Mount Baker

It has been much too long since my last post. I haven't been doing as much landscape photography lately either, so it was about high time I did some.

I had planned on doing the Boulder River hike today, but it's not accessible right now; apparently not many of the Darrington area hikes are. So instead, plan B became a trip to Orcas Island.

When we left Seattle, the fog was almost thick enough to cut with a knife. It stayed with us for the entire drive to Anacortes. About five minutes after the ferry pulled out of the quay, the fog cleared and gave us great views of the island we were passing. It also gave us a nearly crystal clear view of Mount Baker.

It seemed like a promising start.

At Orcas Island, we headed for Moran State Park, and followed the roads toward Mount Constitution. There some snow on the road, but not much... until we reached a closed gate. We parked there and walked the remaining 1.2 miles or so; it was a pretty easy jaunt up the road.

When we arrived, we found a dazzling view of the North Cascades. Though it was almost lost in the haze, we could even see Mount Rainier in the distnance, and one peak that we think was Glacier Peak.

The layer of clouds over the straight was also interesting; throughout most of the afternoon, it broke up as it passed Orcas Island, but as the evening progressed, the ragged edge started moving eastward, eventually filling the strait below us, yielding the sight I showed above.

In other semi-related news, I now have six prints up at Energy Cafe in Ballard. Printed by Neil Buckland at Luemars, coated with a protoctive and glossy coating material and glued onto 24x30 inch pieces of plexiglass, they look very detailed and very vibrant. If you get a chance, head over and let me know what you think :)

I hope that the sheets I exposed today come out well, so that I can add some images of Mount Baker to my small but growing collection of prints.