Snowy Landscapes

Snow in May in Yellowstone

Yes, I’ve been going through my archives and finding delightful images that I had forgot about and were a pleasure to revisit. The image above was in Yellowstone … and if my memory serves me correct, was taken along Yellowstone Lake. We had visited in mid-May and had a few days of nice sunny weather and then it started to snow. Below is Lake Quinault just outside the southwest corner of Olympic National Park. You can’t see a lot of snow, but it’s mid-December and the elevation here is pretty low, so a lot of the precipitation falls as rain. I mean, it is one of the classic the rain forests, after all.

Lake Quinault and the Southwest Olympics
1

Cambridge

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

I went to England in 1999 to see the total eclipse of the sun (it was cloudy). But while I was in London, my brother and I spent the day going up to Cambridge where we visited the University and I was thrilled to come upon the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics … one of the hangouts of Stephen Hawking.

We later walked over to the river Cam and I poled a punt (skiff? … ?) on the river. My brother was a little nervous with my poling … not having been with me during any of the hours I had spent poling my canoe. This was lots easier … not nearly as tippy. It was fun to pole under a bridge on the Cam.

Poling on the River Can
6

The Dosewallips

The Dosewallips River

The Dosewallips River is one of the major rivers draining the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. The photo above was taken from the old car campground that is now backpack in only, since the road washed out over 20 years ago. (it’s about 6.5 miles – about 10.5 km) It is in the Olympic National Park, but the access road is in the Olympic National Forest. So, who’s responsible for fixing the road? Let’s argue about it for another decade or so…

Below shows the trail not far outside of the campground. It’s beautiful country and it’s too bad that it is so much harder for seniors to access these days.

Dosewallips Trail
3

Water Quality in the High Country

Filtering Water from Heart Lake

Back when I was hiking in the ’60’s and ’70’s, we just drank water out of streams and lakes if they seemed like they were ‘safe’. We looked for running water, especially if it had enough of a drop to it to get aerated. We figured the oxygen cleaned it up. I had friends that kept that philosophy up through the ’90’s. I started filtering water much earlier than that … about the first that backpacking filters became available. These photos are both taken at Heart Lake in the upper Sol Duc valley in the Olympic National Park. The photo below shows how the lake got its name.

The Heart Shape of Heart Lake
3

Happy St David’s Day

Daffodils for St David’s Day

St. David’s Day is March 1st and St. David is the Welsh Patron Saint. It’s like St. Patrick’s Day, except the Welsh get together and sing and read poetry. It doesn’t have the same marketing appeal as drinking green beer does. But, as a person of Welsh heritage, it’s important to me. The daffodil is one of the symbols of Wales. (like the shamrock is for the Irish)

4

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑