These are shore pine that are growing just south of Kalaloch along a section of the Olympic National Park beach.
Shore Pine
Quinault River, Upstream and Down
These two shots were taken from the middle of the bridge across the Quinault River, just outside the Olympic National Park (in the Olympic National Forest). The road crosses to provide access to the North Shore Road and the North Fork Quinault trail from the South Shore Road. It isn’t too far from the upper end of Lake Quinault and the whole area is in the Quinault Rain Forest.
Needle Photos
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.
Pyramid Mountain
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.
Trail View
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.