Clouds

Return to Mount Saint Helens

Jun 17

Mount Saint Helens was the last stop on my recent trip south to Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge. Any longtime reader of my blog will know that I have a special reverence for Green Lake in Mount Rainier National Park but Mount Saint Helens is the true reason that I eventually moved to the Pacific Northwest. Back in college, I really became intrigued by the eruption and subsequent recovery of the landscape following the event. I studied geography in college with an emphasis in computer mapping and remote sensing. At that time, no one had done an analysis of the recovery using remote sensing (basically an analysis using satellite imagery) and this really surprised me given the 20 year plus archive of imagery at that time. Anyways, it was this seed that actually encourage my first ever visit to the northwest.

Although I’ve climbed the mountain from the south side several times since moving up here in 1999, my last visit to the blast area was in 1997 or 1998. I was definitely overdue for a return visit! What I decided to do was head to Johnston Ridge for sunset, hang out overnight for some star photography and then shoot sunrise before finally heading home. I still had an entire day to get to Johnston Ridge so I made another trip up the Lewis River drainage to explore a little more. The initial weather was pretty good for stream and waterfall photography with mostly cloudy skies and nice, even light. Far too quickly, however, it changed to mostly and completely sunny skies. On my way up the valley, I stopped off near the Ape Caves and visited the Trail of Two Forests interpretive trail. I almost visited it last year while up in this area but a busload of school kids at the site kept me going. On this day, I had the area to myself.

The trail is a small, 1/4 mile boardwalk trail with several interpretive signs pointing out several volcanic features from a previous lava flow event such as lava tubes, log dams, and tree molds where the base of trees used to be (before being burned by the lava). It was a nice spot to explore and I did manage to come away with this shot of one of the lava tube openings. After completing the trail, I headed further up the Lewis valley making several stops to poke around. The forest floors here are rich with vanilla leaf and I’m a sucker for trying to capture a representative scene of this. Today was no exception…

The bright sun made it painfully obvious that I wouldn’t be photographing much else of what I had hoped to. I turned around and began my drive back to I-5 to make my way to Johnston Ridge. Just before you reach the Volcanic Monument, you pass Weyerhaeuser’s Forest Learning Center perched atop a cliff overlooking the Toutle River valley with the mountain in the distance. It’s free and does have some nice views so it’s worth a stop at least once. Keep in mind they are a commercial logging company so the center is a bit of a “hooray for us” PR piece where they strongly tout their reforestation efforts. While they are impressive, monolithic stands of Noble Firs doesn’t necessary qualify as “recovery” from an ecosystem perspective and takes on a somewhat Children of the Corn appearance (in other words, eerie).

As I approached Coldwater Lake, I was greeted by an intersection with my travel direction blocked by a manned and closed gate. I did not remember this from my last visit so I pulled over to go talk with the Forest Service employee. After setting me straight with directions, I was asking him about my intended plans for the evening. I was informed that, although they do not close a nightly gate, the Johnston Ridge area is closed to the public from 9pm to 7am. So much for my night and sunrise plans! Sunset on this evening was literally minutes before 9pm and that pretty much restricted my options for sunset. From the Visitor Center, I walked west and found one spot with some wildflowers in the foreground. I had some time to work with so I headed east from to see what other options there may be. I didn’t want to go too far east because parts of the ridge would begin to block some parts of the Plains of Abraham. I eventually found another spot with some Indian Paintbrush in bloom and set up my camera as well as my GoPro for a timelapse.

I started my timelapse and sat down to watch sunset. Things were looking good- stringy, wispy clouds were scattered across the sky. About a half hour before sunset, those wispy clouds had been pushed further east and I wasn’t left with much. The light on Mount Saint Helens just smoothly changed from white to yellow to orange to pink without much fanfare. The time of sunset arrived and I technically had just minutes to be back at my truck and leave. I forced myself to stop my timelapse and quickly packed up my gear for the hurry hike back to the parking lot. There was a slight rebound in the light and it killed me that I couldn’t really stop and photograph it (or capture it with my timelapse). At one point on my way back, I had a view down at the parking lot and my truck was the only car in a lot that held hundreds of cars. Today, I would be the last person to leave Johnston Ridge. Before I did, however, I enjoyed the silence a little bit longer. I expected to see a Forest Service employee sweeping the area clear but that didn’t happen. I really wanted to stay but…I left.

But where to go for my night and sunrise plans? Weighing my options, I made my way back to the Castle Lake Viewpoint. I arrived to an empty parking lot (and it would stay empty overnight and through sunrise). Now it was a matter of waiting for it to get dark and for the stars to come out. At 10:30-11pm, it was finally dark enough to start experimenting. Ideally, I was looking to take a photo with the Milky Way arching above the mountain but that looked to be hours away. Several sequences in, I attracted a visitor. Although I never saw it, the yelp from a (presumed) coyote kept sounding off in the darkness off to my right. At one point, the yelps suddenly were off to my left. All right, I admit- this was a bit freaky. About a half hour after my visitor made its vocal appearance, high clouds really started to roll in from the west. Soon enough, I lost any chance to take more star shots. I took that as my cue and hunkered down in my truck for a cat nap.

To my surprise, I got about 4 hours of sleep and woke up at about 3:30am to a crescent moon which had risen. I could see my surroundings better and could also see that those high clouds were still around. To the east, however, was a nice sized clear window. I really was hoping that the sunlight would flood through and reflect off of the cloud ceiling. For ONCE I was ready and in position! Once again, I started my GoPro and waited for the light show. And waited. And waited some more. Still waiting. Oh- it tried! I could see a faint show of color immediately near the horizon but not the explosion I was so eagerly awaiting. I held out hope but no dice. Once it officially was sunrise, I waited just a little longer to make sure I was shut out. I was- but there was a subtle surge of orange color. I set back up and focused on the mountain where the color was a contrast to some brooding clouds behind and to the east of the mountain.

So now it was finally time to head home. Hold on- why did that car stop? As I scanned the slopes below where the car stopped, I finally saw what they were looking at: a herd of elk heading down to the Toutle River valley. Comically, I run and get my camera & telephoto lens and set up again. My telephoto lens at 300mm was still a bit too far but you work with what you have. I was fortunate enough to capture a sequence of some playful sparring between a couple of young elk. Ok, now I’m REALLY leaving! A few hours later I was back in the Puget Sound and back on the grid. My phone was catching up with all its notifications and one of them was a message from a friend from the previous night. The message I didn’t get was an alert to look for the auroras. So- while I was enjoyed cloudy skies, the auroras were out and being photographed by people as far south as Crater Lake in Oregon. Perfect. My luck sometimes….

Elusive Mount Hood

Jun 11

I spent a lot of time driving around Mount Hood on my recent trip but not a lot of time actually SEEING it. This first photo came about during my attempt to reach the Top Spur trail head. The winter snowpack still were lingering so I was turned around by snow about a half mile from the trail head. At the point of my turnaround, however, the road is located very near the spine of a ridgeline. I bushwhacked up to the top of the ridge to take a look around. Once on the ridge, I didn’t find a viewpoint of Mount Hood like I had hoped. Actually, the forest here was creepy with no understory and lots of dead limbs on the lower sections of each tree. I was all packed up and ready to head back down when the sun broke free from the persistent clouds and presented me with beautiful god rays. As fast as I could, I got all my gear out of my backpack just in time for the sun faded away before I could snap even one picture. I figured that if it happened once, it would happen again. I waited patiently and, sure enough, another outburst of god rays appeared. This time I was ready! I stayed around long enough for a third episode of god rays before feeling satisfied that I had captured the moment.

Earlier in the day, I poked around Lolo Pass Road and encountered some really dynamic conditions. Valley clouds were lifting quickly up and across the road from time to time. This was also occurring throughout the Sandy River valley. Perfect conditions for a timelapse! Here it is:

On the last full day of my time down around Mount Hood, the weather looked like it might be breaking up as sunset drew closer. I saw the summit for the first time on my trip from near the Mount Hood Meadows Ski Area. I decided to hang out and retreated to the Bennett Pass Snow Park. I shot this peek-a-boo of Mount Hood from there:

I had set up my GoPro for another timelapse and everything was going great until the clouds walled up and swallowed Mount Hood once again. Time to relocate! Here’s my abbreviated timelapse:

Hoping to take advantage of the lee side effect, I headed north on Highway 35 and turned off on Brooks Meadow Road (FS Road 44). A few years ago, I stumbled across an old clearcut that offered a great view of Mount Hood. I arrived but still had no mountain. Nonetheless, it was quiet and peaceful so I watched sunset while my GoPro snapped off another timelapse. The mountain never appeared but the clouds sure put on an entertaining show:

I packed up and headed back down to Hood River to make my way back to my motel. While I was driving through Parkdale, I looked up at my rear view mirror and, despite the darkness, there was Mount Hood clear as could be! I immediately pulled over and pulled out my camera and telephoto lens. This was happening during “blue hour” (the hour immediately after sunset) so while I could still see the mountain, it wasn’t possible to use autofocus. Using my Liveview setting, I dialed in focus as best as I could and then began taking several shots. After 15 minutes or so, sporadic clouds began popping up between my location and the mountain. This was a great way to end my day.

April Leftovers

Apr 29

I built up a little backlog during the month of April so here’s a quick hit series of photos.
Big Four Mountain

Skykomish River Valley near Sultan

Sunset from Monroe

Mount Baker Ski Area Vicinity

I also made this timelapse from my lofty perch above the Skykomish River valley:

Good Friday

Mar 31

I shot sunrise over the Cascade Mountains from Everett on Good Friday and a good Friday it turned out to be! I had been thinking about it for a few days but the cloud cover had been a little too thick towards the east. This day, however, had a good balance and really put on a show:

I also set up my trusty GoPro to record a time lapse while I was shooting. That also turned out pretty neat!

Snow Day

Mar 25

Spring is officially here- but I managed to make it through the entire winter without enjoying a single day on the ski slopes. I had to go at least once so I made it happen on Friday. Not a whole lot to say about this; a beautiful day up at Mount Baker with partly sunny skies and about 4″ of new snow to start the day. After my break for lunch, I spent some time photographing Mount Shuksan before the clouds swallowed it whole. The afternoon brought the snowy weather back and eventually the expansive views completely disappeared. The ski area shut down at about 4pm and before I headed home, I stopped off at Hannigan Pass Road. I hoped to check out a particular spot overlooking the North Fork Nooksack River where Mount Shuksan is visible. The mountain wasn’t visible but I did experience a crazy snow squall that passed through my location despite the presence of sunshine. Very cool experience! A great day and just what I needed..

I also put together a little snowboarding video from my day on the slopes which you can view here:

The Fourth Time

Mar 13

I am a glutton for punishment, and this winter has more than proven this to be true. I returned to Artist Point near Mount Baker for the fourth time this winter hoping for great light and interesting conditions. I had no reason to think that things would go any different than two of my previous three outings. The weather forecasts projected 63% cloud cover around the time of sunset thanks to an advancing storm front. The best light and drama happens during these transitional times such as this; I just threw my hands up and said why not?

As you might imagine, the snowshoe trip out to the ridge gets pretty routine after three previous trips in such a relatively short period. The snow was a weird conglomeration of rain altered, fresh snow, and hoar frost. We made decent time on the hike and arrived at the end of the ridge about 3 hours before sunset. While Mount Shuksan largely enjoyed sunny skies, Mount Baker had a persistent cloud layer hugging its northeast flanks. In addition to taking photos, I wanted to continue to experiment with the time lapse features of my GoPro Hero 3. Upon arrival, I set up GoPro on my panning Ikea kitchen time and set off a 20 minute timelapse of Mount Shuksan:

After this one finished, I set up for another time lapse, this time focused on Mount Baker. I wanted to shoot this for a similar amount of time (20-30 minutes) but I had to cut it short because some snowshoers appeared from nowhere below my vantage point. Lucky for me, they were out of frame and I was able to stop recording before they appeared. The clouds were starting to drift through the area more and more. This was my sign to switch over to my SLR.

During the middle part of the afternoon, I focused on the Mount Baker area since the clouds were more dynamic. The sun was directly overhead and that proved to be a bit problematic. The sunlight was bleeding into the upper portion of my frame despite the fact that I was using my telephoto’s lens hood. To overcome this issue, I decided to use my 0.6 graduated ND filter. This is hardly an exact science so there were a series of trial and error shots to finally get the hang of compensating for the light bleed. We had heard some rockfall coming of the backside of the Shuksan Arm at one point in the afternoon. Needless to say, a large boom from the direction of Mount Shuksan had both of us swinging our cameras around. All that we could capture was a billowing cloud of snow rising up from the Lower Curtis Glacier area.

As the afternoon got later, the weather was following the projected forecasts rather closely. Stronger cloud bands were now lingering around Mount Shuksan, often obscuring the summit period for brief periods of time. Mount Baker would prove to be more elusive the rest of the afternoon and brief glimpses of the summit or one of it’s flanks was the norm. We were still blessed with a rather large open “window” in the sky to the right of Mount Baker so the changing light of sunset did reach Mount Shuksan. The slopes where we were located had widespread amounts of hoar frost and I really wanted to capture this in some manner and I tried to do this with a curvy slope just below our spot on the ridge. In order to get the composition, I had to include the sun directly in the frame. I realized there would be some lens flare in the photos but it turned out to be a bit more than I would have liked.

In the minutes leading up to the actual time of sunset, we lost good light and color on Mount Shuksan and just plain lost Mount Baker. The last good light left was interacting with clouds hovering between Lasiocarpa Ridge and Skyline Divide. As most sunsets go, however, the light slowly faded away and the cold gray of night was taking over. In fact, just minutes after official sunset, clouds began QUICKLY overtaking our ridge. It was a little startling, actually. I didn’t want to be hiking back along the ridge by braille and thankfully this didn’t happen. I had a couple night photos in mind prior to our trip and the clouds put the kibosh on those plans. Still- after three mostly failed attempts, this day felt pretty good!

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!