Late fall is an excellent time for cat-tail and cat-tail photos. These are very useful plants. The stalks were gathered by the Pacific Northwest native peoples and used extensively, including for weaving into mattresses.
Cat-tail
Just a Light Dusting
This is also up at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, taken from the road over to the Hurricane Hill trailhead. That’s Hurricane Hill in the distance. The colorful bushes in the foreground are Mountain Ash.
First Snowfall
I was up at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park and the first snowfall of the year had come down the night before. This nice stand of trees was right across from where I parked my car.
Autumn Colors
I went up to Hurricane Ridge (Olympic National Park) near the end of September checking to see what the autumn colors were like. It was a little earlier than previous years, but the weather had changed and it has been a hot, dry summer. And the colors were beginning to show, but their effect was offset by the overall dryness of the meadows. Still nice though.
Vine Maple Leafs
Washington State isn’t known for a lot of fall colors. The flora isn’t primo and the weather usually doesn’t cooperate. But vine maple provides a lot of color on a reliable basis. Just in a smaller dosage than (for instance) the forests of New England.