There aren’t a lot of days when it is bright and sunny in the Olympic National Park … often the clouds are low and drip on a regular basis. This is true even in mid-summer when the lowlands are hot and dry. It is therefore always a pleasure to chance upon clear sunny weather and be hiking into sunlit openings.
Typically, I convert an image into black and white using one of Lightroom’s presets or B&W profiles as a starting place. In this case, I used the local adjustment tool and desaturated the whole image, then switched to erase mode and removed the desaturation from the foliage on the riverbank. The desaturation technique is pretty much a blunt instrument approach: it doesn’t provide the fine tonal adjustments that are available using other techniques. However, this image didn’t require a lot of fine adjustment.
This the the Dosewallips River at the point where the road was washed out several years ago. There is a trail bypassing the washout that runs above through the woods… however, when the river is low the trail along the bank is quicker and doesn’t involve climbing up a hundred feet or so.
There is a huge backlog of trail maintenance in most of our National Parks from years and years of underfunding. Another national shame.
The trail here is still easy to follow and just down valley from us was a volunteer team from the Washington Trails Association cutting back the brush from the trail. (While observing all social distancing requirements)
Sorry, the title came to me and I couldn’t resist. The last days of a hike, it is always interesting to put on the pack first thing in the morning. The pack typically doesn’t weigh as much as it has on other days (as a result of consuming over a pound of food a day), unless you have been collecting rocks … or unless it has been raining and your gear is wet. Of course, it can be bittersweet, too: sadness at leaving the wild and looking forward to a cold beer and a burger.
On the final day of a 5-day trip up the Dosewallips River, Olympic National Park, we had a low pressure area move through, bringing in clouds and mist. It created a nice variation to the sunny weather of the prior 4 days, and never rained enough to bother with a raincoat. It also created a lot of visually interest.
