I like freshly fallen snow on the mountain tops around me. Snow on the ground is fine with me too, as long as it isn’t too deep for my footwear. I thought that the rock in the lower right looked like it could be some kind of Zen monastery. It might be one disguised as a rock. Who knows?
Walking in the woods in the autumn has a special feel to it. The trees are shedding leaves and needles (those that do) and nature feels like it is getting ready for a long nap.
Above is the Elwha River Road (Olympic National Park) … a section that is past the barricade due to a washout. Below is one of the roads in Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend … one that is open only to pedestrians and bicyclists (and service vehicles). In both cases, vehicles on the road would have left tire tracks in the frost or the needles blown down during a wind storm.
I have been going through old photos and running them through my current editing software. It makes an amazing difference. Both of these are taken in Geyser Valley which is now about 6 miles from the end of the (washed out) Elwha River Road in the Olympic National Park. The one above is one I merged into a panorama from images I took on New Years Eve 2001. Below is one I took a hundred yards (meters) or so from the top photo in the summer. The undergrowth (below) is mostly vanilla leaf.
I thought I would share one of the last of the images from our recent hike up the Dosewallips River Trail. The images above was taken with my iPhone 16 Pro Max. Note the lack of a ‘sun burst’ where the sun is peaking around the maple. (for comparison, see previous post https://ajjphotoblog.com/?p=15948)
Below, another view of the Dosewallips River Trail. We both enjoyed hiking this section of the trail where there were lots of dry leaves to kick and crunch. A joy not to have to rake all these! (in the past I spent one day each weekend working on clearing the lawn of leaves this time of year)
