Mt. Baker Ski Area

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

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Hey everybody, welcome back! Hope you all enjoyed your long weekend if you live in a place such that this last weekend was a long one. Alternatively, I hope you enjoyed your regular-length weekend followed by your fairly typical Monday! My traffic dropped fairly precipitously over the weekend, so I’m guessing that means that most of you were indeed not around a computer. Either that, or you had very little confidence that I’d actually be posting anything. Or, most likely, both.

The weather around here was crap this weekend, which cancelled my plans to go backpacking near Glacier Peak. I still hope to make it back to that trail, but this weekend wasn’t looking like the right time. Instead, Julie and I headed over to the desert, where the forecast (which was correct) said it would be 70 and sunny. I didn’t really realize it until this weekend, but holy crap! There’s some absolutely GORGEOUS terrain over there! I definitely need to get out there and explore it more. You can probably tell that today’s picture is absolutely not from the desert, and if that’s what you were thinking, you’re correct. I’m still following my rule that I won’t go through my new pics until at least a couple days since I’ve taken them. Which means, I’ll start looking through them tonight or tomorrow.

So, since I couldn’t look through the weekend’s pictures last night, I ended up instead looking back through some old pictures that I’ve still got on my hard drive. (Eventually I archive them off to DVDs, but I’ve got a few years of pics that I haven’t done that with…) I’m still slowly trudging my way through my old pictures, digging out any that are even remotely interesting. I’ve mentioned this several times. But, last night, I went even further back than that, and revisited a bunch of pics that I had already dug through and grabbed everything that I thought was worthwhile. But, I suppose I was in a different kind of mood or something, because in 4 or 5 months worth of images, I found 23 that I had previously passed over that are at least worthy of putting in Rate Dave’s Photos (which is a pretty low bar, honestly.) This being one of them. Not all of them are any good of course, but some of them are good enough to toss up here. (Well.. okay, yeah, still a pretty low bar. Shut up.)

This was taken at Mt. Baker Ski Area, which is in the northern part of Washington State. I’ve only skiied there once (the day I took this picture), although I have also snowshoed there, and I’ve been up there a whole bunch of times in the summer (it’s inside Heather Meadows Recreation Area). This was I believe on closing weekend a few years back, so mid to late April. Checking the timestamp on the image says yes, April 27. So, almost into May. Now you can see one of the things that frustrates me: why do they have to close these mountains so early?! They clearly still had plenty of snow. I suppose you could argue that by then, most folks have already hung their skis up for the season, so it becomes more and more difficult to keep running the lifts profitably, but whatever, I’m not concerned with the bottom line, I just want to ride a line to the bottom! Sigh, oh well.

It’s worth noting as well that Mt. Baker Ski Area holds the world record for snowfall in a single season. I believe it’s not just the world record for ski areas, but for any point where snowfall is measured. That could be wrong, but I think it’s right. Anyway, the record was set in the 1998-1999 season, when they had 1,140 inches of snow fall. (That’s **95 FEET** of snow, or 29 meters!!) That was a La Nina year (you know, the opposite of El Nino). Oh, did I mention that La Nina is also scheduled to make an appearance this season? Yes. Yes it is. Excellent.

I should also note that this picture was NOT from the record breaking season. This was just from a more typical season, where they average 647 inches. Still not too shabby, kinda makes you wonder why I’ve only skiied there once, huh? Oh, right, it’s more than a three hour drive. That would do it.

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/500s, f/11.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 109mm.

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Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Friday, August 20, 2010

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Oh man, I was so excited this week to pick out a mediocre image for mediocre image Thursday. But I missed it! I totally missed my chance! Dang! I mean, that’s not to say that Thursdays are any different from any other day of the week. But, it’s always nice to get a chance to explicitly call out mediocrity when you see it. You know, get rid of all the pretense and such. It’s liberating!

Today, we’re back to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I think this one is from this year, but I can never keep that straight. I, uhh… don’t really have a whole lot else to say today. Since it’s already late. See you all on Monday!

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/640s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 271mm.

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Crystal Mountain

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

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Wow, what happened to Tuesday?? That was weird. Oh well, it’s Wednesday now, and here’s Tuesday’s post. This was taken at some random spot on the mountain at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort, here in Washington state. Good times.

I realized a couple weekends ago when I was in Lake Tahoe talking to my cousin that, while I do talk about the general idea behind aperture and shutter speed and ISO and all that other crap here and there, I don’t really have one nice, easy-to-find spot with all of that written down. I wanted to direct her to that page, but it doesn’t exist yet. Also, I couldn’t just direct her to the blog itself and tell her to read a few entries either. Whenever I’m writing up a post, I feel like I’ve already covered that ground, several times, so I don’t feel like going over it again and again and again. But, it’s been quite awhile now, and I don’t even remember where all that stuff is. So, I decided I should go ahead and make up a new sticky page, that’ll be right up above in those tabs that you only see if you’re looking at the actual website and not reading this entry in a feed reader. Oh, no, it’s not there yet. But the intention to put it there is totally there. And that’s half the battle.

And I’m not even going to mention Flattr today. So there.

Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/640s, f/8.0, ISO 80.

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Shi Shi Beach Trail

Monday, August 2, 2010

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I seem to remember that I don’t remember the last time I posted something from the Shi Shi Beach trail. I mean, I know, I’ve posted HUNDREDS of them already, but not in the last however many days. Also, I could have sworn I already posted this particular picture in the past, but it didn’t turn up in a quick search back through the archives, so I’m going to call it good.

So, as you probably guessed from the first paragraph, this was taken along the Shi Shi Beach trail, which is right up near the far northwestern point of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Most of the trail itself is on reservation land, but then right at the very end, right when you hit the beach, it crosses over into Olympic National Park. The trail is near the town of Neah Bay, on Makah tribal land. It’s a real pain in the butt to get to (since the last hundred miles or so are on a super windy road that takes forever), but it’s oh-so-worth-it. I *highly* recommend heading out there, and while there it’s a great idea to spend some time and absolutely some money in the town, as a way of saying thanks to the tribe for graciously allowing public access to this and other trails in the area. Also while there, you should check out Cape Flattery, it’s one of the most beautiful spots along the coast that I’ve seen, complete with gorgeous aquamarine water and sea lions and cliffs. And – it’s also a short trail, that one comes in at under a mile I believe. A great way to spend a weekend.

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 10-22mm lens. 1/160s, f/4.5, ISO 1600. Focal length: 19mm.

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Lake Wenatchee

Friday, July 30, 2010

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Hey everyone! Here’s one more picture this week to send you off on your weekend. Or, here’s Friday’s picture to welcome you to your Monday morning. Whichever, it’s all the same to me. You’re looking at Lake Wenatchee, which is on the eastern side of the Cascades, a little bit north of Highway 2, a little bit west of Leavenworth, and a little bit east of Stevens Pass. It’s actually quite a large lake, but here you’re looking at the part where it squeezes down and turns into the drainage river. If you follow it forward, it opens up to the right around the little point that you see there right in the center.

Blah, blah blah, whatever. Look! Pretty! To get here, you have to park in the parking lot at Lake Wenatchee State Park, and buy a sno-park pass. It’s the more expensive pass too, because they also have groomed Nordic skiing here. They don’t actually care if you’re skiing or not, the fact that the groomed trails are there (which you’re not allowed to snowshoe on, for what it’s worth) means you need to buy the more expensive pass. Lame. Sigh. Anyway, go enjoy your weekend!

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 17mm.

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Lake Keechelus

Monday, July 26, 2010

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Okay, I’m back from San Francisco! And despite the fact that I was there in the middle of July, the weather down there felt like this. I don’t think it hit 65 degrees while I was there. Since when does California have crappy weather?? I had no idea, but apparently this isn’t that unusual? (Anybody want to comment on that??) But, I promise I will never again fantasize about moving down to the Bay Area when Seattle is trudging through another crappy spring. It was just under 80 degrees up here the whole time I was down there. Had somebody said early last week that there would be a time that I’d be leaving nicer weather in Seattle than I’d be getting in San Francisco, I wouldn’t have believed them. But, well, now I know.

So, this picture… This is Lake Keechelus. It’s right along I-90, just east of Snoqualmie Pass. I was literally parked in the shoulder when I took this picture, in fact. (Well, not a shoulder in the normal sense – there’s a large extra-wide shoulder right after Hyak that is presumably used as a truck stopover and chain removal zone. So it’s not quite as stupid as it sounds.) I can’t remember the details, but I think I was up there to snag a couple turns at Summit Central, but either it really sucked or it was closed, so I ended up just driving around for awhile, that’s why I ended up east of the pass. Not really sure. But, here’s the picture anyway.

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-55mm f/2.8 lens. 1/400s, f/10.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 50mm.

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Big Four Mountain

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

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Well gosh darnit, I missed Monday again. I hope I didn’t ruin anybody’s day because of it. Oh well, so much for my dreams of going 5 for 5 this week.

Today you’re looking at Big Four Mountain. It’s in Washington, along a scenic drive called the “Mountain Loop”. It’s hard to describe exactly where it is using just text, especially if you have no context, but it’s basically a loop (duh) that lies north of Highway 2 (Stevens Pass) and south of Highway 20 (North Cascades National Park), and isn’t on the way to anywhere. It is its own destination. It’s for sure a pretty road, but as is the case with most mountain roads here in Washington state, it stays down in the lowlands, following the rivers. As a result, you’re surrounded by huge rocky peaks the whole time, but you don’t realize it, because the trees are so thick around you. Once you can get up on the valley walls a bit, you realize how gorgeous the surrounding terrain is, but if you never leave the car, it’s easy to miss.

Big Four Mountain is one of the exceptions to the rule, that you can actually see from the roadway. In fact, there’s a really easy 1-mile-or-so hike that takes you up to the “Big Four Ice Caves”, which I’d highly recommend checking out for all non-hiker types. It’s a very easy trail, with big payoffs. The ice caves themselves form in these huge piles of snow at the bottom of huge granite cliffs. There’s streams that run underneath the piles of snow, which melt them out from underneath, resulting in, well, you know, a cave. Not a cave that you should go into, because they have been known to collapse and kill people, but other than that they’re very friendly. The trail is great for kids, even really little ones. Except for the walking into the caves part. That part’s not great for anyone. But now I’m talking in circles.

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 32mm.

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Mt. Baker from the Baker Lake Trail

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

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Hey everyone! Man, it seems like it’s been forever since I’ve put up a picture. Amazing how a holiday weekend gets in the way of everything. And on top of that, today’s post sucks. Very little substance, not much to read. Sigh, oh well, they can’t all be super fantastic, right?

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/250s, f/18.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 65mm.

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Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Friday, July 2, 2010

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Umm, is anybody actually there? I figure by waiting until late in the afternoon on the Friday before a holiday weekend, I’ve already lost my entire U.S. audience. Well, whatever, they don’t know what they’re missing. Me and the rest of you guys can do without them.

Here’s another picture from this year’s Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I found myself playing around with the boundary between tulips of two different colors. Some shots came out pretty well, others, not so much. I found that, in general, I was happiest with those where the very last row of the tulips of the color in front were in focus. I definitely played around with other focus points, and some of them definitely worked out okay, but “in general” (with big air-quotes), this is what tended to work the best. (Other things I tried were: focusing somewhere near the middle of the color in the foreground, focusing at the extreme front, and focusing on the closer flowers in the color that was further away – similar to the idea of focusing on the back of the front color, but definitely different.)

For this picture in particular, I was using my really old Quantaray telephoto lens. To review, that’s the first lens I ever bought to go with a digital camera. It’s passable, but it’s definitely not the best lens I’ve ever seen. But this all comes back to the idea that it’s really hard to find a “really good” telephoto lens that isn’t tremendously huge and doesn’t weigh several pounds. Obviously, there are those huge Canon lenses, the white-ish ones, that are all metal, and are a foot and a half long and like 6 inches in diameter. Those things are fantastic. But a) they’re not anything that resembles cheap, and 2) they’re HUGE, so the idea of taking them hiking is laughable. And recently I saw a reasonably-sized Canon lens that got decent reviews, but it was I think close to 1000 dollars, which is well more than I want to pay for a lens in that range. So this one isn’t that great, but any of the reasonably-priced, reasonably-sized alternatives aren’t quite enough of an improvement to justify the price. With the caveat that, I actually DID replace it recently, with the Canon 55-250, which also got what I’d call “reasonably” (I’m loving that word today) good reviews, and was in the realm of decently affordable. After using it for awhile, it’s.. fine. It’s not blowing me away, but it’s got image stabilization which is nice, so I guess it’ll do for now.

In other news, some random, totally awesome guy with fantastic taste put little old me in the list of his 5 favorite blogs. Neat!

Have a great holiday everyone. Or, if you’re not American, have a great Friday and Saturday, and at least a passable Sunday!

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 248mm.

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Autumn on the Merritt Lake Trail

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

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It’s the end of June, folks. That means fall is right around the corner. I’m saying that with a particularly cynical attitude, given that here in Seattle we’re still waiting for our summer weather to start. A common joke around here is that summer in Seattle starts on July 5th. And this year it’s holding particularly true. We’ve still only had I believe one day that hit 75 degrees in Seattle this year. One. Effing. Day. As I write this it’s hovering “comfortably” in the low 60s. But, sometime in the mid-morning on July 5, our summertime high pressure is supposed to finally arrive in earnest, and next week is supposed to be gorgeous. But until the 5th, we’ll be struggling to hit 65 degrees. Sigh.

Right, anyway. Here’s another picture taken in the fall along the Merritt Lake Trail. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might start to wonder if the Merritt Lake Trail is the ONLY trail I’ve ever hiked in the fall. But the reality is, if you just consider the last couple years, you’d be exactly right. (Amazing what having a kid will do to your best laid plans…) But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a FANTASTIC trail in the fall. Lots of crazy bold colors that don’t seem like they should naturally occur in nature, especially not in that quantity. (Maybe not QUITE as unnatural-looking at the explosion of fluffy pink cherry blossoms in the springtime, but bringing those up is playing dirty.)

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your June. If you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest with me, you’re probably outside having fun instead of hunkering down inside with a jacket on reading stupid blogs on the internet.

Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm

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