Last weekend, with no snow to ski tour on and feeling a bit depressed as even the Rockies were getting pounded, some friends and I thought a trail run up Mt Si would be fun. Running, or jogging, nearly 4000 vertical feet is never easy, but the views of Mt Rainier and surrounding Cascade peaks were beautiful.
Mt Rainier Photo, taken from Mt Si
Thankfully we have options like this in Seattle. No snow, no problem.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>A friend just forwarded me a link to some winter photographs taken up at Mt Baker yesterday. The images, showing about two inches (!) of snow up near Artist Point, could very well be (or could they?) indicative of a big winter in the Pacific NW. This is good news, no great news, not only because I’m looking forward to many days in the backcountry with friends, but I’m really hoping to get lots of backcountry skiing photos this year.
Here is the link to the Mt Baker images on Flickr
Pray For Snow!
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>I’ve heard it before, really, as I’m sure anyone who has paddled in ocean swells and prefers the aroma of salty air over the rush of white-water, has too. Mention the word sea kayaking to anyone who has never actually done it, and I’m sure you’ll get a similar response. Little do they know how exciting (thrilling even?) and dangerous sea kayaking can be. Don’t get me wrong, most of my sea kayaking trips tend to be in areas that offer solitude, wildlife and (relatively) calm waters, such as the secluded bays off of Vancouver Island or hugging the coastline of the Channel Islands (or right here in Puget Sound.) That’s not to say I haven’t been in situations where things went bad very quickly, when I was literally paddling UP and DOWN ocean swells, praying for dear life that my boat didn’t capsize. Things can go bad very quickly in a sea kayak.
What got me thinking about this was an article I flipped through in a recent edition of Sea Kayaker magazine. There was a story about a veteran paddler who got lost, and disappeared, while paddling around the Brooks Peninsula (the most western point of Vancouver Island and all of Canada.) Interestingly I was trying to plan a trip to this exact same area for the summer (a wedding got in the way.) Of course this doesn’t mean I won’t try and get up there. Every one of my Vancouver Island trips, whether by bike or boat, has been awesome. The island is so diverse, there is so much to do and explore, that I find it hard to believe people who have called Seattle home for decades, have never made the trip north.
My parents are lucky, for they live in a truly unique part of the US. Although I'm spoiled by the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest, I'm always intrigued and captivated by the scenery in and around Nauset Beach and the rest of Cape Cod
8 Photos
Sea kayaking Channel Islands National Park, camping on Santa Cruz island
8 Photos
Sea kayaking around Blake Island off West Seattle.
6 Photos
The sea kayaking in British Columbia is spectacular and the thousands of inlets, coves, peninsulas, and nearby Johnstone Strait, make paddling around Vancouver Island some of the best in the world. This photo album consists of two separate sea kayaking adventure trips to the Broughton Archipelago, off the NE corner of the Island.
17 Photos
Ross Lake National Recreation Area is located in the heart of the North Cascades. Although not part of North Cascades National Park, it offers true wilderness lake kayaking. Surrounded by towering peaks and dotted with serene camp spots, Ross Lake runs north to the Canadian border.
9 Photos
Unfortunately I don't have the original prints from this epic 17-day sea kayaking trip from Loreto to La Paz in Baja, Mexico, back in Dec 2000. I do have lots of memories though. This was really my first big self-supported 'wilderness' trip, one that opened my eyes to adventure travel. All sea kayaking photos were shot with a simply P&S film camera. I apologize for the very small viewing sizes. Hopefully I can uncover the original prints and rescan.
9 Photos
So, be careful if you’re going for a paddle. Although I ski and bike alone (resort ski, not backcountry ski) I rarely go sea kayaking by myself.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>
Photographs from Hobuck Beach, Cape Flattery and Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Peninsula
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>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.
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
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>I truly want to support businesses that feed my habits, which mostly include, but are not limited to, cycling, backcountry skiing and hiking. Unfortunately for me, these are all somewhat gear-heavy sports…I like gear and that’s a problem because gear is also expensive. So most of the time I just get to drool on my keyboard as I scroll through the latest, lightest, fattest, bad-ass’est big-boy-toys on the web.
This morning I received an email from backcountry.com, which means only one thing…winter, believe it or not, is not that far off. But the email wasn’t about some semi-annual sale (which I unfortunately did stumble upon, because now my keyboard is all wet); instead it was a reminder to update my ‘online profile’. No problem, I thought, as often times profiles are great ways to get your adventure photography website noticed (Don’t tell anyone!) Backcountry.com also recommended a photograph to complement my profile. Cool, another place to add one of my ski photographs. But just as I was about to do this I read the now-infamous terms and conditions. Here is the first paragraph:
Any comments, reviews, posts, feedback, questions, answers, notes, messages, images, video, audio, materials, ideas, suggestions or other communications you submit on Backcountry.com are not private or proprietary. By submitting User Content on or through Backcountry.com, you grant Backcountry.com an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual right and license to use, copy, modify, display, archive, store, distribute, reproduce and create derivative works based upon such User Content, in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future
Basically, whatever image I use on my profile page is there for the taking. Does this mean I won’t post an image? Not necessarily…it just means whatever image I upload is going to be very small and contain a watermark. It bothers me to uncover things like this, especially for organizations that I truly want to support…
So, my photography tip of the day: read the terms and conditions if you’re posting images online and if you are posting an image, re-size it so small it would be tough to get even a 4×6 print out of it.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>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.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>I could visit Mt Rainier every day of the week, rain or shine, summer or winter and I’d never get bored. It’s simply a stunning mountain that offers such a huge diversity of terrain, flora and fauna that one, especially a photographer, can never grow weary of it’s immense size and minute details. So here’s my first installment of photographs from “The Mountain”.
All pictures shot with a Canon Rebel XT & Canon 17-85 IS lens, coupled with a polarizer filter.
Coming soon…backcountry ski photographs, including a summit ski, from in and around Mt Rainier
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>I’ve said it before and I’ll say again: we (those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest) are blessed with so much natural beauty within relatively easy reach, that it can be really difficult to decide where to go on the weekends. Do we go sea kayaking, mountain biking, climbing, backcountry skiing…ah, the choices!
This past weekend was no different, so on Sunday it was up early for the drive out to Newhalem for the beginning of an overnight bike tour on the North Cascades Highway. The goal was to finish in Winthrop, meeting up with a large group of friends who had ridden over the day prior. For those who have yet to visit this stunning national park, I highly recommend you go now. Less than three hours from Seattle, it’s actually one of the least visited national parks in the country and believe it or not, there are folks in Seattle who have no idea this much rugged beauty is so close to home.
The North Cascades highway offers awe-inspiring views combined with leg-busting climbs. Matter of fact, the total elevation gain from Newhalem to Washington Pass is nearly 6000 ft. Sweet. Once you crest the pass, the long winding Alps-like descent brings you into the high and dry Methow Valley.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>Ok, so I’ve never actually been lost in North Cascades National Park, but it wouldn’t be hard. With only one road, Highway 20, slicing the park in half, it encompasses nearly 685,000 acres. It’s huge, it’s beautiful and some sections are very remote. We won’t be getting lost, but tomorrow my my fiancee and I pack up the bikes for a short overnight cycling tour on the North Cascades Highway. Leaving from the town of Newhalem, on the wet side of the Cascades, we’ll arrive at some point later in the day in the old west town of Winthrop. The ride itself is ‘only’ about 75 miles in length, but it involves lots of ascending, climbing up and over the Cascades and descending into the high and dry dessert of central Washington. While getting the BOB ready for the tour (my bike trailer) I was distracted by some past photos of kayaking in Ross Lake, a stunning recreational area that is one of three sections that actually make up the North Cascades National Park Complex. So, although we’ll be a peddling and not paddling, here are some sea kayaking photos to remind everyone to get out and play
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
]]>