The late afternoon sun shining through the trees at Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, WA. One of the advantages of living in the north is that the ‘Golden Hour’ that photographers enjoy for low angle sun is longer … if you are in Alaska in the summertime, for instance, the Golden Hour can be 4 hours long. It’s not that much in Washington State, but it is longer than you find in California.
I find it interesting how various trees in an area will have such varied timing of color display and leaf drop. Probably some genetic variation …
I thought this flash of red from a small vine maple was a nice counterpoint to the greens and greys.
There is a nice rocky knoll about 1.5 miles in from the trailhead of the North Fork Skokomish river trail (Olympic National Park). I have hiked the trail around a hundred times, I suppose, in all kinds of weather, in all times of the year. My favorite spot for lunch is this knoll … although the quality of the view is now being reduced due to the growth of trees in the previous slide area. This was part of the area of the Beaver Fire in the late 1980’s (you can still see some of the resulting snags) … and the slides the following winter/spring wiped out additional areas that didn’t burn. The slides did create some views that are now going away … it’s worth it, but the views will be missed.
The leaves in fall in the Pacific Northwest often don’t get colored brightly red … yellows are more common. Here the vine maple growing in the understory of old growth cedar and Doug fir are past whatever red phase they had. The trail shows the heavy drop of fir needles and their reddish color.
Both images were taken along the North Fork Skokomish trail in the Olympic National Park.
