Winter Elwha Valley Views

Winter Elwha Valley View 1

These were taken during the recent trip I made to Hurricane Ridge. The view above is looking south down the Elwha River valley at the heart of the Olympic National Park. I have hiked the valley a number of times, and it’s as lovely from ground level as it looks from this elevation. Below is looking more west towards the south end of the Bailey Range. The close valley is the Elwha and on the other side of the ridge running along the other side of the Elwha is Long Creek … the ridge is Long Ridge.

Winter Elwha Valley View 2

Elwha Valley

Elwha Valley from Hurricane Ridge

This is the view of the valley of the Elwha River from Hurricane Ridge. The Elwha River runs down through the middle of the Olympic National Park. All these valleys were behind the Glines Canyon Dam for over 100 years. With the removal of the dam, all of these rivers are now wild and the salmon and steelhead runs are returning.

Elwha River – Downriver from Altair Campground

Elwha River – Downriver from Altair Campground

This is the Elwha River from the bridge next to Altair Campground in Olympic National Park. This was an area between the two dams on the river that have now been removed. I like the way the ridge lines head down in the same direction as the river and the clouds add drama to the sky. This was taken with my Nikon D-850 … so a digital camera. I converted the image to Black and White (B&W) using Adobe Lightroom Classic. I like converting color images to B&W instead of shooting B&W film. With film you would need to use multiple filters to get this same image … and not have a way to check the image before processing. In the computer, you can adjust each color channel to get the effect you want.

South Ingals Peak

View South from South Ingals Peak

I played hooky from work one day in July 2003 and climbed up South Ingals peak. It has been one of my favorite areas in the Central Cascades … up the North Fork of the Teanaway River. That is Mt Rainier in the distance. I really liked the silver wood snag. This spot hasn’t seen any forest fires (yet), but the access road was the east perimeter of a large fire this summer. Below are some anemones growing in the rocks near where I took the upper photo.

Anemones growing high on South Ingals Peak

Atmospheric Effects

Central Olympics with Bear Gulch Smoke

The previous post showed the smoke from the Bear Gulch fire being blown into the Hurricane Ridge area of the Olympic National Park where we were hiking. Before the smoke got dense, there were some interesting shots available showing atmospheric effects from lesser amounts of smoke. The image above is looking east across the Elwha River valley to the Bailey Range and just the very top of Mt Olympus. Below is from the same time/location but looking south down the valley of the Elwha.

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