My Everyday Photos

Northern Lights During a Dark Night

August 16, 2015 – 8:15 am
Posted in northern lights
Tagged Aurora borealis, dark skies, Methow Valley, northern lights
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Last night’s power outage made for a darker than usual night. No moon and no hazy skies also provided good looks at stars and meteors and even the northern lights! We are lucky to have less light pollution than a lot of places.

The dogs thought I was nuts standing out there in the dark and they went inside to bed. I was only up til midnight when it seemed like the aurora faded away. This morning I learned that they were even more dramatic in the wee hours of the morning. A girl’s got to sleep sometime!

This is looking down valley towards fires burning in Black Canyon and along the Columbia River

Looking up

Cedar Creek Falls

I should have been working today but my boss (me) gave me the day off for fun and exercise. Too much time in front of the computer is not good for any of us. You do know that, don’t you?

MA suggested the Cedar Creek Falls trail near Mazama. I’ve only hiked it once before and remembered it as being dusty and at the falls I never got a good view. I think it must have been earlier in the summer with higher water because today we easily got to the top of the falls and the cascades and with some effort, we were able to get to the bottom of one of the tall waterfalls. It looked like there was another below us but it was steep and we didn’t want to let the dogs get close to it. It was worth the dust and horse poop on the trail. The cool mist off the falls felt really refreshing! I wish I could bottle that feeling to use for the rest of the summer.

For these photos I was using a gorillapod tripod and Lumix super zoom camera. Not the best gear for moving water but it worked.

Part of the upper cascades

Looking down over the edge of the tall waterfall

These yellow flowers were growing out of the cliff to the right of the falls.

All of us in one photo!

Hummingbirds at Sunset

The long hours of dusk in the summer time are some of my favorites. And recently we’ve had tremendous sunsets most every evening. This is partially due to smoke from neighboring wildfires. It doesn’t slow down the hummingbirds. We still see them going to the feeders, sometimes aggressively defending them from other hummers. There are fewer than there were a month ago. They are mostly juveniles now. The adults have moved on, migrating south to their wintering grounds or up in the mountains in search of nectar from wildflowers. I do enjoy warm summer evenings on our deck.

The clouds provide an ever-changing view.

Recording the Changes

After the Rising Eagle fire I established a couple of photo points. Originally I had three but I narrowed it down to just two. I made one post right after the fire and you can see it here. It’s been a year now and there have been changes. The pines and native shrubs have been replaced with many weeds and non-native grasses. Just about all of the pines died. Some of the shrubs have sprouted from their roots. These include serviceberry, currant, chokecherry and wild rose. There are bitterbrush seedlings. Snowberry is abundant. Apparently it reacts positively to fire. Last fall we had trees and shrubs planted with cages and irrigation. They have had nearly 100% survival! Native grass seed was also planted and its success has been somewhat spotty however where it’s coming in, it looks good. Some of the native bunch grasses survived the fire and re-sprouted. Also the tiny wildflowers that were dormant at the time of the fire survived and did well this spring. Larger wildflowers like lupine and balsamroot had a harder time but I think in the future they will come back strong.

Photo point 1. The boulders you see in many of these photos were completely covered with shrubs before the fire. We didn’t know they were there.

August 25 2014

August 25

August 27

September 7

October 23

December 1

February 24 2015

March 22

May 2

July7

July 7

August 3 2015

Photo point 2

August 25 2014

August 25

August 27

September 7

October 23

December 1

February 24 2015

March 22

May 2

July 7

August 3 2015

Mountain Summertime

August 1, 2015 – 12:28 pm
Posted in Slate Peak
Tagged hike, North Cascades, raven, Slate Peak, wildflowers
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If I could I’d be up in the mountains most of the summer. But that’s not practical. There’s work to do, a house and yard to keep up, and various other commitments in this life. Yesterday I played hooky from the computer taskmaster and headed to one of my favorite places – Slate Peak. I’ve made up my own hike and returned to it each year in mid-summer. Combining two trails, a bit of a cross-country climb and a walk down on a road I’ve come up with a nearly four-mile loop hike through the high Cascades of northern Washington. Last summer Mary from Montana joined me on this hike and you can see images from that day here. As you can see, it’s vastly different this year. Even accounting for the two week difference in dates the differences are huge. Yesterday there was no snow. Anywhere. Most of the little creeks are already dry. The wildflowers are far less numerous.

Here are the images from yesterday’s hike.

Down that steep talus slope, across the basin, up to the ridge to the next trail and then up to Slate Peak. Follow the road on the other side of the ridge back to the car.