Well, it’s not a REALLY Snowy Trail … ’cause you can still see the trail. But for early October, it was a pleasant surprise for find some fresh flakes on everything. And it was about this time that the snow flakes started falling again.
This is the upper section of the Wolf Creek Trail up at Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park.
I was up at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park and the first snowfall of the year had come down the night before. This nice stand of trees was right across from where I parked my car.
Disclaimer: we are in the middle of wonderful spring weather here in Western Washington this week.
I took this self-portrait years ago… we were hiking up the Sol Duc valley and coming back through the camping area we saw this picnic table surrounded by a icy puddle. I thought it looked sad … and decided to accentuate that mood with a gloomy look. I walked into the puddle from the back to avoid disturbing the surface of the puddle in the foreground … placed my sitting pad (I’m not crazy enough to sit in wet snow when I don’t have to) and got the photo.
Western Red Cedar to be specific. It is the native cedar along the Pacific Coast, until you get into Alaska where it tends to be replaced with some Yellow Cedar. Yellow cedar is a favorite of carvers. The name Incense Cedar is apt and the smell of the wood is wonderful. You can find it in Washington in the high country right on the edge of tree line.
Even a dusting of snow changes the impact of an image. The bright foreground is different than the non-winter image, where the brightest area is often the sky at the top of an image. These are from Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA.