I know … it’s the wrong time of year for autumn shots. Oh well. I was going through some older shots and saw these two trails. They were both in Montana, near Whitefish. It was middle of September, but you can see a slight dusting of snow just left of center, along the ridge line. We got into snow before we got to the top … and we were cold and tired. Fortunately, we found a ski area at the top and rode the chair lift down to where our car was parked.
This tree was along the trail from Boulder Camp (in the upper Dungeness River valley) to Marmot Pass. I thought it looked like a sentinel watching over the trail. It is in the Buckhorn Wilderness outside of the Olympic National Park and is very much in the rain shadow section of the Olympic Peninsula… hence the lack of much undergrowth.
During the recent stay at Kalaloch, we took a day hike on the Ira Spring Wetlands Loop Trail. Ira Spring was one of my photo idols growing up as a kid. He and his brother Bob were famous local photographers, and with Harvey Manning, put out a pile of hiking guide books: the 100 Hikes in Western Washington series. Ira was also one of the co-founders of the Washington Trails Association. So I was pleased to be able to hike this trail that was named in his honor. It is located at the beginning of the Bogachiel River trail … just before it enters the Olympic National Park. It is a wild, seldom visited rain forest valley.
Not sure what else you should call these splotches of sun through the forest cover, but dapples sounds good to me. Sort of reverse shadows. I liked them anyway.
Taken with my Nikon FM3a on Kodak Tri-X.
This is a section of trail/maintenance road in Fort Worden State Park. It gets a lot of use, since it runs over to North Beach County Park … and the parking there does not require the State Park pass/fee.