Posts Tagged Diablo Lake
March 1, 2010 – Diablo Lake
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on March 1, 2010
Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park
Monday, March 1, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1333
How sad, the Olympics are over. And it’s Monday. Double whammy. Sigh. Here’s a picture of a mountain to cheer you up. This is the view on Diablo Lake, in North Cascades National Park. It’s actually a man-made lake, with dams on both ends that generate a significant chunk of Seattle’s power. Technically, the lake itself is outside of the national park boundary, as is the road that goes “through the park”, but if your shoes touch dirt, you’re probably standing inside the park. (The park is split in two pieces, one north of the highway, one south, but it extends basically just up to the roadway on either side.)
This picture was actually taken on the Seattle City Light boat tour. They take you up the lake all the way to the dam that holds back Ross Lake, and back down to the dam that makes Diablo Lake a lake. There’s even a dinner option, although that’s not the one we did. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon, although it’s a bit of a drive to get there from Seattle (2-3 hours each way.) The unfortunate thing as a photographer is that the tour takes place right smack in the middle of the day, so you can basically forget about getting any interesting light for pictures. You get bright noonday sun, with the corresponding haze that brings. That’s okay though, because I’ve heard rumors that there are actually people out there that enjoy getting out into nature for reasons other than explicitly to take pictures of it. I don’t know who these people are, but I know they’re out there.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm VC lens. 1/200s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 42mm.
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July 15, 2009 – Diablo Lake
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 15, 2009
Diablo Lake
Wednesday, July 15, 2009.
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=938
I was sitting on the couch last night wondering what the heck I would use for today’s picture, when I had a brilliant idea: let Julie pick it! So I did. Almost. She actually picked this one: http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=313 , another very similar picture of the same thing, but I actually liked this one better.. So, umm.. sorry honey.
You’re looking at Diablo Lake (sometimes known as Emerald Lake), which is really near, but not quite inside, North Cascades National Park. It’s actually a man-made lake, dammed by Seattle City Light, and it generates quite a bit of power for the city. This was taken from a big viewpoint along Highway 20, which is the road that takes you through the national park. (The road never actually enters the national park boundaries – the park is split in two pieces, one on the north side of the road and one on the south side.)
I stop here every time I drive through the park, and usually I take a picture from this exact spot. Depending on the time of day, it can be a completely different picture. (This was fairly early in the day – later on, you end up looking straight at the sun, which nicely silhouettes the big mountain and the big tree you’re looking at. Those two, together with that little tiny island to the left of the tree, make up the elements of the scene that I usually play with when I’m here.) The lake itself is actually really striking – it’s very very green, almost turquoise. You can’t tell in this picture though. Which actually makes it somewhat odd that I chose this one, because the green-ness of the lake is probably the most striking part of the view. It’s green because of all the glacial meltoff that drains in from the surrounding mountains, all the minerals and such, if you were wondering.
Here’s a couple interesting tidbits about this picture: Not only was it taken with a fairly old point and shoot digicam (a Canon S230 – 3.2 megapixels!), it was shot at a small image size (640 x 480!!). Back then, to save memory card space, I’d take most pictures at 640 x 480, except for the ones I thought I’d potentially be blowing up later – I’d take those at the largest size the camera would support. So I first took this picture, realized it was on small, then took a larger one. But, the larger one was framed somewhat differently (see it here: http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=222 ), and this morning I decided I liked this one better, so I went with it instead.
Map: http://bit.ly/4j05Z
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/125s, f/7.1.
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