Tag: Olympic Mountains

Nisqually Delta — Mountains in the Sky

Nisqually Delta — Mountains in the Sky

The Nisqually Delta is outside of Olympia, WA and is home of the Nisqually – Billy Frank, Jr. National Wildlife Reserve. It had been diked, drained and converted to farmland back 100 years ago or so, but the dike was intentionally breached and the interior is now salt marsh and provides home to young salmon. They built a wonderful walkway that runs most of a mile out for viewing birds and other critters. I took this image across to Luhr Beach (the buildings on the water) and the boat ramp. I didn’t notice the mountains visible in the cloud gaps until recently. They are the southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains from about Mount Ellinor to The Brothers.

4

Constance Pass Views

Constance Pass View 1

These images were all taken within a few minutes of each other from Constance Pass in the Olympics. (outside of the Olympic National Park … in the Buckhorn Wilderness) The one above is looking northeast and shows the west side of Mt Constance (on the right). Constance is the tallest peak you can see from Seattle’s view to the west.

This hike used to be a long one day hike from the Dosewallips trailhead … but the road being washed out now for 20 years or so has added an additional 6+ miles each way to the distance. The valley to the left of the image above is the upper Dungeness.

Constance Pass View 2

The view in the second image (above) is looking southwards … across the valley of the Dosewallips. The image below shows the view looking west towards Mt Mystery and into the Olympic National Park.

Constance Pass VIew 3

These were taken years ago, but I just found them and assembled them into panoramas. I didn’t have a lot of experience with panoramas at that time and there was no easy software fix to assemble them. That is the reason why the images are not ‘taller’. They were a little crooked … and to crop them to keep from having lots of empty space meant that they were wide and short.

4

Views of Clouds

View South from Fort Worden

Clouds are a common visitor to the skies of Washington State. Often the sky is just one continuous cloud. I haven’t found that to be very photogenic. (Well, once in a while you get lucky) More often, it is the partial cloudy conditions that create interesting photos. I thought the layers of clouds in the image above to be quite interesting. The one below has very fine gradations in tones … It was taken with Tri-X, and shows film grain when you enlarge it. But the tonal gradations are wonderful (especially in a print).

Sunset in Port Townsend
3

The Skokomish Range from Mt Ellinor

Skokomish Range from Mt Ellinor

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.

Fog on Mt Ellinor

1

North Fork Skokomish in Winter

North Fork Skokomish where it runs into Lake Cushman

The North Fork Skokomish valley is one of my favorite locations in Olympic National Park. It used to be the closest to my home, when I lived in Olympia. It’s a little farther away now, but I still try to make several trips per year. It’s a low snow year when you can drive up to the Staircase Trailhead in December (unlike this year).

North Fork Skokomish from the Staircase Area
1

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑