Scenic – Page 18

Han Solo, Frozen in Carbonite

Seeing Han Solo getting frozen in carbonite broke my heart as a child but it saved my life as an adult. I was hiking along the Hoh River Trail, reveling in the rain in the rain forest, when I saw this unusual formation in an old tree. I stepped back when I recognized the pose, like Solo all those years ago, an unfortunate photographer must have turned his back too long to the tree and was captured, enveloped, erased, as he slowly disappeared into the tree. Thinking back to that scene I’m glad they didn’t freeze my beloved Chewbacca too, I think that would have radicalized young Boolie and sent him over to the dark side.

Through the Forest Latourell Lies, Latourell Falls

This Is As Close As You Can Get To Heaven …

… without dogs and cats. Taken on a dark rainy afternoon on the Sol Duc Falls Trail in Olympic National Park.

The Non-Moving Van

It looks a little older and a little worse-for-wear every time I see it, but I always enjoy seeing the friendly face of this old moving van in the Quinault Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. I hope it thinks the same of me. Then the rain poured down and gave the non-moving van a nice shine, rain which feeds the trees and rust which are slowly breaking it down. Such is life in the rain forest.

Earth Imitates Life

These large rocks at Rialto Beach in Washington’s Olympic National Park reminded me of goose barnacles stretching to the sky. There are tide pools by the rocks if you’d prefer life to its imitation. There’s a gull enjoying this lovely spring morning as well as I always like to sneak a little wildlife into my landscape pictures when I can. Shown below are actual goose barnacles (also known as gooseneck barnacles) from Enderts Beach in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in California. Their stalk is said to resemble the necks of geese and according to Wikipedia, goose barnacles and the barnacle goose were named after each other, as the goose was suspected of growing from the barnacle.

The Mountain Sleeps, Eyes Wide Open

The mountain sleeps, eyes wide open. A tree takes root on the bridge of its nose, spreads its toes, at its feet green grass grows. The mountain sleeps, eyes wide open.

The Ascent of Ruby Beach

Rocks worn smooth by the motion of the ocean make the climb up Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park to join the many others on the rocky beach, leaving patterns in the sand after the waves flow around them. Or maybe, after days of heavy rain, they were taking advantage of the sunshine to head down to the ocean for a refreshing swim in the Pacific.

Moss

On the way to Sol Duc Falls, you pass over this stream falling down the hillside towards the Sol Duc River, the surrounding rocks covered in the most beautiful moss.

Basalt of the Earth

At Latourell Falls in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, ferns grown not just in the earth but on the columnar basalt near the falls. The ferns must be able to get enough purchase in the cracks of the basalt to not get blown off by the wind, and that wind brings enough water over from the falls (just to the right of this picture) that they can survive. There is lichen growing here too, but not the dramatic yellow lichen that grows further up the cliff face.

I love this place.

A Bench to the Left of Me, A Waterfall to the Right

I was heading up the loop trail around Latourell Falls when I saw a bench beside the trail and I wondered why it was there, when I looked to the right and all became clear as I saw the waterfall plunging over the basalt cliff. You have a lot of choices when photographing this waterfall, there’s a spot right near the parking lot with a nice distant view of the falls through the forest, you can go right to the base of the falls with a clear (and maybe wet) view of the falls, or you can photograph it here as a view through the woods. I like them all. You can clearly see the yellow lichen that drew me to the falls, although from his high vantage point you can only see a bit of the columnar basalt that also caught my eye.

There are other choices too, such as the classic choice of horizontal or portrait orientation. I like the horizontal picture best for this shot, even though my framing choice leaves out most of the blue wildflowers (delphinium?) blooming below, as I liked the symmetry of the leaves at the top and bottom. With the waterfall I also had to choose a fast shutter speed or a slow shutter speed to either freeze or blur the movement of the water. I prefer some waterfalls one way or the other but I think this one looks good both ways. I prefer the frozen shot as it shows how the shapes the water takes change as it plunges down the long cliff face, and although the picture has more noise due to the much shorter exposure, modern cameras handle this amazingly well (in previous years I would have been more inclined for the slower exposure to minimize color noise).

But it’s the 4K video that really shines. It was hiking in the Columbia River Gorge many years ago that almost convinced me to buy a video camera, solely for the purpose of having long videos of mountain streams that I could play in the background. I’d really like to figure out if there’s an automated program that could find a good place to start and end a track so it would play naturally on an endless loop, as that’s what I’d really like, to be able to just loop the video on the TV and have endless hours of waterfalls as a soothing background.