Category: Meadow

Hiking In The Fog

Hiking in the Fog – 1

Going through my hiking photos from years past. I didn’t take nearly as many photos when it was foggy or misty or raining. Since I primarily hiked in the Olympic National Park, that meant that I had my camera in the pack a lot of days. After a while I got a couple of different waterproof (or resistant) cameras … first a Minolta and then a Nikonos. But the Minolta didn’t have a real good lens on it and the Nikonos was a brick. Like real heavy. I was delighted when I found the digital cameras became available in a waterproof, rugged vesion (my favorite was the Nikon AW series). These were all taken the same day, but I’m not sure what camera. It was film, though.

Hiking in the Fog – 2
Hiking in the Fog – 3
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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
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Yes, we were a little nervous…

Yes, we were a little nervous…

On a dayhike up to Martins Park above Low Divide (between the Elwha and North Fork Quinault river valleys in the Olympic National Park), we saw this black bear browsing the fresh greens. We were a little nervous … the above photo was taken with a normal lens … not a telephoto. But we had seen black bears a number of times before and hadn’t found them aggressive. Regardless, we didn’t stay around to do any bear watching. Our nervousness increased quite dramatically when the bear followed us for a mile or so down to near where our campsite was at Low Divide. We took special care to bear proof our food that night.

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O’Neil Pass and Mt Steel

O’Neil Pass and Mt Steel

Mt Steel is just south of O’Neil Pass. Lt. O’Neil established the first route across the south Olympics from Hoodsport to the Quinault in the 1890’s. The pass separates the Duckabush Valley from the East Fork Quinault Valley (The Enchanted Valley). It’s a beautiful remote area of the Olympic National Park. The image below is the same view but in a portrait mode.

Looking up to O’Neil Pass
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Kestner Homestead

Kestner Homestead

This is the Kestner Homestead in the Olympic National Park. The homestead is vacant … the National Park allowed the Kestner’s to remain as long as they wanted … but they were unable to sell the property to anyone except the National Park. In the front yard was this John Deere No. 1.

John Deere No. 1

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