Flowers at Tom McCall Point

My last post was a landscape photograph from the hike at Rowena overlook hike on the Tom McCall preserve in Oregon. These photographs showcase flowers that I saw on the hike. I really enjoyed all of the purples and blues in the flowers that were blooming.

When I was there last I got to see all of the yellow flowers at their peek which was also magnificent. I hope you enjoy my shots and have a great week!

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Burnt trees and flowers at Tom McCall Hike

For mothers day my mom and I took our cameras out to Tom McCall Point hike at Rowena overlook and spent the afternoon photographing the view and wild flowers of this beautiful Oregon hike.

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It looks like there was a fire since I had been there last and there was this beautiful view of these burnt trees surrounded by the wildflowers of spring. These were my favorite photographs from the day.

Photographs of Family Trip to Smith Rock

Two weeks ago I shared a couple of my favorite photographs from the short trip my family took to Smith Rock in September and I have a few more photographs that show more what it was like to be visiting that magnificent Oregon State park. We ended up doing quite a long loop that was a bit much for my kids. I ended up giving each of them turns on my back for the last mile or two.

It was really neat to see the climbers in action, especially the ones on Monkey Face which is almost unfathomable to me. We got to watch three people come down off the top of it. The next most facinating thing was watching someone tight rope walk across a giant cliff to another cliff, it really made me worry that person would fall, so much so that I did not even want to photograph it.

The blue sky was quite vibrant this day which was way in my initial post I was hesitant to make the photographs black and whiye, even though I really like the end result.

Smith Rock Photographs in Black and White

In September I traveled to the Bend area with my kids and my Mom. We had the opportunity to stay at Eagle Crest Resort for the weekend. The resort itself had wonderful amenities, but of course we wanted to make it out to see Smith Rock which is a destination for rock climbers and hikers traveling to Eastern Oregon. The sheer cliffs are quite dramatic and create a fun photography destination as well. These two photographs I decided to try out in black and white and ended up really liking them even though they lose the blue sky and orange rock color.

We were there right in the middle of the day so contrast was really high and although it was sunny, since it was September, it was a quite cool day. I look forward to sharing some photographs of us at the top of those cliffs and of a climber descending from Monkey Rock, which was hard to believe (to me) they could ascend in the first place. 🙂

Photography of Mount Rainier Travel

This last July I was able to travel with my immediate and some of my extended family up north of Vancouver, Washington to Mount Rainier National Park to go on a summer camping vacation. We are able to take a small family trip like this almost every summer. We usually end up camping for half a week to a week and go on hikes, play in streams, and otherwise hang out with nature, it is a great way to get to know the state and national parks in our area.

This year I really wanted to venture out to a national park, since the last one I went to was in Maine in 2013 during the government shutdown and so we did not even get to camp there, just explore (which was beautiful too, there is a great stone beach with smooth rocks tumbled naturally from the ocean waves). This year we chose to head north of Portland, Oregon to Mount Rainier which is also just south of Seattle, Washington.

There were gorgeous hikes, the ranger at White River campsite was really helpful, and great with the kids, plus there are kids programs at the main visitors centers where the kids can earn a junior ranger badge by learning about the park and the animals that live in it. Here are a few of my favorite views from the stay and my happy place. 🙂

I also decided to play a bit with photoshop coloring and came up with this one:

Close Up at Mt. Rainier National Park

I have been really lucky that most years an Aunt and Uncle of mine come from New York out to Oregon to go to the Oregon Country Fair and arrive in time for my birthday most times. We almost always take their visit as an opportunity to head out and go camping in either Oregon or Washington for a few days. This years was no different, except that I was graced with the presence of another one my aunts which was wonderful! This year we drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington.

We found a great camp site at the White River Camp grounds in Mt. Rainier National Park and then took off to do a short hike before dark. This was a trip where I had my kids along and hiking was enjoyable, but required a bit of, let’s say encouragement from all of the adults to make it past the parking lot. However, I did manage to get a few photographs of various things while on the trip and so for this weeks photography challenge of close up, I am sharing from these photographs.

It was beautiful and there were quite a few wildflowers still hanging around, although in comparison to most other years they were actually very early, we had apparently missed the huge show of flowers by at least a week.

The flowers of course bring out the pollinators and so we got to see several different butterflies however this was the only on I captured staying still.

Of course there is nothing quite like being up close to a beautiful mountain, although they tend to photograph better from a bit further back in my opinion. This was taken at Sunrise on the hike up to frozen lake, which was in no way frozen this trip.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Achievement

A few weeks ago, during one of the first rain storms of the fall, I went to the Oregon coast with a good friend. We really wanted to find a hike to go on that neither one of us had done before.

Of course one of my personal favorite coastal hikes is Cascade Head, but we had both done that one the last time were at the beach staying in Neskowin, so we needed something new. We did some internet research and came upon a hike at Road’s End and decided it sounded like a good one to try.

We had trouble right from the start, the beginning of the trail was not so easy to find. We did see a couple of resident Road’s End hikers walking up a side street and stopped to ask them for directions. They obliged very kindly and pointed us further up the road.

We did make it to the trail head and tried our very best to follow their directions which were something like this. When you see the gravel hill it will look like you are not on a trail because it has not been kept up very well. Just stay to the right and you will be on the trail.

So we made it to a definite gravel hill, but things got a little tricky at that point and staying to the right would have meant climbing what looked like a rock slide, straight up the side of a vertical cliff. We figured our guides must have meant something a little different and finally decided on where the path must be and started making our way through the forest and then up the side of a grassy hill.

We finally made it to the top!

Road’s End did have a great view so I stopped to take a photograph in the rain, and enjoy the view, before we decided to hike back the way we came because we could not tell where the path continued.

Upon arriving back and the beginning of the trail we realized there was a fork in the path almost immediately that for some reason we had not seen when beginning our adventure. We realized almost immediately this had been the path to the right we should have taken. Oops! We had just hiked up the side of this large hill, through the forest, NOT on the trail.

If you want to join the WordPress Photography Challenge click here. 🙂

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fray

While on my lovely hike at Silver Creek Falls I happened upon this very large spider. It was sitting very currently on its web, which was a bit frayed from the bug that must have landed a while before and was now in the grips of this spider.

You can see the red from the bug it caught right at the center of the spider.

I think above you can really see how big this spider is.

You too can join in the challenge, go to the Daily Post.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Zig Zag

Before heading out to New York at the beginning of the month, I went on a nice hike with some friends to a personal favorite, Oregon’s Silver Creek Falls. This switch back seemed to fit the bill for the theme zig zag.

I did not have time to post these before my trip so I figured late is better than never.

Along with some hills that require a switch back to traverse are done beautiful waterfalls that the trail travels under.

This is on my list of the wonders of Oregon, I highly recommend it.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Relic

Last summer my family and I traveled to the Washington coast to Cape Disappointment. We saw relics of a military fort at Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.

Check out the view from the end of this hike!

We also saw some amazing and majestic trees which are relics from another time.

Overall this was not a disappointing place. 🙂

You too can join the weekly photography challenge, click the link. 🙂