Archive for category Mountains
July 27, 2010 – Saint Mary Lake
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day on July 27, 2010
Saint Mary Lake, Glacier National Park
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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Wow, new posts on Monday AND Tuesday?? Wow, you guys must have done something right, for sure. Today’s picture is fairly old, from back in 2003. At that time I was only recently sworn off of my 35mm SLR, and I was rocking my second little pocket-sized point and shoot from Canon. (Film purists would argue with my logic, but I truly felt that I was getting better results (and much more convenient results) from my digicam than I was with my full-size 35mm beast.) I spent a fair bit of time laid off from work, so I had the opportunity to go on a few nice, long roadtrips that summer. I ended up in Montana a couple times, including the time when I got this shot in Glacier National Park.
You’re looking at Saint Mary Lake, which is on the east side of the park, right along the main road. (The “main road” being Going-To-The-Sun road.) I had driven through west-to-east, but unfortunately I was on my way somewhere (Colorado), so I didn’t have any time to hang around or hike or anything. (In fact, I originally wasn’t planning on swinging by Glacier at all – it was a split second decision when I saw a sign for it along I-90, which resulted in a 2 or 3 day detour. That’s the joy of not really having a tight schedule though, you can afford to just toss in a few days here or there of “other stuff”. I hate only having a couple weeks of vacation a year.)
As I hinted earlier, this was taken with a little pocket point and shoot. A 3.2 megapixel in fact. I’ve said it many times before, but it definitely bears repeating: just because you don’t have a big fancy camera, you can still get some nice shots. It’s definitely true that there are things you can do with a fancy camera that you can’t with a point and shoot, but there’s no reason you need to let that hold you back.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and Shoot). 1/800s.
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July 14, 2010 – Italian Alps
Posted by Dave in Europe, Mountains, Picture of the Day on July 14, 2010
Hiking in the Italian Alps
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
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Man, I swear I was supposed to be born in the Alps. I would LOVE to live over in Europe (preferably either in northern Italy or southern Switzerland), but unfortunately I’m not the type that has the courage to make huge life changes like that. Sigh. I guess I’ll just keep dreaming.
This is yet another picture from Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso (Gran Paradiso National Park), in the Aosta Valley, which is in the far northwestern corner of Italy. The valley is capped at the end by Mont Blanc (they call it Monte Bianco), and this is also the valley that has both St. Bernard Passes (both Grand St. Bernard Pass – where they breed the dogs – and Little St. Bernard Pass), which cross into Switzerland and France, respectively. At the time I was there, not only did I not have any kind of wide-angle lens, the widest I could get was 28mm, which is a travesty. I guess I just need to go back.
This was along the Alpe Money (moe-NAY) trail, which spits out of the village of Valnontey and follows the river up the valley. We only had just under a week to explore all of northern Italy, so the fact that we were able to spend two nights in the park and go hiking for a full day was pretty amazing in and of itself. Some day I’d love to just spend a whole bunch of time hiking and exploring. But this stupid job thing just gets in the way. Sigh.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of your Wednesday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/250s, f/9.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 35mm.
Popularity: 8%
July 13, 2010 – Big Four Mountain
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 13, 2010
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.
Popularity: 9%
July 7, 2010 – Mt. Baker
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 7, 2010
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.
Popularity: 13%
June 24, 2010 – Snoqualmie Pass
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on June 24, 2010
View from Summit Central, Summit at Snoqualmie Ski Resort
Thursday, June 24, 2010
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Apparently this week’s pattern is to post pictures from cameras of lower and lower quality each day. Monday, it was a photo from my most modern SLR body and the “new hotness” lens. Yesterday, it was my old SLR and my crappy lens. Today, it’s from a no-longer-current pocket point and shoot. Tomorrow? It’ll be a pencil sketch on notebook paper.
This was taken from near the bottom of the Summit Central ski area, which is one of four that make up the Summit At Snoqualmie. Summit Central was known as Ski Acres only a couple years before I moved out here, but that’s not relevant.
In other news, I suppose this is a fine opportunity to once again give a tepid encouragement for all of you to vote for me in the Blogger’s Choice Awards. For those of you who aren’t familiar with those awards, it’s a website where you can nominate yourself, and then tell all of your readers to go vote for you. Thus, it’s totally just a dirty trick to get folks like me to do their marketing for them. You have to register an account (with a valid email) to vote, so it seems pretty skeezeball. However, I *can* say that, since I gave them my email a year or so ago, they’ve never send me any kind of spam or anything. That’s not to say they won’t ever, but it’s definitely not QUITE as skeezeball as I expected it to be. The award itself is meaningless, but what ISN’T meaningless is the traffic they send to my page, simply by me being in the running. So, if you feel like helping a guy out, go ahead and vote for me. Here’s how:
1) Go to bloggerschoiceawards.com. I’m not going to link to it, because I don’t want to give them my linkjuice. But type that into your browser’s address bar, and create an account.
2) Go to the Best Photography Blog category. (Also, Best Travel Blog, Best Hobby Blog, and Best Blog About Stuff. I know, I know, shut up.)
3) Vote for me. At the time I’m writing this, I’m in second place, behind some dude who posts pictures that he takes driving around in his car.
Woo, thanks!
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/250s, f/14.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 14%
June 23, 2010 – Hahn’s Peak
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on June 23, 2010
Hahn's Peak
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
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Wow, I just realized it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted a picture from Colorado. It’s sad that I don’t live there anymore, and thus don’t have a steady drip of new pics from the area coming in, but still.
You’re looking at Hahn’s Peak, which is a little ways outside of Steamboat Springs. I was in the area a couple years ago for my wife’s family reuinion, so I got pretty familiar with the view up at this guy, since it pretty much dominates the valley where we were staying. This particular shot was taken from right near the trailhead that takes you up to the top, to that little fire lookout that you can see there. In a nice dose of typical Colorado late-summer weather, it was almost perfectly clear when we started our hike, but a few thunderstorms rolled in soon after we got down off the top. I guess it’s good that we weren’t running any later than we were, you definitely don’t want to be exposed out of the trees during an electrical storm…
In other news, I keep mentioning how disappointed I was in my Tamron 28-300 VC, but yet I keep posting pics from that lens. You may be wondering why that is. I mean, I certainly am. The reality is, that was the only lens I used for basically an entire year, and the non-VC version of that lens was my primary lens for essentially another year before that. So, all of the pictures I took from that timeframe used it. So while it’s true that the quality of most of those pics isn’t quite what I’d like, that’s the only pics I’ve got from then. Also, I’m still in the midst of really going through all of the pictures from then and doing whatever processing I’m going to do. (It’s tough to power through it when so many of the pics that I thought would be fantastic just aren’t because of my equipment, so I end up putting it off, A LOT.) So, even though this is a two year old picture from a lens I didn’t like, I just recently got around to digging it out of the pile. And there are plenty more where this one came from. So I’m sure you’ll continue to see them from time to time. Get comfortable.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/125s, f/14.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 154mm.
Popularity: 12%
June 14, 2010 – Cascade Pass
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 14, 2010
Cascade Pass, North Cascades National Park
Monday, June 14, 2010
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Coming up with the opening for a Picture of the Day post is always the hardest part. Today, I decided to not try very hard. Tomorrow, I’m going to just start in the middle of a sentence. And you’re going to love it.
This was taken near Cascade Pass in North Cascades National Park. I hiked it last summer with a couple buddies, but for various reasons I completely screwed up my camera equipment strategy, so it’s on my list to go back to this summer, and do it right damnit. We’ll see if that actually ends up happening. There’s only a few weekends here in the PNW that are actually hikable (and the snow doesn’t even melt from the higher trails until mid-July), before you know it the summer’s over and done. Plus, with a young kid, weekends just tend to.. disappear. So, the odds are not in my favor. But the intention is totally there.
Anyway, this was about 200 or 300 yards before the summit of the pass proper. The views on the trail aren’t bad, obviously. You should check it out. But not the same day I do. I don’t want you to take my parking spot.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/200s, f/14.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 21%
June 9, 2010 – Grand Tetons
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day on June 9, 2010
Grand Tetons
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
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Today’s picture is an ooooold one. From back in the 3.2 megapixel point and shoot days. Occasionally I like to toss these in there, and I always kick myself for not having the awesome equipment that I have now back then, and not being as good at taking pictures. Which is a totally reasonable thing to do. I mean, I was such an a-hole, wasting the opportunity to be in certain places and not coming prepared with fully developed skills. Man, I’d kick my former self’s ass if I had the chance.
You’re looking at the Grand Tetons, in northwestern Wyoming. I had a very small amount of time to spend in the park (one late afternoon, and one early morning), so I obviously didn’t get to see anywhere near all of the stuff I would have wanted to. This was taken near the town of Moose, along this little road that goes through the forest from Teton Village to Moose. I think. I’m not actually sure, the details are very fuzzy. As I mentioned, this was taken with a 3.2 megapixel p&s. And by p&s, I do not mean “piece of smooth-ass-camera-equipment”, I mean point and shoot. I always say it, and I’ll say it again – just having a pocket sized point and shoot is no excuse, you can still get some great pictures. Sure, having an SLR lets you do a lot of stuff you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck if you don’t have one. If you have an interest in bettering your photographic skills, you can absolutely work on honing your compositional instincts even with a crappy camera. Don’t let that hold you back.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/9.0.
Popularity: 15%
June 4, 2010 – Galena Summit
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Mountains, Picture of the Day on June 4, 2010
Galena Summit
Friday, June 4, 2010
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Hey everyone! I realize I was kind of poopy this week and only managed to post two pictures. Bah, whatever, reading my blog is a privilege, not a right! That, and yes, I am lame. Maybe next week will be better? Hmm, we’ll see. Probably not Monday, as I’ll be out of town. But maybe Tuesday will be AWESOME. Yes, perhaps. Tuesday has the potential to be AWESOME. It also has the potential to be a lot of other things, as it turns out.
Today’s pic takes us back to Galena Summit in Idaho. It’s a little ways north of Sun Valley, sort of right smack in the middle of the state. The name is a bit weird, ending in the word “summit”, rather than “pass”. But hey, those Idahoans are wacky, they do things their own way. Whatever.
I’ve got to run to catch a plane now, that’s all you get.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/60s, f/32.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 168mm.
Popularity: 22%
June 2, 2010 – Chikamin Peak and Gold Creek
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on June 2, 2010
Chikamin Peak and Gold Creek
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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Hey folks. Hope you all enjoyed the long weekend, if you live in a place where this last weekend was a long one. This is a picture of Chikamin Peak and Gold Creek. It’s right near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State. Right on the other side of that row of trees is Gold Creek Pond. There’s a nice little path around the pond, and a cute little picnic area. The story behind it is that, when they were building the interstate (which was not too far behind me), what is now Gold Creek Pond was a huge gravel pit. When construction was complete, they turned it into the cute little picnic area that it is now. How nice of them.
That all being said, I would like this picture a lot more if that little bushy thing at the bottom of the frame wasn’t there. Sigh.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/160s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 29%
May 17, 2010 – Mt. St. Helens
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on May 17, 2010
Mt. St. Helens
Monday, May 17, 2010
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Welcome back everyone, from the best weekend EVER! And by best, I mean “most recent”. My own weekend wasn’t any better than, say, any other weekend, but it’s certainly fresher in my mind. I expect that your experience was similar.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, tomorrow is the 30-year anniversary of the explosion of Mt. St. Helens, here in Washington state. Not too much was known about the peculiar dynamics of a volcanic explosion back then, and only a little bit more is known now. (And Louisiana’s governor Bobby Jindal would like to keep it that way.) But the last 30 years have provided a fantastic change to explore what happens afterward. I’ve covered all of this ground before (so did Mt. St. Helens – ha!), so blah blah whatever, go back and read one of those other entries if you’re interested.
Even the day after the explosion, the mountain started rebuilding itself. The rate at which it has been doing so of course varies over time, but just a few years ago the rate dramatically increased, leading some to suspect that it may go boom again. That of course didn’t happen, but it did spew a bunch of smoke and ash for awhile, so that was fun. Today’s picture is a view into the crater, at the new lava dome that’s been forming. Presumably this will eventually make the mountain resemble sometime like its former self, after it grows a bunch more. That’s sort of what these volcanoes do, as it turns out.
This picture came about via a nice big (and cheap!) telephoto lens, and a decent amount of post-processing to filter through the haze that was in the air that day. (And by “a decent amount of post-processing”, I mean I hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button in Picasa. I almost broke a sweat!) It’s pretty crazy to think that, even during the slower times, a couple dump-truck-loads worth of stuff is being added to the cone every single day. Or at least I think I remember reading that somewhere. God I hope nobody’s using this blog as a reference for their high school science homework. Just about every “fact” that I’ve mentioned is somewhere between loosely researched and poorly documented, and completely made up. So, on that note…
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 227mm.
Popularity: 20%
May 13, 2010 – The Matterhorn
Posted by Dave in Europe, Fall Color, Mountains, Picture of the Day on May 13, 2010
The Matterhorn, seen from Zermatt, Switzerland
Thursday, May 13, 2010
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Whoops, looks like I missed a day. Sorry about that. I would make up some excuse about how I was really busy, or I was really sick (both excuses I’ve used recently), or that something super important came up or happened that prevented me from posting a picture despite my best efforts to the contrary. But it’s not true. The truth is, I really like the picture I used on Tuesday, and I wanted to give it some more time to bake as the first picture you see when you hit my blog, before it got buried underneath some other mediocre picture that I would have posted yesterday. I figure the first picture that people see when they stumble on in through the door goes a long way toward determining whether or not they’ll decide it’s worth their time to stick around, so I figured I’d give that one an extra day, since it was posted sort of late in the afternoon. (That’s also why I tend to post somewhat better pictures on Friday – since I figure people will be looking at it all weekend. Nevermind the fact that almost nobody comes to my blog on weekends, let’s just go ahead and pretend that’s not true.)
So, now that I’ve given away all my dark and dirty secrets… Here’s a picture of the Matterhorn! As you can tell by the little bit of orange grassy stuff in the lower left corner, we were there in the fall, mid September to be more precise. It was a fantastic time to be in the Alps (although to be fair we got EXTREMELY lucky with the weather on our whole trip), as there were a lot of gorgeous yellows and oranges everywhere that would normally just be ordinary greens. Since I’m a sucker for fall colors, I was loving it.
This picture was taken near one of the stops of the Gornergrat Bahn, which is the train that takes you from the village at Zermatt (ski resort in Switzerland) way up into the mountains. It drops you off way above tree-line (above grass-line too, as it turns out), at a really cool viewpoint where you’re overlooking both the Matterhorn as well as a bunch of huge glaciers that drape the upper reaches of Monte Rosa. (Although it’s worth pointing out that, while Monte Rosa is awesome to look at, from that close it really wasn’t very photogenic, there’s just too much going on, and not enough of a focal point to really draw in your eye. It’s just a jumbled mass of mountain-stuff. Impressive, yes. But I couldn’t figure out how to make it work in the camera lens.) This wasn’t actually taken from the end of the line, rather it was taken I think two stops down the hill. We were still above tree-line there, but there was at least a lot of grass around, which had a really nice warm glow in the autumn sunshine. Lovely day, lovely day.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/200s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 71mm.
Popularity: 28%