Tag Archives: winter

January 2, 2023 · 7:14 am

Happy New Year!

Where’s that trail going to take you in 2023? For me, it took me along a New Year’s Day snowshoe hike at Mount Rainier National Park. I think it was the prettiest winter day I’ve seen at the park, to date (not that I’ve been up there too many times in the winter, but of those times I *have* been there, this day had to be the best).

Mount Rainier staff only open the Paradise area on the weekends, now, due to understaffing, so I thought it was going to be a zoo. When I first arrived, there were rangers out there directing traffic and helping people park (correctly), so every single parking space was taken. Really, though, the only real crowding I saw was in the parking lot, near the start of the snow climb. About a mile into the hike, there were few people. And oh, the scenery!

I gotta send a shout out to all those skiers who hiked (most on their skis, some on snowshoes) way up to a snow-covered ridge on what I believe is part of the Skyline Trail. That was a good 2-3 mile hike to get there. Those people are in very good shape, and serious about their skiing, powerhousing it up to the ridge.

Speaking of skis and snowshoes, if you decide to take a little weekend trip up to Paradise, then go early (the gate at Longmire usually opens at 9 a.m. unless weather dictates otherwise), and for goodness sake, take snowshoes or skis. I noticed some people did not have either, so they stuck close to the parking lot, or risked “post holing” (where your foot sinks waaaaay down into the snow, potentially causing an injury or at the very least, a face plant). Not even the “packed” snowshoe/ski trails were that hard-packed. I can tell you that from personal experience, because I lost one of my snowshoes (due to faulty securing on my boot) and had to back down the trail to get it, post holing a couple of times along the way, on the trail. Not so much afraid for myself, but rather for getting snow in/on the camera

Oh, and make sure you keep track of your time, because the Longmire gate closes at 4 p.m. You miss that deadline and you are stuck – seriously. Annnnd, drive slowly. Black ice (that’s ice invisible to the naked eye, more or less, so it looks like a part of the asphalt) was all over the road. One SUV ahead of me skidded completely off the road, and I skidded slightly a couple of times, even with my 4WD and great tires. I finally figured out if the road was shiny-looking, it was probably icy, and drove accordingly.

This morning, muscles hurt in areas I guess I haven’t used much. And I was exhausted yesterday once I made it back to my vehicle. But oh, what a day. Couldn’t have been a better start to the New Year for me: gorgeous scenery, great exercise, and awesome photography.

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Filed under Holidays, Mount Rainier National Park, National Parks, New Year

Tagged as #Washington state, January, landscape, leading line, Mount Rainier, Mount Rainier National Park, mountain, Mt Rainier, Mt. Rainier National Park, National Park, national parks, New Year, Pacific Northwest, photography, scenery, snow, snoweshowing, trail, travel, trees, volcano, where the trails take you, winter

December 17, 2022 · 4:29 am

National Parks Quiz And Trivia: The Winter Edition 2022

How about a little rime ice to go with that tree, Ma’am.

Rime ice. There’s a question about it in today’s quiz and trivia piece I penned for the National Parks Traveler. It’s the winter 2022 edition. Why not go and check it out. You might learn something new about one or more units of the National Park System.

To take the quiz and read the trivia, click on the image above.

This particular image was captured during a snowcoach stop at Beryl Spring in Yellowstone National Park. Beryl Spring is a prolific steamer and all those freezing steam droplets land on whatever tree or fence railing is nearby. It can build up over a relatively short period of time in the winter there. And it’s amazing to look at close up.

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Filed under National Parks Quiz, National Parks Traveler, Seasons, winter

Tagged as funfacts, knowledge, learning, national parks quiz and trivia, National Parks Traveler, quiz, quiz and trivia, trivia, winter

December 16, 2022 · 4:37 am

Fun Fact Friday 12-16-2022

It’s #FunFactFriday folks! According to the 2021 annual report put out by Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, which continues to work at locating every single hydrothermal feature within Yellowstone National Park, there is a current count of 1,100 thermal features within Norris Geyser Basin alone!

Pictured here is another “same place, different season” set of images captured at Porcelain Basin, a smaller area within the larger Norris Geyser Basin purview, showing some of those 1,100 thermal features.

There are times when I deliberately set out to photograph a spot I’ve already captured at some other time, but this was not one of those times. I just happened to be standing at the same view area slong the boardwalk – one time in early October (early autumn), then again in mid February (late winter) and discovered just this morning I’d taken photos of that same landscape.

The autumn image was captured with the Canon 5DS I used to own, and the winter image was photographed with my Sony a7riv. Both cameras used a 24-105mm lens (each their own brand). The 24-105mm lens is a great travel lens with a nice focal range that produces great landscape retults.

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Filed under Fun Fact Friday, National Parks, Photography, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as autumn, Canon, Canon 5DS, February, Fun Fact Friday, fun facts, geology, hydrothermal, landscape, National Park, October, photography, Porcelain Basin, scenery, Sony a7riv, Sony Alpha, where the trails take you, winter, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

December 9, 2022 · 4:03 am

Same Spot, Same Year, Different Season

Ok, here’s yet another example of why you should take your camera out to a favorite spot during different times of year, weather patterns, and/or times of day. In the case of these two images, one was captured in mid-spring (June) 2020, and the other was captured in mid-late winter (December) 2020. Both were captured during the morning hours. Notice the difference in water flow and vegetation amount and color.

Ok, granted, the cameras and lenses are different, but the location – right off the side of Westside Road, about a mile away from the Nisqually Entrance (Mount Rainier National Park), is the same.

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Filed under Mount Rainier National Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, National Parks, Photography, waterfalls

Tagged as 11-24mm, 12-24mm, Canon 5DS, December, June, Mount Rainier, Mount Rainier National Park, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Rainier National Park, National Park, Pacific Northwest, photography, silky water, slow shutter, Sony a7riv, spring, ultra-wide angle, Washington State, waterfall, waterfalls, where the trails take you, winter

November 26, 2022 · 7:40 am

Same Spot, Different Season

I was in the process of uploading the image above to my photo website when I noticed the image at the top already on my website. I’d unknowingly captured pretty much the exact same spot at Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone National Park, only during different seasons of the year (and different years, too, actually). The top image was photographed in the summer (July) of 2018. The bottom photo was captured in the winter (February) of 2022. Note the difference in algae color in the stream leading away from the lovely blue hot spring in the background. These color changes indicate temperature changes and maybe even different algae accustomed to environments of different temps. The yellow means the water is much cooler in that leading line of a stream than the water in the hot spring. And the green means that the temperature is slightly warmer than the yellow, yet still cooler than the blue of the hot spring. Science is pretty neat! Yellowstone National Park is pretty neat!

These two images are fantastic examples of my constant advice telling you to go out and photograph the same favorite spot or view area during different seasons, times of day, and weather conditions. The landscape can change markedly, depending upon these factors.

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Filed under National Parks, Photography, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as algae, Biscuit Basin, Cyanidium, February, geothermal, hot spring, hydrothermal, July, photography, summer, temperature, temperature changes, where the trails take you, winter, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

November 15, 2022 · 3:14 am

Trivia Tuesday 11-15-2022

It’s Trivia Tuesday folks!

Morning Glory Pool in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park is indeed a glory to behold, no matter what the season. But, if you’ve seen (and photographed) this hot spring in different seasons, under different lighting conditions, you’ll notice that the colors don’t look quite the same – in the cooler months, they tend to be a little less bright and a little more murky.

When this pool was first discovered it was a brilliant blue, hence the name after a beautiful morning glory flower. People throwing trash, coins, rocks and logs into this pool over the years have caused a change in the water temperature (cooling it because all that trash has piled up around the vent and reduced hot water circulation) which in turn has caused the colors to change, allowing orange- and yellow-colored bacteria to thrive within the water. Add to that the subfreezing temps of the winter season (when this photo was captured), which in turn cool the surface water of the hot spring, and you get a murky look like you see here. It’s still a beautiful little spring, but the change in colors is mainly due to the extreme short-sightednes of humans. Sigh.

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Filed under Geology, National Parks, Trivia Tuesday, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as 23mm, fujifilmgfx100s, geology, gfx100s, hydrothermal, medium format, morning glory pool, photography, prime lens, Trivia Tuesday, upper geyser basin, where the trails take you, wide-angle, winter, Yellowstone National Park

April 9, 2022 · 6:16 am

Red Spouter Is A Great Example Of Cool Geology

*Red Spouter fumerole at Fountain Paint Pots, Yellowstone National Park during summer 2018*

*A close-up view of Red Spouter as a fumerole during summer 2018*

*Red Spouter as a hot spring (or really wet mud pot – take your pick) in the winter (February) of 2022*

Geology is such a cool science. I have degrees in geology (which meant, at the time, diddly squat in terms of getting a job, but it was a cool branch of science to study, anyway). Yellowstone National Park is a great place to see geology, past and present. Take Red Spouter, for example.

Before August 1959, Red Spouter did not even exist. In its place was a small grassy hill in the Fountain Paint Pots area. Then, on August 17, 1959, the Hebgen Lake earthquake occurred about 25 miles northwest of Fountain Paint Pots with a magnitude of 7.3. It was quite a shaker and “rippled through Yellowstone,” creating Red Spouter.

The interesting thing about Red Spouter is, depending upon the season, it can be a hot spring, a mudpot, or a fumerole. Back in the summer of 2018, as I was moving from TX to central WA, I stopped for a brief visit to Yellowstone. At the time I explored the Fountain Paint Pots area, Red Spouter was a fumerole (steam vent). During my recent February 2022 visit, I toured the same area while on a snowcoach trip, and Red Spouter was a splashing, muddy red, hot spring (well, maybe you’d call it a mud pot, although it seemed really watery to me).

Why is this? Well, it all depends upon the water table just beneath the surface. If the water table is high, like when snow melts and in the spring, then it’s either a splashing hot spring or a bubbling mudpot. If the water table is low, which it can be during the height of a dry summer (and it’s pretty dry out in Yellowstone, anyway), then Red Spouter is a steam vent.

Geology is cool, and it’s even cooler when you can get nicely-composed photos of that geology, right?

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Filed under Geology, National Parks, Photography, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as Fountain Paint Pots, fumerole, geology, hot spring, mud pot, National Park, photography, Red Spouter, summer, where the trails take you, winter, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

March 27, 2022 · 7:09 am

The Yin And Yang Of Castle Geyser In Yellowstone National Park

Back in 2021, I wrote an article for the National Parks Traveler about finding the yin and yang of an image.

To read that article, click on the image above.

In such images, you’ll see a sort of half-and-half of color, or light, or texture, or something else that engenders the thought of yin/yang: “two complimentary forces making up all aspects and phenomena of life.”

To be honest, I don’t always look for that. It just sort of comes up accidentally, so that when I edit the image on my computer, I only then notice those “two complimentary forces.” Seems that when I look for yin/yang, I don’t find it, but it pops up when I am least expecting it. Sort of like everything else in life, I suppose.

Anyway, it was a cold, very steamy winter morning walking along the snow-and-ice-covered boardwalk looking toward Castle Geyser. I was trying to suss out whether it had already erupted (possible), was in its eruptive stage (no), or was simply steaming heavily due to the frigid temp of the morning (most likely). It was past 9:00 a.m. Mountain Time. The sun had moved over to the right side of the image, out of the composition, shining a yellowish light onto the right side of the image, while the left side was still sort of in a blue shadow stage.

Moral of the story is that you can look and look for something – like yin/yang – and not find it until it pops up on its own, after the fact – like after you’ve pushed down on the shutter button.

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Filed under National Parks, Photography, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as Castle Geyser, complementary forces, duality, geyser, morning, National Park, photography, where the trails take you, winter, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park, yin and yang, yinyang

March 26, 2022 · 5:46 am

Alien Crash Site? Or Just A Little Hot Spring At Upper Geyser Basin?

This is just a close shot of a very small hot spring (maybe 3 feet in diameter, including the melted ground around it) I saw while walking on the boardwalks at Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park one freezing February morning. It was a pretty thing, all bright and distinct against the white snow, and it reminded me of a favorite old 1950’s sci fi movie I watch all the time on my iPad when traveling (I listen to movies while editing photos). Anybody ever seen “The Thing From Another World?” Not the one with Kurt Russell, but the 1951 black-and-white version? To me, that’s a classic. The timing and overlapping of the dialog, the whole black-and-white scenario. I love it. Oh, the special effects are laughable, but I still like it way better than the 1982 film. Maybe it’s an age thing, but to me, the old movies are classics and always will be.

Anyway, where is this going, you may ask? Well, in the 1951 version, at one point, the plane with the scientists and the Airforce personnel are flying over the alien’s frozen-over crash spot, and it looks exactly like this little hot spring’s configuration right here. As a matter of fact, when I spotted this thermal spring, it was the first thing that popped into my head.

So, sometimes, you may photograph the things you see because they remind you of something else, right?

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Filed under Geology, National Parks, Photography, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as a7r4, a7rIV, black-and-white movie, February, hot spring, mirrorless, National Park, old movie, photography, sci fi, Sony, Sony Alpha, thermal spring, upper geyser basin, where the trails take you, winter, Yellowstone National Park

March 25, 2022 · 4:15 am

A Good Photo Should Evoke An Emotion, Feeling, Or Memory

*Cold And Windswept, Yellowstone National Park*

I had driven along the length of the Lamar Valley, then the road curved and headed more northerly, toward Cooke City. I’d already stopped and photographed Soda Butte (you can see it way in the distance a little left of center of this image), but decided to pull over again for a more wide-angle landscape.

Now, this image is nothing spectacular, although I think it’s pretty enough, and I (of course) like it. This image is more of an example of how a photograph can (and should) evoke some sort of emotion, memory, or feeling. That’s the hallmark of a good image, actually. Doesn’t have to be stunning to do that. When I look at this shot, I feel downright cold because I remember just how cold it was that day. I see the dry powder snow blown across the road by the freezing wind that chapped my cold hands. The day had a blue cast to it because it wasn’t a very bright day. The sun was hidden above angry clouds that turned into a winter snow storm later in the evening. The mountains were blue because they usually look blue in winter photos, don’t they? This shot shows that it’s a frigid winter in Yellowstone.

Scene shot with a Sony a7riv (a7r4) and Sony 24-105mm lens.

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Filed under National Parks, Photography, Sony Alpha a7r IV, Yellowstone National Park

Tagged as 24-105mm, a7r4, a7rIV, Alpha, cold, evoking a feeling, February, freezing, Lamar Valley, National Park, photography, snow, Sony, winter, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park