Hike to Heart Lake

Trail to Heart Lake

One of the most heavily hiked trails in the Olympic National Park is the High Divide trail. The High Divide is a section of the ridge between the Sol Duc and Hoh Rivers. Overnight reservation permits are required and get booked up months in advance.

The first section of the High Divide loop follows the Sol Duc River Trail and then heads up along Bridge Creek (which is not easily accessible at most locations). The image above shows the trail climbing from Sol Duc Park to Heart Lake (shown below). I have hiked the trail to Heart Lake several times without continuing along the rest of the High Divide loop. The reasons to do so usually involve weather … or, early in the season) lots of snow left on the ridgeline.

Looking down on Heart Lake
Stream feeding Bridge Creek on the climb to Heart Lake

The trail to Heart Lake climbs up into and through some of the finest samples of mountain meadows in the Olympics. (see above) There are many small streams, keeping the flowers well watered and providing a water source for thirsty hikers.

On the return, it is worth the short side trip to Sol Duc Falls (shown below).

Sol Duc Falls
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Flowers with a Coincidence

Larry Scott Trail flowers

Those of you who have followed this blog (and maybe even read my ramblings) know that I have shared several images of the bouquets that are posted (!) along the Larry Scott Trail outside of Port Townsend. It so, here’s another one. The coincidence referred to in the title, is that last month at the Port Townsend Photo Club meeting a new face offered to let people come and take photos on their property … they have a nice bit of well-tended forest and some horses. When I found out where they lived, I asked if they were who shared the bouquets, and they were the back-up flower tender. A nice person doing nice things. Our world needs more of that!

3

Cheap Lens Vignetting

Historic Buildings at Fort Casey

This is an example of the vignetting you get from a cheap lens. The same cheap 400mm reflex lens that I discussed on my last post (and from the same trip to Whidbey Island and Fort Casey). You tend to get some vignetting with any reflex lens due to design issues, but I was a little surprised at the amount I got in some of my images. I haven’t figured out why some images are more ‘severe’ than others, but there is some in most images. Vignetting can be intentionally added to some images to focus the viewers attention on the main subject. The image below shows how this might work … and is an example of cropping away a lot of the corner areas of the image to minimize the vignette.

Jefferson County Building Clock Tower

Finally, another couple shots from that trip that were cropped to eliminate most of the vignetting.

Point Wilson Lighthouse at Fort Worden
Fort Worden Historic Buildings

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New Lens: Depth of Field

Wild Rose and Cow Parsnip at Fort Casey

I recently bought a new lens: a Tokina f/8 400mm reflex. It is a wonderful lens for its small form and cost (less than 10% what a Nikon 400mm ‘normal’ telephoto lens lists for). There are some trade offs for any reflex style lens: you get a fixed aperture and some artifacts from the front reflex mirror. I took it on the Port Townsend – Coupville ferry run and while on Whidbey Island, I walked around Fort Casey.

One of the characteristics of long telephoto lenses is relatively shallow depth of field. You can use it to your advantage, but it can be a challenge getting your image to work out. In the image below, I was focused on getting the kite in the image … which I did successfully. But the kite is just about all that’s in focus.

Kite at Fort Casey
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Whale Bones

Whale Skeleton Skull

This is a rather new exhibit in downtown Port Townsend, on one of the public docks: an entire gray whale skeleton. It was washed up south of town near Port Ludlow and the people at that location contacted NOAA and local authorities and got permission to leave it for the critters to pick clean. They then worked with experts to prepare the skeleton for display. It’s amazing. No way to get a good show of the whole thing, since the space is narrow and the skeleton is long. So, here are pieces of it.

Whale Skeleton Flipper
Whale Skeleton Tail
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