Oh gosh, it’s never ending. Scenes from a smoky week at home when I had planned to be camping next to a mountain lake. Many birds have left. The dogs seem to have a pretty good attitude but the smoke is bad for them too.
Category Archives: fire season
Fire season is hitting us hard this year. There are large fires in all directions around us. The Ptarmigan fire is threatening my favorite hiking spots to the north. The Sinlahekin is bearing down on my favorite hiking spots to the northeast. All the fires dump smoke high in the air and then it settles into the valleys as the wind dies down. Our air has been unhealthy for days. I had hoped to go camping this past week but the air was bad everywhere I looked. All over Washington and Oregon too. I want to see the Milky Way and meteor showers. Willow is bored and so am I. The forecast shows some relief coming but also increased fire activity. These fires will not stop til the snow falls.
Finding photo subjects is nearly impossible. The smoke colors the light in strange ways. I made some photos and tried to adjust the color to what I think it would be under ‘normal’ circumstances. Others, I left as is or made black and white. Summer in the west.
Dry crinkly stuff seen along our daily walks.
Now that it is almost officially fall, it looks like fire season might be over in our little corner of the world. We hope.
I did not do much photography this summer. Most days were filled with smoke and it was often unbearably hot. Much of the public land was closed and our main access to the North Cascades, Highway 20, was closed.
Here are a few images of the summer. Most from home. But some from Pearrygin Lake, before they closed it to the public. We got to see LOTS of firefighting aircraft. Our friend from Montana even got to visit the valley to drop water from a big bucket attached to a huge helicopter. We were able to visit him at the airport one day when he wasn’t flying. The little fire boss planes are pretty amazing the way they fly in formation, scooping water and then dumping it on the fire and the giant retardant jets are a sight to see when they fly low over the fire spilling their contents to halt the spread of flames.
No houses were lost and no one died in our fires. We are grateful for firefighters, on the ground and in the air.
My Everyday Photos 