Central Cascades

On an intellectual level, I remembered the grandeur of the central Cascades area but, after 6 months of desert... I had forgotten.  I drove between 3 Fingers Jack and Mt Washington on a cloudy, rainy day.  I could see the snow at the sides of the road but I had no view at all of either nearby peak.  The next day, the clouds began to clear.  North Sister was peeking through clouds that surrounded it.  The day after, I finally had blue sky.

West of Bend, the Three Sisters dominate the skyline.  In this photo I am 15 or 20 miles away from them, with a smaller ridge between me and them.  To the south (left), the crags atop Broken Top are barely visible, while the Three Sisters show nicely.

To the north, Mt Washington looks like a Prussian Officer's helmet, with a rounded base topped by a spike.

Further to the north, a basin is formed by Black Butte to the south, Mt Washington to the southwest, 3 Finger Jack to the west and Mt Jefferson to the north.  From this basin arises the Metolius River, formed nearly complete in a meadow and flowing toward a gorge several miles to the northeast.  It reminded me of Alley Spring in Missouri (see my November 22, 2008 post for more on Alley Spring), with a rocky semicircle surrounding the emergence of the river.  What captured my eye, though, was Mt. Jefferson, clad in blindingly white snow, to the north of the river.  Wonderful!

Flowing Water

The Pacific Northwest Coast can be defined in many ways.  The hard land meets and is overcome by the soft sea.  As the sea rolls inward over the land that has been defeated, it gathers its strength and rises up for a new assault upon the battle line set forth eons ago.

Like so many conflicts, the battle along the coast is not always clearly defined.  Water surges seaward from the rocks, is torn asunder by the crags and reforms to join its brethren.

Reminiscences - Mirror Creek

I am back home in Oregon but may not be doing much photography for a while.  It is heavily overcast and raining a lot. 

Meanwhile, here is another of the reminiscences photos.  This is from an early visit to Yosemite. 

Mirror Lake is a small lake that was formed by a geologically recent rockslide that dammed Mirror Creek.  Ansel Adams had taken several photos there.  The high canyon walls to either side, and its location up a side branch from the main valley made this a location somewhat sheltered from the wind.  That sheltering often left the small lake with a mirror-smooth surface that reflected the granite walls surrounding it.

Once Yosemite opened to motor vehicle access, sand and grits were needed for the roads.  These were dredged from Mirror Lake.  Each year, the dredgings were replaced with a fresh load eroded from the surrounding peaks and washed into the lake, where they settled out, awaiting dredging anew for the winter.  This process preserved the lake, but was far from natural.  A newly-aware Park Service halted the dredging.

Since then, Mirror Lake has all but disappeared.  There is now a small pond in its place.

On my visit, I hiked as far upstream as was permitted, and spent the afternoon along Mirror Creek.  As the sun was starting to drop, I hiked down toward the shuttle bus stop, pausing often to look back.  At one point I noticed the yellow cliff face reflected in the water and the blue sky reflecting off the wet rocks.  I love the interplay of light and color, and that gave me this, one of my favorite shots.

Green!

Since October, I have been in New Mexico and Arizona.  I am now back in Oregon, where I have been rained upon for days - not heavy, not constant, but a little, every day.  What has struck me most is the change in color.  Even on an overcast, wet day, the greens are astonishingly vivid, and so refreshing to these eyes that had seen only shades of grays and browns for months.

I am at Armitage Park just outside Eugene.  There are a few other rigs here but I am pretty much isolated.  About 200 yards away is the MacKenzie River.  Between here and there is an area of trees and grass.  Everything that has been here for a while - stones, concrete curbs and trees - has a growth of moss on it.  Everywhere I look, I see GREEN!

Reminiscences - Sequoias

Coastal redwoods are the tallest trees on earth.  They top out at 375 feet tall and are found along the northern California coastal range.  Onshore breezes filled with moisture from the Pacific help nourish these slender spires that reach to comb the clouds.

Sequoias are related to redwoods.  They are found further inland, on the western rise of the Sierras, where they draw moisture from the clouds as they rise from the Imperial Valley to top the rocky spine of California.  They are not as tall as the Coastal Redwoods, reaching a mere 325 feet tall.  They are, however, far more massive than the redwoods.  The General Sherman tree is over 30 feet in diameter, and over 100 feet in circumference.  They are the largest living things on the planet, with one tree containing as much mass as 60 fully grown blue whales.

I was walking through the Giant Grove in Sequoia National Park when I saw the juxtaposition of two Sequoias with several people.  The pairing of the Sequoias with the people gave a good sense of the scale of these most massive living things on the planet.

 

Reminiscences - Bridal Veil Falls

About 10 years ago, I was in Yosemite for a three day trip.  Late in the afternoon, I was returning to my hotel.  The sun was behind the peaks to the west and most of the magnificent valley was in shadow.  As I approached the western end of the valley, a view of Bridal Veil Falls opened to my left.  The light was resting on the cliff face just west of the falls.

Bridal Veil Falls drops 600 feet from the southern edge of the valley to a stream that feeds shortly into the Merced River.  For a sense of scale, Niagara Falls is 160 feet high...

I parked and took a few shots, then hung out while the color changed.  Moments before the light disappeared, I got this shot of Bridal Veil Falls from across the valley.

Southwestern Desert, Early Spring

In 5 days, I leave here to return to the wet and cold northwest.  I took a hike of a few hundred yards a few days ago.  From Enterprise, the land drops off into a small ravine.  The sides are at about a 45 degree angle and are made mostly of a mix of sand and gravel.  It is loose enough to make the walking something that requires a bit of care.  The far side of the ravine was my goal - not for any particular reason except to get out, walk a bit and explore.  From there, Enterprise looked very isolated.

At the far top edge of the ravine, I sat and rested, and took a shot of that edge of the ravine, looking toward the lake.

It has been very peaceful and quiet spending the winter here.