The top image is looking across the valley of the Elwha to the north end of the Bailey Range … central section of the Olympic National Park. The image below is looking farther south to the central section of the Bailey Range. Besides the beauty of the clouds and weather with the interplay with the ridges, the unsettled weather keeps the crowds down.
The previous post showed the smoke from the Bear Gulch fire being blown into the Hurricane Ridge area of the Olympic National Park where we were hiking. Before the smoke got dense, there were some interesting shots available showing atmospheric effects from lesser amounts of smoke. The image above is looking east across the Elwha River valley to the Bailey Range and just the very top of Mt Olympus. Below is from the same time/location but looking south down the valley of the Elwha.
Recently we went for a hike up in the Hurricane Ridge area of Olympic National Park, which is at the opposite end of the park from the Bear Gulch fire area. The wind was blowing from the south, however and over the course of the couple hours we hiked the smoke blew in up the Elwha Valley (image center). On the return trip, I was stunned at how the smoke had built up (we had been hiking in the woods where there was no view to the south). Below is a photo from the same location, about an hour and a half later than the top image.
Boulder Lake is in the Elwha River drainage of the Olympic National Park. We climbed up Boulder Peak (except for the last dozen feet or so that were blocked by a 6 foot wall of snow) and enjoyed the calm, sunny weather and the view back down to our camp … in the trees just to the right of the bare spot on the upper left corner of the lake. The photo below is looking back to where we were.
The mountain across the valley (which is the Duckabush) is Mt Steel. The small stream runs down into LaCrosse Basin … this is all in Olympic National Park. It’s a very remote area … 20 miles or so away from any trailhead … which helps cut down on the number of boots smashing the flowers down. We were very careful to step on rocky areas as we made our way across the meadow.