I was going through some trip photos from a few years back and found these. They aren’t ‘perfect’ in their focus … which is why you haven’t seen them before. But when I reviewed them, the focus didn’t worry me as much as immediately after taking them. Expectations change with time. With the color image, I especially like the very out of focus mountains in the distance.
This mountain is outside of Haines, Alaska … I know it by Pyramid Mountain … but I’m not sure that is the official name. You can tell why it would have that name locally, regardless of what the maps say. I lived up in Haines one winter in the mid-70’s. I’ve heard that their annual snowfall has taken a big hit since then. The river is the Chilkat and at this point it is starting to be impacted by tidal flow. This was taken September 1st, so shows the low point of snow pack.
I may have emphasized the clouds some, but they were boring before. Just some increase in contrast.
This is a section of the North Fork Skokomish trail about 5 miles from the trailhead at Staircase Ranger Station at the southeast corner of the Olympic National Park. I have hiked this trail dozens of times and it remains a favorite. This is a particularly nice section of trail … fairly level and dry. This was taken mid-summer … this time of year it’s likely to require snowshoes to get to this point … even though the elevation isn’t very high. The narrow mountain valleys get more snow than the lowlands, even at similar elevations.
Just looking through my old hiking images and found a couple of shots that I took while taking a water break. The top one shows a lush area that gets plenty of water and the bottom shows a much drier area showing rhododendron growing in deep woods in a relatively dry area.
The South Fork Stillaguamish river valley was the location of most of my earliest camping/hiking adventures … starting in the late ’50’s – early ’60’s. Verlot and Turlo Campgrounds, Monte Cristo, Big Four and Lake 22. These views are from the trail to Lake 22 … one of the most heavily hiked trails in the Central Cascades. That is due to its relative proximity to Seattle, Bellevue and Everett areas.
