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 Book

We 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

The Brothers - Olympic Mountains from Nika Trail on the Kitsap Peninsula - Puget Sound

©2006 Ed Book



Mt Jupiter

©2006 Ed Book

I'm ready to head out the door and up the driveway (if I can get through the eight inches of early winter snow) to go up to Mount Tahoma Trails in the Cascade Range to do some trail grooming. Copper Creek Hut has three feet of snow and I imagine a bit more up on the Puyallup Ridge Trail. I'll be back home to Nika Trail on Wednesday.

Peace

Tags: -print available-, landscape, nika trail, olympic mtns, snow, white, winter

Olympics and the Jupiter Hills                                                       ©2006 Ed Book

Peace

Tags: -print available-, mountains, nika trail, olympic mtns, sky, sunset
Current Music: Hello It's Me - Todd Rundgren

Olympic Mountains from Nika Trail                                                  ©2006 Ed Book

Peace

Tags: -print available-, kitsap peninsula, landscape, mountains, nika trail, olympic mtns, puget sound, sky, sunset

Duckabush Valley - Olympic Mountains, WA                                            ©2006 Ed Book

Peace

Tags: -print available-, kitsap peninsula, landscape, mountains, nika trail, olympic mtns, puget sound, sky, sunset

( Larger image here 160k 1300x300pixels )

Peace

Tags: kitsap peninsula, landscape, mountains, nika trail, olympic mtns, panorama, puget sound

Olympic Mtns. Quilcene River drainage and Marmot Pass - ©2005 Ed Book

Peace

Tags: landscape, mountains, nika trail, olympic mtns, sunset

Quick and dirty pan to document the current view from our deck...

( click here to see the 350k version  )

Peace

Tags: autumn, b/w, landscape, mountains, olympic mtns, panorama, puget sound, snow, sunset

Mt Constance first snow from our deck this evening

yurtmeister (who's in Ohio right now) asked if there was snow in the Olympics yet and just about sunset the clouds over the Hood Canal (fjord) cleared to show this view of Mt Constance... I'd say there is a little snow-looks like down to about 4000 ft.

'see the face?

Peace

ps ©2005 Ed Book all rights reserved

Tags: landscape, mountains, olympic mtns, snow, sunset

Skokomish River - Olympic Mountains, WA

another from the high steel bridge across the Skokomish.

Peace

Tags: -print available-, canyon, forest, landscape, mountains, olympic mtns

Skokomish River north fork - Olympic National Forest, WA

Sunday, I was up the Skok with my Daughter, Lisa, and my three Grandkids, Cody, Parker, and Jaden, and my Son, Seth and his girlfriend, Victoria. We built a campfire and cooked hot dogs (mine veggie, theirs chicken) hiked in the rain and visited the high steel bridge across the river. This image is from the bridge in the rain. After a five week visit here in WA, Lisa and the kids are flying back to North Carolina where they moved last summer. Keith, Lisa's husband, had to stay in NC as he is teaching this summer.

Camera: Canon EOS D1s MkII, 28-135mm lens at 33mm with polarizer, ISO 100, 2.5 sec at f/20 tripod mounted with remote shutter trip, conditions light rain and fog moving through the trees above the canyon.

Peace

Tags: -print available-, canyon, forest, landscape, mountains, olympic mtns

I don't think I ever posted these photos. I was up on the road to Obstruction Point in Olympic National Park a couple years ago and came across this camera setup... it was Will Landon (Will's website)with one of his telephoto panoramic cameras waiting for morning alpenglo on Mt Olympus and the Bailey Range. We got skunked... clouds formed in the east just at sunrise and the air was too hazy to get a good sharp image. Will and I chatted a while and then when I got home I looked up his website and bought his book on Mt Rainier Panoramas. This camera had a back that he manufactured for film 12 inches wide.





Peace

Tags: olympic mtns, panorama, photo equipment

I made this image in '91 from the top of Mt Elinore in the SE corner of the Olympic Mountains. May is a good time to climb the mountain because the climbing route is up through an avalanche chute which is full of snow at this time. Kicking steps in snow is a lot easier than scrambling up a step rock slope. The trip down is really fun–controlling the rate of descent with an ice axe, you slide down on your butt (of course a thick layer will keep from freezing your backside off). There is one big challenge in this route though. There's a huge boulder at the bottom of the avalanche chute and if the snow is melted off enough-it's exposed and you better be under control and stop before you get there or it will stop you. I think I'll pass on climbing this year.

Peace

Tags: -print available-, mountains, olympic mtns, snow