I really like watching valley fog up in mountain valleys as it changes and moves up the valley. It can be a constantly changing show. This is the North Fork Skokomish in Olympic National Park in November … this time of year (February) this same area can be a challenge to access due to snow.
Another shot of trees in clouds. This one is when a dense patch of cloud/fog blew through while we were walking back on the Hurricane Hill trail (Olympic National Park, Hurricane Ridge area). Not sure if it works as well on a monitor, but the print is nice. … certainly is ‘high key’ though.
Another image from the Hurricane Ridge area of the Olympic National Park. We had some light rain on us for a while, then it blew through and the clouds moved on. While they were crossing the ridge, I got this shot that I really like for the way the trees fade into the distance.
This was a late fall hike to the summit of Mt Ellinor and the view northeast to some of the Skokomish Range (the southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains … and outside of Olympic National Park). It was a light snow year … typically by mid-November the snow is deep enough to cut off access. While the weather here looks great, on the way back down (the opposite direction from the view here, and much easier traveling) the clouds moved in and it was socked in with thick fog. Good thing I knew where I was.
These photos are from a long ago hike. One of the toughest days I have had backpacking … the “off trail” traverse from Appleton Pass to Cat Basin in the Olympic National Park. As we struggled across the side hill, the clouds came in and our visibility dropped. While we were on the sidehill, there was no real chance of losing our way, since we could just keep the uphill side to our right, until we ran into the Cat Basin Trail that comes in from the High Divide. We were tired and set up camp in a small flat spot above the trail. We were sorta miserable and thought the spot was one of the worse we had camped in. But in the morning, the cloud was gone and we were looking directly down into Cat Basin and a herd of a hundred or so Olympic Elk. It went from one of the worse camps we had to one of the best … in a few hours.
