Tag: foliage

Enchantment Lakes [19]

Day 5. Descent

Our 5 day trip to Enchantment Lakes was over. It was time to go back home. After photographing sunrise we packed up and started our descent.

What a difference the 5 days spent in Enchantment Lakes made to the outside world! When we were hiking up the trees and shrubbery around us were green. When we were hiking down we discovered that they turned all kind of bright colors: yellow, orange, red. it was a feast for our eyes.

We had a goal in site: home. So, we’ve made almost no stops on the way down. It took us more than a day to get all the way to Lake Viviane. It took us only 5 hours to come down from there.

When we got down to the parking lot I was overjoyed that I lived thru such an experience. I was screaming out of the top of my lungs with joy and happiness. What an amazing trip!

Enchantment Lakes [15]

Day 4. Midday Light

Midday light was steep and harsh with clear sky. The previous day we spent midday resting. The last day before heading back I went back to the area between Leprechaun Lake and Perfection Lake. The day before I liked the stream and a line of larch needles along it but in afternoon light it was cut in half by a shadow of a mountain on the left. So, I returned there midday to avoid any shadows. 

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It was interesting from technical perspective as I used focus point “bracketing” to get everything sharp throughout the image.

Enchantment Lakes [8]

Day 2. Lake Perfection

Our destination in Core Enchantments was Lake Perfection. That was where we planned to setup our base camp for a few nights. We were walking along the streams and lakes. Gorgeous afternoon light was making golden larches glow.

Maybe this was the hardest part of the trip. It was so beautiful around that I wanted to drop everything and start photographing. Josh and John were more practical and wanted to stick to the plan and get to the camp site first. Needless to say that once we got to the camp site, we dropped backpacks grabbed cameras and tripods and fanned out to photograph. Setting up the camp could wait till darkness falls.

Enchantment Lakes [5]

Day 2. Approaching Lower Enchantments

On our first day I still had energy to walk and there were still 2 hours till sunset but John and Josh decided to camp night out at Upper Snow Lake. The second day I learnt why.

The last mile of this hike was the toughest. It was pretty much continuous scramble up a face of a big rock. There were no flat spots big enough to setup a tent. Once we were there there were only two options: walk up or walk down. Even in day light it was easy to loose the trail, since in many cases there were no trail. At night it would be extremely hard to stay on it.

I was not used to go such steep trails. My muscles were sore from previous day hike. So, I was moving slowly, checking that my muscles would not give up on me before making each steep step. Loosing balance was not an option. It took us 3 or 4 hours to get to Lake Viviane. (In other words we would not make it before night fall the day before.)

As we climbed higher and higher we could see golden larches in the distance. Larches were glowing in sun light. Now they were not only above us; we left some below.

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The grand view of the whole valley we had been walking up so far was opening up to us.

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Enchantment Lakes [2]

Day 1. Snow Lake

Fill the bottles with water. Put up backpack on. Drink as much water as possible. First step on the trail. What an exciting moment. Next step. And next. Just keep moving.

The first day of trip it was walking most of the day. We had occasional stops for water refill from a creek, sometimes for a photo opportunity (so to speak, more likely just to catch some breath). For breakfast, lunch and whenever hungry we were we only had energy bars.

Here is a creek we took water from and one of the photo opportunities we stopped for:

This way we got to Upper Snow Lake. It was not Enchantment Lakes yet. It was at the base or a steep part of the trail to Enchantment Lakes. I still had some energy to go but my friend decided to camp. Next day I learned that it was a very wise decision.

There was a lot of shrubbery turning yellow around our camp. Once the camp was settled I grabbed my camera and started working around searching for photographs. Here is one I consider most interesting out of those:

Enchantment Lakes [1]

Prolog

Just like good wine I want to give photos from a good trip to settle in, give my mind time to relax and reflect, almost forget about them to have a fresh look before starting post-processing.

My story begins way before we actually stepped on the trail. It starts with learning that a group of photographer was planning an five day backpacking trip to Enchantment Lakes. I thought of going to that place for a while. The name itself – Enchantment Lakes – sounded so captivating waking up imagination. I even thought to do it as a day trip… well, I did not quite knew what I was up against.

I got on that group that had eight photographers in it including me. Since I knew it will be physically challenging trip I started running every day. That certainly helped me a lot of the trip.

I also started gathering all the right equipment and none of it was photography related: sleeping bag, sleeping pad, warm clothing, waterproof clothing and boots, backpack, and so on. One of the photographers – John Song – helped me a lot with selecting the right equipment since he has gone on backpacking trip to Enchantment Lakes before. Two days before the trip he inspected the content of my backpack and gave some final suggestions. (Thanks, John!)

As we were getting closer to the trip people started dropping off. Many were concerned about smoke due to wildfires raging in close vicinity of Enchantment Lakes. (Luckily it was not a problem at all. The wind was blowing smoke in direction opposite to Enchantment Lakes.) Only three people stepped on the trail. And I was one of them.

My trip to Enchantment Lakes was the most impressive experience of my life in many different ways: first time backpacking, first time hiking so high, first time visiting Enchantment Lakes, first time overcoming fear of heights.

All those stories are coming. For now I’ll leave you with this image I took at Lake Viviane in Lower Enchantments.

Enchantment Lakes

On this Monday I’m off to adventure of my lifetime. With 3 other people I’m going on a 5 day backpacking trip to Enchantment Lakes. 18 miles, 6000 ft. elevation gain, 7800 ft. above sea level at the highest point with a large backpack on my back will put to test my body and mind.

I’ve been preparing to it for the last month with hiking longish hikes and running every day but still the longest I went was 9 miles with less of elevation gain and lighter backpack. I’m very curious what 18 miles and 6000 ft. elevation gain feels like. And I’ve never been backpacking before. But the place have been intriguing me for a long time. I’ve heard it is magical. And finally I have a good company to go there.

It is going to be peak of larches golden fall foliage that Enchantment Lakes are famous for. So, I hope to come back with great photos. Ok. Maybe it should have been two sentences. I hope to come back. And with great photos. 🙂

Rhododendrons or Not?

Recently I went with a fellow photographers to photograph rhododendrons which are common on eastern hills of Olympic mountains. We were hoping for fog to have a good separation of rhododendron bushes from trees in background.

There was fog but not where we needed it. The only option left was to use shallow depth of field. My fixed 50mm lens got second life. I had not used it for a while but it was most appropriate in that case since it had the widest aperture of all my lenses.

Rhododendron
Rhododendron

The other options was to let it blend with with forest, make it part of it.

Spring Green
Spring Green

Did I mention there was fog but not where we needed it? Well, we ended up spending most of the time photographing that fog that was somewhere else:

Fog Over Lowlands
Fog Over Lowlands

Fog Over Puget Sound
Fog Over Puget Sound

Walk into Fall

This post was supposed to be about fall and beautiful foliage colors I captured last fall during my visit to my home town in Ukraine. But as I was preparing an image to include in this post the topic of the post changed because of my struggle to fit large image with lots of details in a small viewing area of a screen and make it as enjoyable as original.

Here is the image I’m talking about (you can click on the image to see it in a bigger size):

Walk into Fall
Walk into Fall

In full size it has every leaf with its unique color and details. The whole image is vibrant and lively. You practically want to follow the dirty trail covered with foliage and walk into fall. After reducing it to such small size all the colors blended together into something more or less average.

That’s just another reason I still enjoy more prints over images on a screen. Just to show what I’m talking about here are a couple of snippets at full resolution.

Foliage

Foliage