Posted by John Williams on October 20, 2007 at 8:39 PM
A group of friends and I were supposed to backpack into Jefferson Park this weekend and shoot the fall color. The weather reports were intimidating enough that four dropped out, and the remaining three of us decided to stay closer to home. We hiked about four miles up from Red Rock Pass and camped just below tree line on Mt. St. Helens yesterday. I had hoped to spend today playing with snow or fall color shots, but ran into two roadblocks. First, my tripod broke (better stated "I broke my tripod."). Turns out it wasn't as durable a snow shovel as I had assumed. Second, we were camped in about 8" of snow and another ~12" fell overnight. When we got up this am, we decided we better head back before the trail was completely obscured. There were some photo ops on the hike out, but the two friends I was with were not big photographers and I hated to make them stand around in the snow while I played. The above photo is of my tarp this morning, as we were packing to head out.
On another note, the color in the lower elevations (Cougar area) is pretty good now (the Big Leaf Maple seems to be more colorful this year than I had remembered in the past few years). The slopes along the lakes have a lot of color, and the Vine Maple under forest canopy looks good if you get up in elevation a little.
Posted by AJ Montgomery on October 20, 2007 at 9:08 PM
Brave soul . . .
Looks like a chilly campsite and some beautiful virgin snow conditions. You had fun anyways, right?
Posted by Jeremy Cram on October 20, 2007 at 10:48 PM
Brrrr! Adventurous. Thanks for the Fall color report from the area. Sounds tempting, but I'll stay lower down the mountain, thank you!
Posted by Adrian Klein on October 21, 2007 at 11:54 PM
Wow, that is some snow already John! And thanks for the tips on the color in the St Helens area. Your note got me to take the back way up through Carson to St Helens. Although I found much to be fairly brown already there was a few decent shots to be had.
Posted by John Williams on October 22, 2007 at 9:30 AM
To quote one of the friends I was with, "it was fun... in a morbid sort of way." After going to the effort though, I do wish things had worked out better photographically.
Discussion
5 repliesOn another note, the color in the lower elevations (Cougar area) is pretty good now (the Big Leaf Maple seems to be more colorful this year than I had remembered in the past few years). The slopes along the lakes have a lot of color, and the Vine Maple under forest canopy looks good if you get up in elevation a little.
Looks like a chilly campsite and some beautiful virgin snow conditions. You had fun anyways, right?