shot looking across the valley with some tiger lilies in the background; this is near the beginning of the trail. Although you can't see all of the peaks in the distance, the clouds were starting to get interesting. With some tasteful touching up, the clouds would look even better. F/25.

Next is a little clump of some scarlet paintbrush from nearby. F/25.

Next, from farther along the trail, is a view of the hemlock forest that characterizes much of the valley. F/18.

The forest depicted above (which also includes other trees like silver fir) alternates with brushy areas filled with willows, vine maple alder, and wildflowers. Below is one such spot, with thimbleberry flowers in the foreground and Sitka valerian behind them. F/25.

Lastly, a new flower, at least to my photography: rosy twistedstalk, Streptopus roseus. F/3.8.

Discovery trip

Night before last, I had the pleasure of heading down to Discovery Park for evening/sunset. I wanted to take advantage of the calm conditions - Discovery Park can get quite breezy on summer evenings, I've found, making plant or flower foregrounds challenging. But for whatever reason, the weather pattern on Tuesday had produced a very calm evening, and I knew from forecasts that Wednesday was likely to be similar.

We'll start with the best image of the night, some dandelion seeds framed against the sunset. F/3.5. Waiting until just before the sun dipped below the horizon (well, the Olympic Peninsula) resulted in the rich yellow color.

And below is some yarrow with Puget Sound in the background. Why are the yarrow in some parts of Discovery Park so deeply pink, when they are white to whitish pink everywhere else? The ongoing mystery continues. F/18 to preserve some shape in the green bush in the background, as well as to clarify the outline of the Sound.

Stuart Lake

I recently made a brief foray into Alpine Lakes Wilderness on the Stuart Lake trail. While I would have needed a permit to backpack in the area, day hiking is allowed if one fills out a little form at the trailhead. I chose the Stuart Lake trail because it seemed a good match for my current level of physical fitness. A month ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to handle even that. But thanks to more frequent walking and hiking, as well as some trips to the gym, I'm getting there. The trail itself is pleasant enough and not too rocky. There are some stretches that aren't so scenic, but the highlights definitely make up for it.

We'll start with the view from a clearing a few miles in, with some aspen trees in the foreground. I believe that the peak on the left is Argonaut Peak, with Sherpa Peak on the right. This was actually the second time I tried photographing this particular viewpoint. On the way up, the lighting was more contrasty and the aspen trunks were shaded at this angle. But on my way back down the trail, the sunlight fell on the aspen trunks, accentuating them more; additionally, the sunshine was more filtered, resulting in a more even exposure.

Here is a different composition of the same view, with more emphasis on the mountains.

Stuart Lake itself also has some nice views. Here's a view across the lake through some granite. I used f/22 to get both the granite and the lake/mountains in focus.

Finally, a view from early in the trail. I think this might be Mount Stuart itself. The sunlight was filtered a bit at the moment; even so, the highlights got a bit blown out. Not irreparably so, however.

I found some new wildflowers! The first is yellow or golden columbine, Aquilegia flavescens. I only noticed it on one spot along the trail, and I'm glad it caught my eye. F/3.8.

Next is what I believe to by showy Jacob's ladder, Polemonium pulcherrimum. F/3.8.

Finally, I believe these are pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea). I found these beside my campsite at Eightmile Campground. F/3.3.

Lastly, here are a couple views of Icicle Creek from Eightmile Campground, where I spent the night. They have an excessively bluish cast due to the fact that they were taken under clear skies, but that'll be easy enough to deal with. The highlight of the first is what I believe to be sulfur buckwheat, Erigonum umbellatum; the highlight of the second is an impressive ponderosa pine trunk.

Lake Trip

Yesterday I decided to take my chances with the showers in the forecast and get out for a quick photo trip. My destination was Lake Twenty-Two - there are already wildflowers in bloom there, and the trail is short enough that I figured I could get some shooting time before the afternoon showers bubbled up. I got to the lake by about 8:30, and that's with my characteristically slow perambulation. I shan't specify how early I got up...

First is a view through bigleaf maple trunks along the trail, looking up the hillside. I liked how the trunks lined up, forming a rough sort of symmetry from this particular vantage point. F/22.

Next is a view of the lake itself. I was able to find an even better vantage point a few minutes later, and the clouds were more interesting, but a breeze kicked up and ruined these reflections. This one turned out all right, other than a bit of remedial lighting work that needs to be done. F/22.

Below are some Sitka valerian (Valeriana sitchensis) in bloom, with the cliffs ringing the lake in the background. I used the heavy artillery for this one - my wide-angle lens, all the way out at 10mm. I'm not sure how interesting the composition is, and there is a bit of perspective distortion to work on. F/22.

Finally is a western red columbine (Aquilegia formosa) in the rain. I'm not sure whether I like this image due to the self-portrait. Can you find it? F/4.2.

Olympic Extravaganza Part 2

On my way back from the rainforest, I stopped over at Sol Duc Falls. Despite the fact that it was a weekday morning, the trail was still rather busy - not least due to a horde of middle schoolers who descended on the trail. But the falls thundered just the same. It's a nice hike, too, quick and easy through pleasant forest. So the crowds are there for good reason.

Here's my favorite, with some devil's club framed against the trail. 1/4 second. Longer would have made the water look even better, but it was quite a task as it was to time the exposure with lulls in the breeze.

Next, here's a broader view of the falls. The water itself is overexposed in a few places, but it shouldn't be too hard of a fix in this case. I erred on the side of overexposing because I wanted the dark vegetation-covered cliffs at upper right to show up. 1.3 seconds.

Olympic Extravaganza part 1

As I am enjoying all my newfound free time after my retirement from academia, I made a recent two-night trip to the Olympic Peninsula, primarily to see the Hoh Rainforest. It's really something else, with the volume of moss on the trees and the extensive old growth. The forest itself is also relatively open in places, both due to the varying age of the trees and the browsing of elk and other animals. As a side note, I rather surprisingly didn't see any wildlife, including the area's iconic Roosevelt elk (or Olympic elk). I did see plenty of elk tracks, however. Other hikers were writing entries on the elk observation log at the trailhead as well, so they were certainly out there.

I won't dwell too much here on the technical particulars of my images. In all of the images in this post, I used narrow apertures to achieve wide depths of field; this ended up requiring some patience, as the long shutter speeds that I used under tree cover meant that I frequently had to wait for a breeze to die down.

We'll start out with a big ol' Sitka spruce trunk, along with some vine maple leaves in both the foreground and background.

Next is row of old trunks typical of trees that began growth on a nurse log; the tangle of roots and the alignment persist long after the fallen tree has rotten away.

Here's a view of some various varieties of ferns with the mossy forest in the background.

The next two show bigleaf maple festooned with mosses. I wasn't so sure about the second one compositionally-  I just don't know if it's all that interesting - but I like it better here on the computer than I did on the camera screen. The maples look somewhat ghostly with all the moss.

Another forest landscape:

Finally, something a bit different: A view up, during a brief period of afternoon sunshine, at the trunks of Sitka spruce and western hemlock. The contrast made this one tricky to pull off; I had to wait until there was a minimum of clouds in the frame, as they were hard to avoid overexposing.

Coming soon: Sol Duc Falls!