This photo was taken from a walkway bridge over a gully, looking straight down to a young big leaf maple. Taken at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island.
Big Leaf Maple Leafs
Trees in Black and White
These are trees above the Sol Duc vallely in the Olympic National Park on the Deer Lake Trail. While it wasn’t raining on this day, I haven’t spent much time in the Sol Duc valley without it getting cloudy, foggy, rainy, or at least drippy. And I’m not exactly sure if the Sol Duc meets the definition of a rain forest. The next valley down does meet the rainfall requirements … as do the next 3 major valleys after that. (Bogachiel, Hoh, Queets and Quinault)
Yellow Jacket Gold Mine
A while back I visited the Yellow Jacket Gold Mine, which was part of the Comstock Lode gold rush in the 1860’s and -70’s. I found it a little interesting and a whole lot sad. There was a large underground fire that spread through the mining district in April 1869, that started in the Yellow Jacket and killed 37 miners. Mining has always been a very dangerous occupation. All in the search for riches.
Favorite Campsite
I have been writing up my hiking memiors. Hours and hours and hours of working at the computer. Haven’t had much time for working on (new) photography or blogging. Lots of going through old photos that I took while out hiking.
This was one of my favorite destinations for a backpack (or just a dayhike, back when I could do a long hike in a day). Camp Pleasant probably burnt up in the North Fork Skokomish fire (AKA Bear Gulch). I will be interested to see, when they finally let folks into the area (probably a year or two). This is in the southeast corner of the Olympic National Park. Just over 6 miles in from the trailhead at Staircase Ranger Station.
Snow, Trees and Sky
A final image from the recent visit to Hurricane Ridge (Olympic National Park). I thought you might like to see a more ground level shot. The snow is so compacted that we just walked on the surface. This was our lunch spot … we had a picnic table to sit on … and it was clear of snow.