The Hawaiian Chieftain has it’s home port in Kamakahonu, but is in Port Townsend, available for day cruises. I thought it was a nice little boat, worth taking photos of. (no, I haven’t had a ride aboard)
The Hawaiian Chieftain
Native Rhododendrons
We took a trip up to Mt Walker to enjoy the wild rhododendrons. Mt Walker has quite a dense collection and we caught them in full bloom and it’s a very good year. When I say ‘collection’ I don’t mean to imply that they aren’t wild.
The native rhododendron is the official Washington State Flower.
Port Townsend Paper Mill (sunset)
I like the juxtaposition of the industrial/maritime with the distant ridge line of the NE Olympic Mountains in the background. The Port Townsend Paper Mill is the single largest employer in Port Townsend, WA … (the maritime industry is larger, but made up of a lot of smaller businesses).
Misty Mountain Views
These two were taken at the same time, just with the top one zoomed in on the ridgeline. The mountains are the northeast corner of the Olympic Mountains as seen from the waterfront in Port Townsend. We had just had a brush with an “atmospheric river” … Port Townsend barely got wet from the rain shadow effect from the Olympics. But the left over moisture in the air is clearly visible in the mist.
Snowshoe Hike
I was going through some old photos and came across these images from one of my snowshoe climbs up Mt Rose in the SE corner of the Olympic Mountains. Mt Rose is a steep climb and the top doesn’t provide much of a view, except for a slice of Lake Cushman at its bottom. I enjoyed the quiet of a solo trip to the summit on the newly fallen snow … and then down the ridge line to the saddle between Rose and Mt Ellinor, and cutting back to the midpoint of the summit trail. Very minimal avalanche danger with the trail being in woods and without open chutes. A solo snowshoe summit climb isn’t something I would do these days … but it was fantastic at the time.
