North Face of Mt Hood

Shot from west of Hood River, Ore

A field of wildflowers near an apple orchard in Hood River.

Finally Some action on this site.

I’ve been meaning to get to work on this site for awhile.  It’s been 10 months since my last blog.  What a wild ride it has been.  But I’m in a better place and much happier.  It feels good to be on this site again and I hope to keep it up.  I will write soon about what all happen this last year but I can say this I am looking forward to my 36th birthday.  I will be happy to put this year behind me.

So yes a new look.  I am experimenting with a website that has only my photos.  I am proud to say that all of the photos now are my own.  I am not sure if I will keep this theme but I am going to try it out.  I hope to blog soon and sharing some photos.

Finally after a rather long break from photography I grabbed my camera and headed to Eagle Creek.  I have been busy with my new job at Kaiser which has taken me from my love of photography .  This  new job is as a nurse on a cardiovascular telemetry unit.  The job has me working seven on and then seven off.  The last day was a little rough and I realized thanks to a very close friend that I needed to rejuvenate my spirit (we have been spending a lot of time together).  Nursing is hard and and I am good at taking care of others not so good at taking care of myself.  I have always found hiking helps calm me and now with photography I really do stop and look at the world.  I see the simple and realize that there is something special that needs to be captured.  It also happen that I was inspired this week by a movie I watched about Ansel Adams.  I wanted to see if I could ketch some of the brilliant contrast that he caught in his images.  That is why the images  are in black and white.  I underexposed the images to bring out the black.  The mist help to bring contrast into an otherwise boring scene.  The day was overcast and after the heavy rains the creek was swollen and there were several waterfalls that I had never seen before.  I took just under 50 photos and these are what I liked best.

As usual I put my favorite first.  This is one of the first shots I took.  It is a close up of some ferns growing on a tree.  The shot is from underneath the ferns so that they are back lit.

Metlako Falls is a punch bowl formed falls that is 101 feet tall.  It was named in 1915 after the Metlako, the Indian goddess of Salmon.  Other interesting note Trip Jennings a well known extreme white water kayaker ran this falls and it was caught on you tube.

A small dense stand of Douglas Fir along the Eagle Creek trail.

Mist high on the canyon wall surrounding big leaf maples with lichen on them.

I am sure you are wondering why I called this California Adventure Abbreviated.   Two years ago I took a 15 day road trip through California.  I drove down California along the Sierras through Mt Lassen, Lakes Basin, Tahoe, Yosemite and Kings Canyon then onto San Diego for 5 days.  I drove back along the coast stopping in Monterey Bay,  driving though San Francisco , the Sonoma Coast and Redwoods before returning home. I took over 750 pictures with my SD600.

This trip was shorter and involved only Northern California.  I had time restrictions. Started a new job this last Monday at Kaiser Sunnyside.  Hope you enjoy the shots, I had a great time taking them.  it was one of the best trips I have ever taken.

Day 1

I left Portland OR, drove down I5 and took Willamette Pass. At over 5000 ft, it is a high pass for Oregon.   I hit my first amount of snow at the top of the pass, but the rest of the drive to Collier State Park was easy.  Once on the other side of the mountains it was sunny and cold.  I think the high was close to 50 degrees.  The above picture is of a mannequin out side a general store in Chemult, Ore.  I found it weirdly homoerotic and had to take a picture.  And people say that Portland is weird.  I drove onto Collier Memorial State Park which is a very nice, very clean park.  I set up camp and then took a walk over to the museum.  Along the way I captured this picture.

Day 2

Awoke to ice on the inside of the tent and a warm 24 degrees.  I packed up as fast as I could, which wasn’t easy as my fingers with gloves on were hurting because it was so cold.  The day quickly warmed up and I drove to Lava Beds in northeastern California.  Mt Mcloughlin at 9495 is the southernmost volcano in the cascade range in Oregon.  It was beautiful with the snow that had fallen the night before.

Lava Beds National Monument is an area of very interesting geology.  It is a spot that lava erupted from the ground along faults in the earth.  It has the most lava tubes in North America with over 500 known lava tubes.  This is a shot from the inside on the most popular tube, which is lit for people.  I traveled through the park backwards and spent more time in at the north end of the monument.  The highest concentration of lava tubes is by the visitor center at the southern end of the monument.  The tubes are very cool and anyone into caving should check it out.  Once I had left I took some back road out of the park and drove on to McArthur Burney Memorial State park.  I was going to camp there but I did not like how high the fire pits are at the campground.  One drawback to camping in California is the fire pits, the other is the state does not have enough money to maintain the parks.  I ended up camping about 15 miles south in a nice campground that did not have any water which sucked.  It was much warmer got up to 70 degrees.

Day 3

There had been a bad forest fire that was close to the campground.  I took this picture to capture the desolation of the place.  I continued on to Mt Lassen National Volcanic Park.  I spent the morning driving around the park visiting sites I had seen on my first trip.  October is a great time to go.  There were no crowds and I had Bumpass Hell to myself most of the two hours I spent there.

Once out of the park I drove onto Lakes Basin and stayed in this campground I found during my last trip.  This campground had no water as well but it was because the campground was closed.  After setting up camp I went for a hike to Grass Lake and a small waterfall.

Day 4

Took the best hike of the whole trip this morning!  Hiked from the campground up to a ridge looking over Lakes Basin.  Even hiked a short ways on the PCT then hiked back into Lakes Basin and hiked on a part that I had done on the first trip.  In total I hiked almost 6 miles.

Once I got back, I packed up camp and started toward Lake Tahoe.  On my way I was noticing white puffy clouds and though the weather might be changing.  I drove for a while around the lake and came back to Tahoe City.  I stayed at the Lake of the Sky Motor Inn.  It was not the nicest motel, but it was clean and the people that owned it were very nice.  Once settled I took a walk around the city.  It is a cute little town with a population of over 2500.  There were several restaurants and shops.  After my trip I decided that if I was going to stay in Lake Tahoe again I would stay in either Kings Beach or Tahoe City.

Day 5

I was right about the change in the weather.  I awoke to snow on the ground and this beautiful  scene.  I drove around the lake this day spending time in several different parks.

Three shots from the drive around the lake.  Lake Tahoe is the 3rd deepest lake in North America.  It was created about 2 million years ago when a lava flow dammed up the only outlet in the valley.  The bottom of the lake is actually lower than Carson City at just over 4500 feet above sea level.  The lake’s shores sit at just over 6200 feet above sea level.  getting tired of being cold I decided to go to the Coast and drive but a small section of coast that I had never been on.  but before I left I checked out Squaw Valley, USA.

Day 6

After driving from Tahoe to Guerneville, which is a small town north of San Francisco that is in wine country,  I stayed the night at a place called the Highland Resort.  Very cute cottage style resort.  The service was excellent and the following morning I got recommendations for two wineries, a different drive to the coast and a place to eat lunch along the way.  I drove up the coast that day and saw many beautiful sites.

This night was a highlight of the trip but not in a good way.  After getting back from taking pictures of the sunset and seeing wild animals for the first time since I had left, I decided to camp one last  night.  I started my fire and and made some dinner.  As I was making dinner I heard a sound that seemed quite close.  I looked up and saw a raccoon that was quickly approaching my camp site.  I started yelling and ran it off.  I though that was the end of it.  About 5 minutes later it came back.  This time I picked up a stick and yelled some more.  The yelling was quite interesting since I have had laryngitis and I could not yell very loud.  I ended up having to run this raccoon off several times.  Finally I got some piece and quiet until after I went to sleep.  The raccoon got into my stuff and I knew this by the large crash when my stuff hit the ground.  I then packed up my stuff and got the worse night sleep of the whole trip.

Day 7

Needless to say I was very tired and the next morning and decided to drive home.  I was over camping and really just wanted my own bed.  I finished the drive up the coast through the Redwood National and State Parks and continued on home to Portland.

This was the last shot of the trip.  I was tired of being on vacation and tired of taking photos.  Plus there was not much to shoot on the way home and not much time to take them.

The majority of my favorite shots from this trip fall in the landscape category.

This is one of the best shots from my trip.  This is a shot of Burney Falls in McArthur Burney Memorial State Park .  This is a very interesting falls because the different types of rocks create an effect that makes the water look like it is springing out of of the rock.  I took a long exposure to soften the effect of the falling water and this is what was created.

This is another one of my favorite shots.  This is of the east side of Lake Tahoe in Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park.  I like this picture because there are so many elements that came together.  It was later in the day which made the angle of the sunlight low bring out contrast.  The sun brought out the beautiful color of the water and the dark storm clouds give an almost ominous quality to the picture.

Though these pictures are not the same size the image matches up.  This is a shot of Long Lake in Lakes Basin.  I hiked up to the top of the ridge to the left of the picture.  This is a very large cirque formed lake.  During the last ice age a glacier formed and scooped out the lakes basin region.  As the ice melted the lowest points that the glacier scooped out filled with melted ice.  These low spots make up each lake in the lakes basin region.

This shot is close to sunset.  What gives it the mystic feeling is a long expose which soften the waves to look almost like a mist on the water.  I like the lone plans on the rock it gives the photo a sense of solidarity.

Mt Lassen stands at 10,457 feet.  It is the first mt I ever climbed but it was an easy hike you start out out 8500 ft and climb almost 2000 vertical feet in about 2.5 miles.  This trip the trail was closed.  This shot was early morning.  The ground was frosty which added to the photo.

This is a wider shot of  Burney Falls which stands at 129 feet.  Most of the water that falls originates from springs.  Burney Falls was named after pioneer settler Samuel Burney who was one of the first people to settle in the area.

Lakes Basin, definitely one of my favorite places.  This is simply a well placed picture.

Collier Memorial State Park looking southeast with the Willamson river in the foreground.

Lakes Basin hike to the the ridge looking south over Long Lake.

Sonoma Coast close to the mouth the Russian River.  It was a warm beautiful day with light winds.

Lakes Basin early morning can I say any more.

Sunset Salt Point State Park Sonoma Coast  long exposure gives it the movement in the water

Bumpass Hell was named after an early settler who severely burned a leg after falling into a boiling pool.  This is a shot from where I was mediating.  I reached my most relaxed state here with the smell of the sulfur and the wind softly blowing.

Early morning looking up the trail in Emerald Bay State Park, Lake Tahoe.  It was very cool with the fresh snow on the ground.  I had fun taking several shots.

Lakes Basin, Long Lake, hike up to the ridge.  I really like how the rocks lead your eye out to the island.

This is a shot of some detail work on Vikingshlom a summer home at Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe.  Vikingshlom is considered one of the finest examples of Scandinavian architecture in the western hemisphere.  Mrs Lora Josephine Knight started construction in 1928 and work was completed on the house in 1929. 200 workers were brought to Emerald Bay to construct the house.  Several of the details are exact copies of Scandinavian contruction from as early as the 11th century.

This is a shot from the inside of the Baldwin,  a locomotive  which saw action near Mount Shasta, California. Nicknamed “GOP” (for “get out and push”) because it derailed so often while hauling redwood logs in northwest California.  This locomotive resides at the museum in Collier Memorial State Park just north of Klamath Falls, Oregon.  The museum features old logging equipment and a pioneer village from the late 1800′s and early 1900′s.

A shot of two boats moored in Lake Tahoe.  You can’t tell but there was snow on the grown from a storm from the night before.

Another shot from the museum at Collier Memorial State Park.  This evening shot does not capture the scale of the wheels on this logging equipment.  They must have been 7 to 8 feet talk.  This was a great shot because the aspen trees were changing color and the sun was back lighting the leaves.  What I most liked was something you can not get a sense of there was a breeze that was making the leaves rustle and the aspens quake.

Is this not what the ocean is about.  The waves hitting the rocks you can almost hear the sound this wave made when it hit this rock.

Some amazing nature shots from the almost 600 pictures taken during my trip.

It snowed Sunday morning in Lake Tahoe.  This was taken at Sugar Pine Point State Park in front of the Summer Home of Hellman -Ehrman.  The land that Sugar Pines Point encompases is most of the 2000 acres that W. Hellman a wealthy San Francisco businessman.  Pine lodge was built in 1903.

This pine tree is growing in a crack in the granite.  The shot was taken in the Lakes Basin which is about 40 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe.  To me this shot capture this area.  As I walked around it seem that with was a giant’s bonsai garden with perfectly placed trees growing right on top of rocks with low growing shrubs that gives spots of green.

Mud Pot at Bumpass Hell in Mt Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Mt Lassen as the most active thermal vents in the cascade range.

Aspen grove around Spooner lake.  Spooner lake is a man  made lake created during the timber boom in the first part of the century.

A water fall in Lakes Basin.  The orange color of the grass drew me to this photo.

A small stand of dead trees in the Lakes Basin.  I photographed these the last time I was in Lakes Basin.

A small island in Long Lake in Lakes Basin.  Another pine tree growing out of granite.  This place is amazing and highly recommended as a place to visit.