ZapperZ's Great Outdoors Photo Contest

  • Thread starter Astronuc
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In summary: Those are great! The first one is my favorite-pure snow with a perfect sky.This shot is not of the caliber of many here, but I needed to get out and capture some fall colors today. This is a pair of apple trees at a scenic overlook dedicated to the Old Canada Road.
  • #666
Just finished a three-day hike around Goat Rocks Wilderness in Washington State. Something happened to me there that was remarkable.

On day two, we were hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail in single file. I was hiker #3 in a line of 5. As I passed a tree - maybe the 100,000th tree we had passed on this hike - I heard a loud POP. I thought my friend behind me was playing a joke about Sasquatch (e.g., throwing a rock at a tree and saying, "Did you see the Bigfoot?!").

So I turned to look at her. You can't turn quickly with a heavy back pack, but I turned just in time to see a large tree fall right in between us -- 45 cm in diameter, about 10 meters tall. It was about 1.5 meters from each of us.

No wind, no rain - it was a beautiful clear day.

Weird.
 
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  • #667
I'm glad you're okay, lisab! :eek:
 
  • #668
jmneutr0nn3 said:
Omg. That's a lot of electric cables hanging on a static pole.

The pole is probably irrelevant by now.
 
  • #670
 
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  • #671
A 7,000-foot-high cliffside trail in China

https://www.yahoo.com/travel/going-to-china-for-the-worlds-scariest-hike-96566561402.html
 
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  • #672
A message from one of the National Parks Service.

Think SAFE – Stay SAFE Plan Ahead and Prepare
About 95% of Rocky [Mountain National Park] is designated Wilderness. “Leave No Trace” principles aim to minimize human impacts on our natural world. The first principle is to Plan Ahead and Prepare, which is as important for your safety as it is for protecting our magnificent area:
• Know and obey the regulations and special concerns for the area you'll visit.
• Be physically and mentally ready for your trip.
• Know the ability of every member of your group.
• Be informed of current weather conditions and other area information.
• Know and accept risks associated with backcountry experiences.
• Take responsibility for yourself and your group.
• Always leave an itinerary with someone at home.
• Choose proper equipment and clothing in subdued colors.
• Plan your meals and repackage food into reusable containers.

Be safe and maintain Leave No Trace principles. Not only will you enjoy your visit all the more, you’ll help protect this incredible Wilderness.
http://www.nps.gov/romo/supportyourpark/leavenotrace.htm (NPS/VIP Schonlau) ks
 
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  • #673
Occasionally one of the little things in life can be a fun experience. I was trying to get a picture of the moon "setting" early one morning. The trees in the forground totally disrupted the auto focus on my cheapo camera.

I saw some hummingbirds on the feeder in silhouette. I thought I might make the best of it and try to get a picture of the hummingbirds with the moon in the background.

I didn't notice where one hummingbirds beak was until I downloaded the pictures from the camera.

ehhjs7.jpg
 
  • #674
nice! I got something similar one night- this is a plane that happened to fly in front of the Ring Nebula:

DSC01786_zpsb200ac61.jpg
 
  • #675
WOW that is a great pic Andy. Then again if you didn't want the plane there...:eek: All I got was a crummy hummingbird with it's beak in the moon.
 
  • #676


Bieszczady - four seasons.

I have posted an image or two form Bieszczady in the past.
 
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  • #677
Borek said:


Bieszczady - four seasons.

I have posted an image or two form Bieszczady in the past.


Beautiful! I put it on full screen and just sat back and enjoyed.
 
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  • #678
edward said:
Beautiful! I put it on full screen and just sat back and enjoyed.

That's what these things are shot for :)
 
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  • #679
Scottish Highlands and Loch -
 
  • #681
Just got back from the last backpacking trip of the year. It was fantastic - Seven Lakes Basin in Olympic National Park. We saw seven bears!
ilghhs.jpg


qnphxj.jpg


It was a beautiful trip!
 
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  • #682
lisab said:
qnphxj.jpg


It was a beautiful trip!
Was this one taken on the High Divide looking down into Seven Lakes Basin? I've been on the High Divide, but only the piece near where it ends over by Cat Basin and Cat Peak.

Here's my bear picture, taken September of 2013, at Marmot Lake in the La Crosse Basin (Olympic Nat'l Park).
IMG_0693_cmp.jpg
 
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  • #683
lisab said:
Just finished a three-day hike around Goat Rocks Wilderness in Washington State. Something happened to me there that was remarkable.

On day two, we were hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail in single file. I was hiker #3 in a line of 5. As I passed a tree - maybe the 100,000th tree we had passed on this hike - I heard a loud POP. I thought my friend behind me was playing a joke about Sasquatch (e.g., throwing a rock at a tree and saying, "Did you see the Bigfoot?!").

So I turned to look at her. You can't turn quickly with a heavy back pack, but I turned just in time to see a large tree fall right in between us -- 45 cm in diameter, about 10 meters tall. It was about 1.5 meters from each of us.

No wind, no rain - it was a beautiful clear day.

Weird.
I didn't know you made a trip in Goat Rocks, Lisa. It's one of my favorite places. I've been there six times, including one trip where we climbed Mt. Curtis Gilbert, the main peak in there. From the higher elevations of the PCT, you get a view of the three closest volcanoes, Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens, as well as Mt. Hood across the Columbia in Oregon.

If you're a flower buff, Goat Rocks has an incredibly rich variety of flowers. On the trip where a buddy and I climbed Mt. Curtis Gilbert, we were pretty shot the next day, so we just wandered around the Snow Grass Flats area and above, looking for different kinds of flowers. By our count, we saw 75 different species, including four or five types of lupine, three types of pedicularis (elephant head pedicularis - http://plant-life.org/Scrophulariaceae/large/pedicu_groenla2_lg.htm - looks just like you would think it would ) and many others. We stopped to talk with a guy who was just hanging out, and mentioned that we had seen lots of different flowers. He told us that a group from the Audobon Society had been there a few days ago, doing a plant survey, and they counted 200 different species!
 
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  • #684
Yes, that photo was taken just off the High Divide, on the trail that drops into Heart Lake basin, which is where all the male bears were hanging out.

Goat Rocks had spectacular flowers! But the bugs were pretty bad - mosquitoes were biting even in the rain.
 
  • #685
Lisa's pictures in Olympic National Park inspired me to post a panorama of three pictures I took on a recent backpack trip of seven days. This is my first effort at stitching pictures together (using GIMP). I retouched the sky to make it uniform, but the rest is untouched.

This is a view of the northern half of the Bailey Range, in Olympic National Park. From the left edge of the picture to the right edge is about 6 miles. The High Divide, where Lisa was hiking, is the ridge that extends off the left edge of this picture.

After a late start on the first day, we hiked up the Soleduck valley to camp at a small lake near Appleton Pass, near the second bump on the left skyline. It took us most of the second day to get from our camp, to just past the third bump (Cat Peak), camping at a little nook with water on the slope that ascends to Mt. Carrie (the first peak on the left with a snow patch near the top). The third day was spent traversing the section from just beyond Cat Peak to Cream Lake, which is at about the middle of the picture, but is hidden behind the hill in the left foreground. The distance is only about five miles, but you spend a lot of time route-finding and crossing several steep gullies that descend from the ridge.

After leaving Cream Lake, we hiked/scrambled up a narrow steep canyon that evenually opened up into the relatively flat area at the lower right of this picture. We spent the fourth and fifth days wandering around in this area, which has at least a dozen lakes of varying sizes in many small basins
.
Bailey_cmp.jpg

The terrain is very rugged. In some places there are trails, but they are as likely to be made by animals as by humans. This route is not for the faint of heart, as there are no maintained trails, and in many places, no trails at all. Although we didn't have to cross any snow on our traverse, we took ice axes, because the exit from the middle of the Bailey Range requires a steep descent down a dirt and gravel slope. If you slip, it could ruin your whole day, or worse.

We were lucky enough to hit a seven-day window of excellent weather, which is not a sure thing after Labor Day in the Olympics. Most days the temps were in the 70s, so we hiked in shorts the whole time. All in all, an excellent trip!
 
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  • #686
lisab said:
Yes, that photo was taken just off the High Divide, on the trail that drops into Heart Lake basin, which is where all the male bears were hanging out.

Goat Rocks had spectacular flowers! But the bugs were pretty bad - mosquitoes were biting even in the rain.

You need to quit hanging out around bear males. .)
 
  • #687
Mark44 said:
I retouched the sky

Take all pictures in the series using the same settings (typically it requires using some kind of manual settings, may be not available in your camera).
 
  • #688
Mark44 said:
I retouched the sky ...

From where you were, Mark, it sounds like you could just step right into the sky!

Fantastic trip report, I'd love to do that trip someday. I hope it inspires other PFers to lace up their boots and get out into the wilderness!
 
  • #689
Borek said:
Take all pictures in the series using the same settings (typically it requires using some kind of manual settings, may be not available in your camera).
It might have, but it has many features that I don't know about. I used to have a Minolta SRT film camera many years ago, with separate controls for f-stop and shutter time. My little Canon Powershot might have some of these features, but you have to get to them from a menu, not their own controls.
 
  • #690
Here are a couple more pictures that I like a lot, taken on two different trips this summer.

My friend Steve took this one on a hike we did in the North Cascades in August. We're at Iron Cap Pass at the upper end of the Necklace Valley on the E. Fork Foss River. The view is south to several peaks on the other side of the Snoqualmie Valley.
WP_20140818_043_cmp.jpg


The next picture was taken in Olympic National Park, on the same trip as the panorama I posted earlier in this thread. This shot shows Mt. Olympus, with its covering of glaciers, about five miles away. Even though it's mid-September here, there are still large snowfields present. We're up around 6000', which is well above timberline in the Olympics. This was the fifth day of our seven-day trip, and we were starting to make our exit from the Bailey Range. To do this, you have to climb up a mountain, then climb down the other side of it. After about 7 hours from this point we were back on a maintained trail for the first time in almost a week.
IMG_0854_cmp.jpg
 
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  • #691
Here's another one that I like, taken on the 2nd day of Steve's and my Bailey Range trip (Olympic Nat'l Park) last month. We're on our way from Appleton Pass over to the start of the Bailey Range traverse. We're making our way on the trail that winds to the left here, but I asked Steve to turn around so I could get the front of him into the picture.

As you can see, the terrain is set at a fairly steep angle.
IMG_0814_cmp.jpg
 
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  • #694
Astronuc said:
For those along the west coast of the US - one can hike all or part of the Pacific Crest Trail
http://www.activelynorthwest.com/inspiration/pacific-crest-trail/

I want to know how old that guy is. I hiked 23 miles one evening*, and felt the effects for years!

But I'm a Moody Blues fan, and their phrase; "thinking is the best way to travel", has always stuck with me.
I've never had the finances to travel much, so I've always been very appreciative of the fact that people take pictures on their journeys.
I think some young person should hook up with Google Earth, and put a mini-me go-pro camera set up on a helmet.
I could watch that all day.

ps. Just listened to the song. I think they were promoting drug use. I don't promote drug use. "Faster than light, if you want to", kind of implies that they were kooks. Nice music though. But, do not take acid. Trust me... And floss...

* I was 47, and way past my hiking prime.
 
  • #696
  • #700
Astronuc said:
Lonnie Dupre first to climb Mount McKinley solo in January
Arctic climber reaches summit at 20,237 feet in darkest, coldest time of year
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/outposts/post/lonnie-dupre-first-climb-denali-solo-january/

January is the harshest month to climb Mt. McKinley, where winter winds regularly exceed 100 mph, temperatures drop below minus-60-degrees Fahrenheit, and the days have just six hours of sunlight.
I just finished Jon Krakauer's book, "Eiger Dreams," which was written in the late 80's I think. It's a collection of articles that appeared in various magazines. In one of the chapters he talks about a trip he made to McKinley, which many climbers rate as right up there as one of the toughest in the world. It's not as high as the big 8,000 m. Himalayan peaks, but its extreme northern latitude makes for horrendous weather any time of the year.
 

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