Cascades

2 days of Gorging – Part 1

May 18

I’ve decided that a couple days in May down in the Columbia River Gorge area is a good thing and so I made plans to go down this past week. The actual date was a little earlier than I would have liked due to other committments. Originally, I started doing this in order to photograph the endless field of Arrowleaf Balsamroot that blooms atop Dog Mountain, I’ve since then chosen to expand my itinerary to include other parts of the Gorge as well as neighboring Mount Hood.

At the last minute, I had to alter my plans and drop the Dog Mountain hike due to some highway construction located at the trailhead. I substituted the hike to Indian Point on the Oregon side in its place. The weather was forecasted to be mostly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms for the second half of my time down there but it remained sunny and clear the entire time (horrible conditions for photography!) And now the photos..

Indian Point:

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Not many photos from this first hike. A detailed description can be found on the Portland Hikers website. Overall, a wonderful forested hike to a prominent point overlooking the Gorge. Views north to Mount Adams, and east to Dog Mountain..

Mount Hood sunset from White River:

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First attempt had a small cloudcap over the summit but hardly any color due to the lack of clouds. I hiked about 2/3rds of a mile up the White River looking for a composition and settled on this location. Turns out some better spots were located much closer to the parking lot!..

Multnomah Creek:

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One of the highlights for me. Multnomah Creek feeds the very famous Multnomah Falls and the portion of the creek upstream of the famous falls contains some AMAZING scenery and a number of waterfalls. I spent nearly 5 hours here and only made it about 3/4 of a mile upstream of the main falls. A full description can be found on the Portland Hikers website. It’s worthy of an entire day!..

More to come in Part two!…

North Fork Rapid River

May 12

Making lemonade again…

Car troubles foiled my original plans (you should NOT have to replace a factory alternator at 48k miles but I digress) so I settled on exploring the North Fork Rapid River, upstream of the Rapid River Road bridge. Brilliant sunshine ensured horrible conditions for photography but trips like this are still valuable since they answer the question about the worthiness of pursuit in better conditions.

In this case, the answer is most definitely yes! I really like what I found and plan to return once the understory leafs out a bit more and the skies are greyer and overcast (it sounds a bit wrong to be wishing that but those are the optimal conditions!)..

This weekend finds me down along the Columbia River Gorge for a whirlwind of hikes and photography so I hope to return will many great photos!..

Creekin’

Apr 20

Hot off my photography seminar, I revisited Ruth Creek for some afternoon exploring. The brilliant afternoon sunshine didn’t make photography that great but I wanted to try out some of what I learned as well as look for suitable locations to return to under more optimal conditions.

Once again, I found a fascinating stretch of creek upstream from the Goat Mountain trailhead. The vegetation hasn’t leafed out yet so I’ll have to return when it does!

On my way home, I stopped off at one of my favorite places near Nooksack Falls to check out conditions. I noticed the runoff levels had increased which made things nicer to photograph. I took these shots earlier this winter but those photos had some distracting elements which I remembered to eliminate this time:

Sunrise? Sometimes

Mar 22

Good weather during the week convinced me to head up to Mount Baker’s Heliotrope Ridge for sunrise. The morning’s have also brought fog in the valleys so I thought I might be able to parlay that into an additional photo opportunity at the spot I found last weekend. Sunrise was about 7am so I worked the clock backwards- in place an hour before sunrise…an hour for the hike in…2 1/2 hours for the drive up…..2am wakeup. Ugh….

Just 2 days prior, I saw a backcountry ski report from this area which said that the road was drivable to within a 0.25 mile of the summer trailhead. That would cut down on my hike in which was a nice bonus. I left just a bit before 3am and headed out. By about 5am I was getting close to the end of the drivable portion of the Glacier Creek Road. Constant snow began to appear on the road about 1.5 miles before the end. I passed about 3 parked cars and wondered if I should keep driving. The snow was rutted due to tires but I was beginning to get nervous. Not only did I still have to make it uphill and to someplace safe to park, I also was going to have to come DOWNHILL before the sun had any chance to soften up the snow.

I made it to the 0.25 mile mark before the summer trailhead and found a place to park. Up the road, some headlamps danced like fireflies as some climbers were prepping their gear. In a few minutes, I had my gear ready and headed up the road. My destination was the Mount Baker Vista, a nice viewpoint at the end of the road. The mile or so went fairly quickly and so I settled in with my gear and waited for first light. In the mean time, I kept an eye out on a party of climbers heading up Grouse Ridge on their way to the summit.

The clear skies that I started under now had some clouds here and there which built up some anticipation. The official sunrise came and went but the wonderful colors I was hoping to witness never came. Needless to say, this was a disappointment. With morning in full effect, I packed up and headed back to my truck. I proceeded to head up to the Mount Baker Ski Area for some turns but settled for a catnap instead. The high winds just didn’t seem as inviting as a nap in the sun.

I decided to call it a day and headed home. Along the way, I still felt like getting some pictures so I stopped off near Nooksack Falls to explore another short stretch of an unnamed creek I’ve avoided until now. Turns out that there were some nice surprises to be found!…

Lastly, this trip was my first chance to see the work that’s being done to realign a 1/4 mile section of the Mount Baker Highway near the Church Mountain Road. I recognize the need to move the road away from the Nooksack River but I have to admit that I was saddened to see a particular stretch of the forest along the eastbound lane of the highway that had been logged. It looks like it’s being used as a staging area but it was a really nice stretch of forest.

I stopped here about 2 years ago and poked around. The forest floor was moss covered and Twinflower was everywhere. My visit was in spring and so things hadn’t leafed out yet. I vowed to return at some point during the summer months but never did. Now it’s been significantly altered. The sad price of progress..

Road 37

Mar 14

Truthfully, not much of an update. Winter decided to return this week so snow levels returned close to their normal levels. Exploring Forest Service Road 37 (the road to the Skyline Divide trailhead) has been on my list for a while and I finally got around to it yesterday. Honestly, I was surprised at the general lack of interesting spots along this road. Maybe it’s because it’s still the dead of winter and the vegetation hasn’t leafed out yet. The first few miles have a wonderful moss-covered forest floor and I was tempted a few times to stop and look for compositions since there was some sunlight filtering through the canopy.

I wanted to check out as much as I could so I pressed on. I ended up taking a few photos along the Nooksack in one particular location since I initially saw some fog/low clouds further up valley:

One thing I’m very excited about was finding a wonderful spot to photograph the valley from. Two years ago, I remember spotting a particular avalanche track that was ablaze in brilliant yellow from the big leaf maples located in the valley floor. I saw this from the Wells Creek Road but did not have a good vantage to take advantage of it. I wondered if Road 37 would offer a better vantage and it does!

It requires a very short hike but the entire valley drops away from you and Church Mountain stands prominently across the valley. I’m excited to shoot this location in the fall and other times during this coming summer since it will also offer opportunities to shoot above any valley fog. Except for a few iPhone photos and a GPS positional fix, I don’t have any photos to share just yet.

I began to run out of time but I continued up the road to see how far I could get before hitting snow. That turned out to be the crossing of Dead Horse Creek where the snow on the road turned continuous. Someone else’s tire tracks continued up the road but I thought better of following them any further. I did get out and briefly explore Dead Horse Creek upstream of the road but didn’t find any good opportunities on this stretch.

Sulphide sunset

Mar 08

Two weeks ago, I spied some photos from a backcountry trip report from Boulder Ridge on Mount Baker which had the most amazing runnels I had ever seen. Life forced me to change my plans last weekend so I tried my luck this weekend. This winter’s non-winter made this hike a late fall hike instead of a deeply committing winter expedition. Under sunny skies, I headed out along the trail and made steady progress through the forest. The trail was virtually snow-free until the very end (hard to take in since normally there would be SEVERAL feet of snow at this location).

The last visitor’s were most likely the party of backcountry skiers from 2 weeks ago. The trail finally disappeared under the snowpack towards the end and I became weary of continuing. The previous tracks in the snow were faded and hard to follow so. Without the confidence that I could navigate back safely in the dark, I decided to turn around while there was ample light. The decision was disheartening since I know I was only a couple hundred yards from open terrain but it was the right decision.

I still had enough time to make it back to the trailhead and the road which had a nice vantage of Mount Shuksan’s Sulphide Glacier face as well as views of Mount Bacon and Blum. Without further ado, here’s lemonaide from lemons..

Kuhlsan Ridge

Feb 22

Another high pressure system brought clear, sunny skies for the weekend. It’s been awhile since I’ve shot a sunset so I decided to set up on Kuhlsan Ridge near the Mount Baker Ski Area for the evening’s show. Time got away from me during the day so I was running a bit behind schedule when I donned my snowshoes for the hike up to Artist Point. I topped out at Artist Point during the “golden hour” so I didn’t have much time to find a location with an interesting foreground.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the light reflecting off of Mount Shuksan held most of my interest. not the best sunset I’ve shot but the solitude of witnessing it was very rewarding..

Ruth Creek Whirlpool

Feb 15

I shouldn’t be able to write this post but thanks to El Nino and this winter of “non-winter”, I am. Mid February finds the North Fork Nooksack valley without a hint of snowpack until you hit 2700 feet of elevation. No snow means that normally buried roads can be driven so after a nice morning of fresh snow at the Mount Baker Ski Area, I drove to the Nooksack Cirque Trailhead. This should be a 2.25 mile snowshoe but not this year.

After a few quick minutes, I parked at the former bridge across Ruth Creek and the new official trailhead for this hike. My interest in this hike was to make it to the approximate confluence of Price Creek and the Nooksack. The off-trail hike in to Price Lake is on my list of things to do but my research indicated that there is some difficulty in trying to find this crossing. I figured that winter might make the way trail more apparent and help me once I return when warmer weather prevails.

At the trailhead I noticed a path that headed upstream and alongside Ruth Creek. As it turned out, it drops you off at an inviting scene with deep blue pools of water and some fast, cascading rapids. I’m really glad I decided to check this out because these where the only photos I ended up taking! I found the Nooksack Cirque trail to be fairly un-interesting (at least before it drops you off alongside the Nooksack).

My efforts to find the Price Creek confluence also proved fruitless on this outing so that will have to wait until another day. In the meantime, enjoy this quick series!…

A river now flows through it

Feb 07

I only had a portion of Saturday morning to take photos so I stayed closer to home and visited Index-Galena Road outside the town of Index. This particular road has been closed since the fall of 2006 when a major storm event re-routed a portion of the North Fork Skykomish River to flow down a half mile of the existing road. I’ve seen plenty of photos of the damage but this would be my first visit.

On my way to where the road closure is located, I passed by Bitter Creek which had a real nice series of cascades just above the bridge that spans it.

The damage to the road begins just beyond the closure signs and barricade. This is where the new channel angles back to the river and has created a 4 foot high waterfall.

Beyond this point, varying portions of the road still exist and are surrounded by two smaller channels on either side of the road’s center. I was hoping to reach the upstream starting point of all this damage but deeper water (I was only wearing 16″ boots) and time restrictions forced me to turn around. It’s always amazing to see how nature responds to what we do..

Random Nooksack Valley

Feb 01

A variety of photos from throughout the North Fork Nooksack River valley. First stop was the bridge over the North Fork on Mosquito Lake Road. There was only one bald eagle that I could see but it was a lot closer than I’m used to seeing. These photos are approximately 50% crops of the full photo:

Last is yet another location along the upper North Fork, just east of my previous explorations. I struggled a bit looking for compositions but I was drawn to the interesting colors of a particular rock embedded in the sand along the river’s edge…