Mt Pilchuck is a very easy to spot mountain east of Everett, Washington (twenty some miles north of Seattle). This was just after New Year’s Day a couple years ago and shows the low snowpack that year. Normally, this would have been a struggle without snowshoes or cross-country skis … we had our snowshoes with us and we wore them for a while, but mostly because we could and then wouldn’t have to carry them.
This is the view north from Constance Pass, the divide between the Dosewallips valley and (above) the Dungeness River Valley. You can just make out some of Vancouver Island around the Victoria area across the Strait of Juan De Fuca. This area is mostly in the Buckhorn Wilderness area of the Olympic National Forest, not in the Olympic National Park.
Along the ridge near Constance Pass are a couple of rock shelters (shown below). I haven’t been able to track down their origin. However, they must have provided a welcome windbreak during stormy weather.
So, I know that these aren’t really “big waves” … but for this particular location, there isn’t much fetch* to get waves built up. This is downtown Port Townsend and the patio area to the left is the Port Townsend Vineyard’s wine bar. Not many folks enjoying the outdoor seating.
Donner Pass is on Interstate 80 between Reno and Sacramento. The impressive rockwork is the old railroad grade, built by Chinese workers with construction finalized in 1868. From the look of the rock in the surroundings, they collected a lot of the rock they used from the wall locally.
This was near the summit of Donner Pass in California. It was built by the railroad workers to get gold across the Sierras to the Sacramento area, and then on to the Bay area.