These images were taken from the Alaska ferry between Haines and Juneau. Much closer to Haines than Juneau. They were taken with not much zoom (160mm) and they are almost at sea level. It was mid-September and the first snow of the season had already fallen.
I know many folks are wanting to enjoy the warm weather and here I am showing photos of snowy mountains. I was going through some older photos, doing some sorting and organizing and found these two images that with the new editing feature in Lightroom that just really made these two pop. So I figured I’d share. The top photo was taken while snowshoeing at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. I’ve hiked the Elwha Valley many times and always enjoy looking down on it. The image below is the Sierras from the east near Lone Pine, California.
This was a late fall hike to the summit of Mt Ellinor and the view northeast to some of the Skokomish Range (the southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains … and outside of Olympic National Park). It was a light snow year … typically by mid-November the snow is deep enough to cut off access. While the weather here looks great, on the way back down (the opposite direction from the view here, and much easier traveling) the clouds moved in and it was socked in with thick fog. Good thing I knew where I was.
The mountains across the valley is the Bailey Range, which run down the center of the Olympic Mountains. The view is from Hurricane Ridge, where there is a visitor center over 5000 feet. The valley full of clouds is the Elwha River … one of the huge success stories in salmon restoration. Two dams that were erected in the early years of the 20th century, without the required salmon ladders, were removed which opened up miles of prime salmon habitat. There used to be 5 species of salmon plus steelhead that called the Elwha home, and some of those have returned … hopefully the rest will eventually follow.
it is a hard life trying to find adequate food in the high country in winter. I shared some organic grains with the gray jay (even though it’s against the rules). That attracted the attention of the raven, but it was much too shy/wary to come so close.
