Karen and Tom Wanderings

Another spring, another visit to the Olympic Peninsula.  Karen's cousin and her husband were in town for a wedding, so we took the opportunity to give them a brief tour of the peninsula.  It mirrored last year's trip, except with less aggressive activities due to the higher average age of our team.  We tried to get up to Hurricane Ridge, but most of the road was closed due to snow that was dumped by a storm the previous day.  Undeterred, we rerouted to the mouth of the Elwha River, which is being transformed due to the removal of the dams upstream. Of course there was the gorgeous drive along Lake Crescent, and then to our beach-front cabin in La Push.  From there we visited First Beach (out our front door), Rialto Beach (just across the Quillayute River from La Push), the Hoh Rain Forest (about an hours drive inland), and Second Beach (a tad further south from First Beach). All were excellent, and we had perfect weather ... ok, except for the last day when we w...

Well, the stars aligned here in Seattle, with clear weather for the rare viewing of the aurora borealis.  We weren't sure what to expect, so we chose to go on a late night ferry ride over and back across Puget Sound.  The light show was pretty cool, but, to the naked eye, it mostly looked like whispy clouds with very muted color, if any.  But photos with longer exposures (10-15 seconds) picked it up nicely.  Unfortunately, I (a) have very limited experience in night-sky photography, (b) struggled to get my camera to do what I wanted in modes I don't normally use (manual focus, manual exposure), and (c) overlooked the fact that the ferry is actually moving, so a tripod only avoids additional movement.  It worked out ok in some cases, and it was a fun little adventure. Moonset over Kitsap Peninsula, with hints of color Bright lights above the ferry Bright lights above the ferry Aurora Borealis over Edmonds More Photos

Some decent weather rolled into Western Washington, and it created an itch to get out into the mountains.  But, the high country was still covered in deep (and some recent) snow.  Ah, but the lower river valleys were snow-free, so I headed up to the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, just outside of North Bend.  I hadn't been there for several decades, and was pleased to find a nice paved road had replaced the logging road notorious for it's massive potholes. The trail itself was new territory for me, as well.  In the intervening years, a serious footbridge was built over the river to access the trail, eliminating the treacherous ford ... which rendered the trail almost useless.  The trail was lush green through mostly 2nd generation forest, much of it along the river.  There were some ups and downs, but not too much elevation gain overall.  It was an out-and-back trip of about 9 miles, so provided some good exercise for the legs! Footbr...