This is the Dosewallips River at the first bridge on the West Fork Dosewallips trail. We were dayhiking from the Dosewallips campground and I took this looking up-river from the middle of the bridge. It wasn’t until later that I realized that there is a young woman sunning on a rock on the bank.
I’m not usually interested in shooting “Street Photography” … but in this case, I was trying out a new camera. I liked the feeling of this woman sitting alone having a quiet glass of wine … I thought it was reflective of the last year and a half of isolation during the pandemic.
This is the lowest point in the North American continent, Badwater, Death Valley National Park at 282 ft (86m) below sea level. It was 104 degrees (40 C) when I took this photo. The white color is caused by people walking out to the actual low point in the middle of the valley. It is an alkali salt and the white color reflects the heat and makes it seem that much warmer. Not a pleasant place to spend a lot of time, but a unique experience.
The mountains across the valley include the highest point in Death Valley National Park … Telescope Peak at 11, 043 feet (3366 m). Quite a contrast in elevation in a short distance.
Some spots in the high country are easier to get to than others. The ones that are easy to get to tend to be crowded. The ones that are harder to get to are … well, harder to get to. The result is that there typically are a lot fewer folks and the impact is less. That also means the trails tend to be rougher … or sometimes look nothing like a trail so much as a track through the meadows. Martin’s Park is one of those … it sits in a remote portion of the Olympic National Park with a minimum of a 16 mile hike to get there (and that’s the short route). There are quite a few folks that hike close to it … it sits near the Low Divide, on one of the main routes for those wishing to traverse the Olympic Park. The crossing now runs just about 50 miles … so those doing the hike tend to not have a lot of extra time for side trips. It’s beautiful country, though.
Well, it’s a day hike if you are already in the upper Duckabush or upper West Fork Dosewallips. It’s a couple days of hiking in the Olympic National Park to get to that point. LaCrosse Pass is the high point on the trail that runs south from the West Fork Dose to the Duckabush. At 5566 ft, it typically is mid-July before it is snow free. One August, Jeff and I hiked up to the pass from our camp at Honeymoon Meadows. There are good views of the upper Duckabush from the pass (image immediately below) and of the upper West Fork Dosewallips, including the ridge running between the Dose and the Duckabush (second image below). The trail was in good condition, except for grasses growing over the tread. It wasn’t an issue for us, but on a rainy day it would have meant a good chance for wet feet.
These images are lower resolution compared to many of my posts. On this trip (back in 2003) I carried a Nikonos … a rugged camera designed for underwater … and that shoots film. These images are the scans were done during processing and were much lower resolution that what we are used to these days. Since the image files are JPG’s, there is also much less latitude for color correction.
