Seasons Greetings
A few days earlier, I posted about the difficulty of capturing sunrises since it is so hard to predict when and how the colors would hit, and whether there would be a 'burn' of significant color. This particular sunrise, featured above, had everything going for it. Until the last moment. The colors just tinged the horizon a few dozen miles away, and spread nowhere else. In this frame, I tried to make the most of the 'burn'.
Tahoma State Forest
WA USA
As I was selecting the images for the calendar, I pondered over how to theme the calendar correctly. And that meant digging through the archive to find representative images of various seasons. Sometimes that works, and sometimes I have to indulge in a bit of creative licensing to find the right image. This featured image for February, for example, was shot in the middle of summer, but it still captures a slice of winter high on the slopes of Mount Adam.
Mount Adams is one of those summit attempts that requires an alpine start. But starting the summit day amidst biting cold and in the dark at 9000ft of altitude isn't an easy task. But many do, as it allows you to climb up the steep slope before the snow becomes soft. Here is one group starting their morning ascent just as the western horizon emerges from the shadows and the the first rays of light hits Mt St. Helens.
As before, you can buy this calendar at this link.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest
WA USA
Crack in the Earth
While walking through a narrow slot canyon in one of Texas's two National Parks, I came across this scene featuring a desert tree reaching up to the sky from the sheer walls of this canyon in Guadalupe Mountain National Park. I remember commenting to my travel partner that this composition reminded me of similar iconic silhouettes captured in other canyons. I tried to recreate such a composition from my memory using this tree as the foreground.
Does this work? Thoughts?
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
TX USA
Have you been to Mt St Helens National Monument, and visited the remnants of a volcano that exploded under 40 years ago, a mere blink of an eye on the geological timescale?
The explosion downed trees on the slopes for miles, and on Spirit Lake, which was formed when the explosion dammed the outlet of the old lake, vast treemats formed of those downed trees still remain. Every time I visit this remarkable monument, I learn something new about this volcano, and I hope my future visits will be no less educational.
Mt St Helens
WA USA
