Monroe

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!..

Waterworld..

Jan 12

As widely reported, vast portions of Western Washington experienced record and near record level flooding during the past week. This marks the third major flood event in as many years. All rivers have crested and begun to recede back into their banks which now afford the opportunity to check out the flooding.

Here are some photos up and down the Snohomish & Snoqualmie River valleys. First up, a solitary tree surrounded by the temporary lake:

Further up Old Snohomish-Monroe Road is the road closure just south of French Creek:

Further south and directly alongside the Snohomish River, a log deposited by the high flows lies on Shorts School Road..

Once you know what to look for, it’s easy to get an idea of how high the flood waters were. Indications such as mud on trees and debris that gets deposited unnaturally are clear signs:

Further up valley and just north of the town of Duvall, waters from the Snoqualmie River have filled the side fields up creating vast seas. Currently there’s 4 feet of water in this field:

The mile-wide valley could not be crossed in Duvall due to flood damage to the road so I doubled around the north side to go look at High Bridge Road. This photo shows Crescent Lake Road as it descends into the flood waters. The line of debris across the road in the middle of the photo indicates the level of flood waters:

Finally, a view across the Snoqualmie River valley from high atop High Bridge Road: