Clouds

Trying for the Trifecta

Nov 12

This past weekend I attempted a photographic trifecta-

Scout a location for a possible wintertime shot
Visit the rivers again to check for salmon; and
Shoot sunset from Green Mountain

Forecasts called for good conditions complete with morning fog and sunshine for the rest of the day. Could I be so lucky? Well…..

The morning definitely brought the fog, which would add a noteworthy element to even my test shots. The problem for me was that the fog / low clouds were hugging the sides of the Skykomish River valley and the photo I’ve visualized shoots across the valley. Being the first stop of the day, we decided that we could just switch the order of our visits and come back later in the morning, presumably when the sun would burn off some of the fog. Off we went to the town of Index!

For several weeks now, I’ve been itching to photograph the returning salmon. I hoped a third return visit would be the trick. Nope. Unlike my last visit, this side channel to the North Fork Skykomish River was no longer running at high levels. The only problem was that there still were no salmon to be seen! My friend hadn’t been up here to see the damaged road lately so we hung out and took more photos. It’s amazing to see the power of nature. Just within the last 5-6 weeks, this scene has kept changing.

Valley clouds were still fairly persistent so on our way back to town, I head a few miles east of Index to a pullout along Highway 2 with a nice view of Mount Index and Philadelphia Mountain. The clouds were drifting in front and all around the mountains so the view in front of us was constantly changing. It was just about noon so on our way back through Startup, we stopped off for lunch at the Alpen Drive-Inn. Great burgers and shakes. Highly recommended!

We enjoyed lunch so much that lethargy set in. The cloud cover had changed very little from this morning so it was pretty obvious that there would be little to gain from a return visit to our first stop. There was only one place left to go- Green Mountain.

Snohomish County is home to at least a couple geographic features with the name Green Mountain. The first Green Mountain lies within the Glacier Peak Wilderness, about 10 miles north-northwest of Glacier Peak. The second Green Mountain (and our destination) is located above the small town of Verlot, east of Granite Falls. It’s probably more appropriate to refer to it as a ridge but it does have two small “peaks” on either end of the ridge. It rises to an elevation of 4,000 feet and marks the divide between the South Fork of Canyon Creek to the north and the South Fork Stillaguamish River to the south.

I’ve studied the ridge for a while now in Google Earth and it appeared to offer a closer view of Three Fingers with easy road access. It’s taken a while to act upon my hunch because the Forest Service roads leading up to the ridge have been inaccessible for a few years. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it almost seems like the Forest Service doesn’t want people up in this overall area. For two years, the primary Forest Service road had been closed to due culvert replacements and other repairs. This summer, a logging sale closed the road for the entire summer. Now, as winter descends on the mountains, the road was finally “open.”

Now, after finally driving the road, maybe I know why the Forest Service might be trying to exclude access to people. Accessing the ridge is accomplished using a spur road (Road 4110) off of the road leading up to the trailhead for Goat Flats (Road 41). Green Mountain has no official trails or attractions so I was quite surprised by the number of people we encountered on the ridge. At almost every nook along the road, we drove past people shooting targets. Apparently it’s legal but still distasteful to come across.

The road up to the ridge top is pretty battered with large potholes, most you can partially avoid but more than once you just have to choose your poison and plow on. We eventually turned the corner for the 2 mile traverse across the ridge towards the east summit. At this point, we reached 3,000 feet and had not hit snow yet. This especially came as a relief since it snowed overnight in pockets across the Skykomish River valley. Half way across the ridge, the snow appeared but didn’t prevent us from continuing. The snow wasn’t deep and several other vehicles had made the drive creating ruts in the snow.

The final push to the summit is accessed by a 0.6 mile long spur road. We reached that junction and I decided that we’d make the final distance on foot since the snow was getting more compacted and icy. The east summit of Green Mountain was cleared out for installation of a radio repeater. Despite being mostly clearcut, I was disappointed to see a stand of trees still existed to the north which eliminated the direct view of Three Fingers I had hoped for. I poked around the far margin of the clearcut and found a slight window in the forest which did give me that view I had been hoping for.

While we enjoyed direct sunshine on the summit, Three Fingers itself was still shaded and surrounded by storm clouds. The ridges to our east, however, were starting to get great sidelighting and offered some nice views of Liberty Mountain and Fletcher Peak. I quickly returned to the main landing on the summit to take advantage of the conditions. Slowly, direct sunlight was beginning to shine on Three Finger’s slopes and we decided to head back to my small forest window to set up.

Above and behind us, the clouds were starting to light up with the colors of sunset. Three Fingers enjoyed some warming light but it was clear that this was as good as this evening was going to get. We packed up and headed back to the road near the landing. Through the trees on the summit’s southwestern flanks, the setting sun provided some nice color and clouds. To our southeast, we could see valley fog forming far below us. The snowy road conditions were on my mind so we didn’t linger too long.

Thankfully, the drive out was without incident. I decided to stop one last time at a viewpoint along the road to take some final shots of the Puget Sound and Mount Pilchuck under starry skies. Another day ended completely opposite of the way I had intended. That said, it was still a pretty good day!

Seven Minute Sunrise

Oct 19

This goes to prove that you have to be able to work fast at sunrise and sunset. I was already a few minutes late arriving at my location. Ten minutes after arriving, it was faded and the fog rose up to greet me and block my view. Early bird gets the worm!…

Mazama Ridge 2012

Aug 22

There’s not much for me to say about Mazama Ridge in Mount Rainier National Park that I haven’t said in previous years here and here. Last weekend I made the trip down to view the wildflowers which were probably beginning their peak week. Great time as always and I ran into a few fellow photographers I’ve interacted with online over the last couple years.

As I hiked out after sunset, the low clouds that persisted all day at lower elevations finally began creeping up the Stevens Creek valley towards Reflection Lakes saddle. I stopped for a couple quick photos on the ridge and at Faraway Rock-

Snoqualmie Nights

Jul 31

I was up in the vicinity of Snoqualmie Pass last night, hoping to do some photography with the coming full moon. Despite forecasts promising cloud cover percentages of 6-13%, the stark reality of weather was significantly worse. The other lesson learned is that the moon travels a far lower path in spring/summer than later in the year. Last night, this meant that the moon never rose above a ridge to the south of my location (or really broke through the mostly cloudy skies for that matter).

The upside of the conditions were the opportunities to photograph a mix of clear patches of star filled skies along with fast moving clouds. Lemonaide from lemons!

Waiting for Auroras

Jul 20

Auroras are trademarks of the high latitudes such as Alaska, Norway, and Canada. It is much rarer to see them at the lower latitudes of places like Seattle. After a tremendous solar burst last week, that’s exactly what was forecasted for the weekend. Sometime in the early 2000s, I saw some aurora activity from the front yard of my house in Everett and it was mesmerizing. I desperately wanted to capture the auroras above some of our fine northwest scenery.

There have been some near misses in terms of seeing auroras over the last couple years and that gave me some time to figure out where to go. Over time, I finally found my “spot” in the Baker Lake vicinity of Mount Baker. My location looked to have a great view of both Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker and was fairly accessible. Predictably, the weather slowly degraded as Saturday arrived. Clouds would be bad enough but persistent afternoon thunderstorms in the mountains really threatened to ruin any chance we had.

As the afternoon went on, the storm activity seemed to tail off and so we gave it a go. Surprisingly, the Forest Service roads were bone dry; the thunderstorms never dropped their payload in this area. Despite some concerns about having to hike on snow to our destination, everything ended up being snow free. Even better, the site I had researched turned out to be great. Mount Baker remained cloaked behind thick clouds but Mount Shuksan had a horizontal slit across its mid flanks. I think the struggling optimists inside of us hoped that the pockets of blue sky were the beginnings of a clear night sky.

Below us, the Baker Lake valley was filling with clouds and gradually creeping up the valley sides. Sunset drew closer and closer bringing color to the various clouds across the sky. As daylight continued to fade, so did our hopes for clear skies in this area. After sunset, the clouds finally swallowed us whole. It was still early enough to come up with a Plan B. It was tough but some reports of clear skies back down in Snohomish County lured us back closer to home. The Mount Pilchuck trail head was our Plan B and two hours of driving later, we were there.

Clear skies were directly overhead but clouds filled the northern skies. no auroras were visible to the naked eye. Or were they?…..While taking some night shots, my peripheral vision seemed to catch a shimmer in the sky. Clouds were still thick so I wasn’t sure what I saw. On one of my shots, there was a small green orb. The auroras! Sadly, that would be all that we would see. It was now pushing 2am; we now accepted the bitterness of defeat and drove home. Hopefully soon, the skies will cooperate and we will capture the auroras. One of these days…

Sunday Sunset

Jul 10

I spent Friday and Saturday night’s out with my girlfriend chasing sunset in the Cascades. In both cases, the sunset’s came up short and meekly went away. It should come as NO surprise that Sunday evening, while sitting at the computer working on something, my girlfriend came up to me and asked, “Steve, do you have your camera? Come quick!..”

Sure enough, I get to the back porch to see an enormous radii of god rays and layers upon layers of puffy clouds. Ah yes- the sunset I wanted came a day late. Monroe gets some fantastic sunset light but (honestly) doesn’t have much going for it for foreground compositions. The best thing I could do was walk over to the ball fields behind Frank Wagner Elementary and maximize the sky in my photos. Enjoy!..

Winds of Change at Mount Hood

Jun 11

It was three hours until sunset and this is how things were shaping up. What to do? After finishing up my hike to Ramona Falls, this was my dilemma. Although the mountain was fairly socked in, you can see that there is a tall lenticular cloud structure building up behind it. I decided that, when sunset did come, the lenticular cloud was probably going to be highlight. Clearly from this vantage point, I wasn’t going to see much; i needed to move but where? On the first day of my trip, I drove the entire length of Lolo Pass Road to the actual pass and this gave me the knowledge of where I could photograph the mountain, and what to expect. From this simple action, I now knew that I should head to the last viewpoint nearest the pass. It situated me in a more northerly position instead of the northwesterly position that the photo above was taken at. As I drove to my destination, I passed another photographer who had staked his claim not far from where I was previously. I had to smile because I knew that my destination was going to be better suited for what was to come. Boy was I right! The next hour until sunrise was a photographing frenzy. I kept alternating shots between my Sigma 17-70mm lens and my Pentax DA 55-300. The colors from sunset definitely not the best I’ve ever seen but the cloud movement and dynamics certainly were. The wind currents kept changing the view in front of me, almost like shaking an Etch-A-Sketch. True to my hunch, the tall lenticular cloud behind Mount Hood acted like a magnet for any of the colors of sunset. Minute by minute, there was always something to photograph. Like many sunsets, this one just faded away without fanfare. I honestly didn’t expect much of a sunset but I was dead wrong. I’m just glad that I had done a little bit of homework to put me in the best possible position to take advantage of it!

Snohomish Fog

Apr 20

My sunrise days are just about over until fall as sunrise times creep earlier and earlier (I’m not much of morning person!). Last week, we had a cloud free sunrise but really wonderful valley fog at just the right elevation to sift in and out of trees in the Snohomish River valley…

Sunny Deception Creek

Apr 10

Last winter I visited the Deception Creek Trail in hopes of reaching a particular waterfall in order to capture it in a winter setting. That attempt ended prematurely due to time constraints. This winter I never really had the chance to try again until this past week. I didn’t have high hopes since our weather has finally shifted away from full-time snow & rain to a more transitional phase. I parked near the Deception Falls picnic area and started my hike up to the trailhead. It’s always a bit dangerous to be walking along a road with a 60mph speed limit but drivers are considerate for the most part.

The hardest part is also the most hilarious- ascending and crossing the snowbank created by the highway snowplows. This year, that equates to climbing up onto a four foot high bank consisting solely of unconsolidated snow with the consistency of sugar. Once atop the bank, I donned my snowshoes and took two steps. And quickly sank down to my waist. Whoops. While one snowshoe was outside of my little burrow, my other snowshoe was buried by backfilled snow and became an impromptu deadman anchor.

I spent the next 5-10 minutes digging out my foot by hand in the glorious sunshine. Having freed my foot and retrieved my snowshoe from the black hole of snow, I regrouped and mushed forward to the trailhead. There was about 3 feet of snow out in the open but that diminished slightly to about 2 feet once I was in the forest. Due to the snow filled access and limited parking, I was assured of a solitary experience. The skies above were partly cloudy so sunshine would beam through the old growth forest from time to time.

I followed some old snowshoe tracks along the official trail and made my way deeper into the forest. In short order, I passed the spot I turned back from last winter. Sure enough, the spot I coveted was only a short distance further. Doh! I climbed up into position and began to fire away. As anticipated, the snowpack was “spring dirty” with fir needles and cones. The wide shots will have to wait until next winter so I focused more on isolating little scenes throughout the area.

As I finished up, a very quick snow squall drifted through while the sun continued to shine. A great, fun day but it was time to head back. Once back at my truck, I thought about making another stop just a bit further east but talked myself out of it. On the drive back to town, The summit ridge of Mount Index was knifing through some passing white clouds. I pulled over and took some shots thinking they might make some nice black & white photos. Behind me, the summit of Baring Mountain was doing the same thing.

I was more than happy with the day so I packed up and called it good. Just another great day in the Cascades!..

Cloudrise

Mar 23

I tried to shoot sunrise yesterday from Everett but things didn’t work out as well as I would have hoped. Skies were partly cloudy but those cloudy parts were east towards the mountains. Despite the presence of higher clouds, the sunlight never reflected off of them so that’s why I’m naming this “cloudrise” instead of sunrise! Making the best of it, I did notice some more interesting cloud formations towards the southeast of my location..

Steve Cole Photography

Pacific Northwest Landscape / Nature Photography