Maybe the sinking economy and recent layoffs at Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks will keep people away from Seattle…that’s fine with me!

A full moon sinks behind the Olympic Mountains, as photographed from West Seattle

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The other day I posted a photo of the full moon sinking behind the Olympic Mountains from West Seattle. That image only captured a small section of the Olympic Mountains though. Below I stitched together six images to create a panoramic picture of the entire range. It’s not the cleanest stitching job I’ve ever done, due to slight hue variations of the sky. The viewer below allows you to zoom and in out. Please let me know if doesn’t work.

Want a print of this image? Contact me and I’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse. Due to the high resolution, image length could reach four feet long. View more panoramic photographs of past trips

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There surely are benefits to living on the water in West Seattle. The peaks of Olympic National Park Washington often come into view, but on mornings like this, blanketed in fresh snow with a rising sun illuminating the peaks, they remind me how fortunate I am to live in an area with such splendid natural beauty.

Back to work now…

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Some abnormally pleasant days in Seattle offer splendid days for sea kayaking off West Seattle.

Kayak for two

Beached on Beach Drive in West Seattle

To see more sea kayaking photos from Seattle, British Columbia and beyond, click HERE

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[View with PicLens]

Photographs from Hobuck Beach, Cape Flattery and Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Peninsula

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The Olympic Mountains provide a picturesque background for anyone living in Seattle. Often cloaked in clouds, when they appear, especially in winter, they lure you in with a mysterious attraction. Olympic National Park, at almost one million acres, is nearly 95% wilderness and boasts glacier-clad peaks, desolate beaches and the last remaining temperate rain forest (that’s 140-167 inches of rain a year – http://www.olympic.national-park.com/info.htm) in the lower-48. The largest herd of free-roaming Roosevelt Elk in the country live among ancient stands of Douglas Firs, Hemlock, and Sitka Spruce forests. So needless to say, the Olympics provide a literal playground for photographers…that is, if your gear holds up.

To make a long story short, my fiancee and I roll into Hobuck Beach for a long weekend of surfing, hiking and cycling. Cape Flattery is a mere 4 miles away and marks the most NW point of the USA. I’m like a kid in a candy store, my Canon digital camera always at my side, my tripod mounted to my bike rack for easy access. Morning comes early, I grab the camera gear and walk to the beach. Pacific swells roll in from Japan, waves lapping the beach, sea birds enjoying the peace and quiet as the sun slowly begins to rise in the east. While snapping a couple photos I realized my camera wasn’t sitting flush on my Giottos ball-head. Without dwelling on it, thoughts of fresh camp-coffee lull me back to camp.

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Upon arriving at camp I focus on this ball-head issue. For whatever reason it’s not screwing into base of my camera right, so I proceed to unscrew the socket base (the pad that is attached to the ball head that my camera sits on.) Hmm…doesn’t really want to come off, but does. So I screw it back on…it gets stuck…and then, SNAP! Pictures are better than words in this case.

Needless to say I’m a little shocked, not only for how easily this snapped in half, but also the fact this was a relatively new Giottos MH-1002 PROFESSIONAL ball head. Sure it’s small, but that’s because I often have limited space for my gear (and I have a relatively small Canon Rebel XT camera.) But come on! Hopefully Giottos can come through for me and salvage this relationship with a replacement. Otherwise, I may be shopping for a new ball head with another company.

UPDATED: I contacted Giottos regarding my broken ball head. As you can see below, they responded promptly and have asked I return the ballhead for replacement. I give them much credit for the quick reply. Obviously they care about their products and keeping customers happy. Kudos to Giottos

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It’s very easy to take certain things for granted. Here in Seattle we’re often so focused on traveling down to Mt Rainier, or somewhere in the Cascades, or maybe over the Cascades for some high desert warmth, that we often forget about this relatively small chunk of paradise to our west. Of course everything is relative. Olympic National Park isn’t necessarily small, it encompasses over 920,000 acres, 95% of which are designated as wilderness. If you’re willing to put in even a small amount of effort by hiking more than just a couple miles from the ranger station, you’re going to have A LOT of space to yourself.

But we’re not necessarily going to hike into one of the 60 named glaciers in the interior of the park. We’re packing the surfboards and sea kayaks (and the bikes for good measure) and driving to where the land meets the sea, where the Pacific ocean has, for thousands of years, molded the coastline into a stunningly rugged and beautiful piece of nature.

So stay in touch…and come back in a week or so for what I hope will be a dazzling display of photographs from Olympic National Park.

In the meantime, enjoy this sailing photo I captured as Jeannine, and hundreds of other brave sailors, sailed off below the looming Olympic mountains as part of the annual Swiftsure Yacht Race. The shot was taken just north of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

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My fiancee and I recently moved back to West Seattle from Whitefish, MT. Initially this was a very difficult move to handle, going from a small town nestled on the edge of the rockies and Glacier National Park, to clashing daily with thousands of other people trying to move in and around the city via car rather than bike. But as the weather slowly improves I begin to appreciate why Seattle is truly a unique place to live. Here’s just one reason –

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