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Tatoosh peaks beyond Mazama Ridge - snowstorm©2008 Ed BookPeace Tags: -print available-, forest, high key, landscape, mount rainier, mountains, snow, trees, wa, white, winter
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White Pass, Wenatchee National Forest, Cascade Range, Washington©2006 Ed Booksome like it vertical Peace Tags: -print available-, forest, landscape, mountains, snow, trees, wa, white, winter
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About a week ago, Gene, and Phil, fellow ski patrollers and I skied out to this ridge to scout a hopefully proposed location for a new temporary Mount Tahoma Trails hut about two miles beyond the Copper Creek Hut. The view included Mount Rainier above the Glacier View Wilderness and Mount Beljica, the Goat Rocks, Sawtooth Ridge, Mount Adams, Griffin Mountain, Mt St Helens, Mount Storm King, Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountain Range. What a day! What a view!
(the image also has three sets of cougar tracks that course along the ridge).
Mount Tahoma Trails - Ski Trooper Ridge - 360º panorama©2008 Ed BookWe are calling the ridge Ski Trooper Ridge to honor the Army's 10th Mountain Division who got their start early in the 1940's on Mount Rainier. The location is on privately owned timber company land and so any hut we would erect would have to be stationed in place temporarily being moved after the snow season. We've been thinking of designing some sort of arrangement of ocean shipping containers mounted on trailers. This hut would be crude compared to our (Mount Tahoma Trails Association) other huts which are actually (3) two story cabins and a two story yurt located along our 50+ miles of cross country ski trails.
( Here's a larger version of this photo (~600K) )Peace Tags: forest, landscape, mount rainier, mount tahoma trails, mountains, olympic mountains, olympic mtns, panorama, photohoop, snow, wa, winter
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Mount Tahoma Trails north district near the Morge Lakes Cirque©2008 Ed BookI've seen lots of cat tracks in the snow this year but they were mostly made by Bobcats. I didn't see any cats though. These tracks were much bigger and there were three sets. I suspect siblings or mother and offspring who were still with her. I have seen Bobcats and fox and martins and rabbits and hares on the trail system and elk, deer, and bear in the summer up there but have yet to see a cougar in the mountains. I'm certain that they have seen me and have seen their tracks on my own. I often ski in remote areas alone and sometimes at night but do so much less lately because I'm paranoid of the big cats. Last week, I was skiing down one of the trails and saw where two sets of cougar tracks entered the trail and were ahead of me going the same direction. It was snowing and they were fresh enough to not have snow in them. I made lots of excuses to myself for stopping, a snack, then a drink, then some photos, and then another drink, and and and till I realized that it would be dark soon and I had a couple more miles to go. I didn't enjoy that ski so had to repeat it again the next day early when I wasn't afraid. (I'm afraid of the dark and of big animals that would like to eat me and can usually handle one fear at a time but when they gang up, they become symbiotic and I chicken out.) I even practiced swinging my ski poles around to be ready for a confrontation. Peace Tags: -print available-, forest, landscape, mount tahoma trails, mountains, snow, wa, winter
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freshwater from Big Beef Creek freezing in Hood Canal tidewater©2007 Ed BookPeace Tags: forest, high key, kitsap peninsula, landscape, puget sound, river, snow, trees, wa, white, winter
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Big Beef Creek at the Hood Canal tidewater©2007 Ed Bookfresh snow at sealevel Peace Tags: forest, high key, kitsap peninsula, landscape, puget sound, river, snow, trees, wa, white, winter
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Kitsap Peninsula - Puget Sound lowlands (bog along Sesame St up the road from Nika Trail©2007 Ed BookContrary to some opinions that I may have generated with my last post of some peaks in the Olympic Mountains from our home here on Nika Trail... Although we have views of the mountains like that view, we're not in the mountains but in the Puget Sound lowlands and our home is at about 350 ft above sea level. The Olympic mountains rise to about 5700' along the Hood Canal (fjord) that separates our Kitsap Peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula and the peaks are about 20 miles away. Peace Tags: -print available-, forest, kitsap peninsula, landscape, nika trail, puget sound, snow, trees, wa, white, winter
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edbook's journal
