White Crane Photography

Last weekend I joined a group on an overnight backpacking trip to Blanca Lake. Since I wrote about it on my previous trip here, I’ll keep this post a little bit briefer.

This time around, when we reached the lake, it was pretty crowded. The choice camping spots above the lake were already occupied, so we continued onward, and crossed the small outlet stream. The camp site there was secluded and peaceful, so we hunkered down there for the night.

The lake fogged over as the sun set, so we couldn’t see many stars. It was still cloudy in the morning, so while the sun rose I watched the light play over the clouds through small gaps here and there. I also watched as the mist flowed up from the valley and poured into the lake, lowering the fog almost to the lake’s surface.

During a period of calm, I caught this smooth reflection of the driftwood on the lake. Although it wasn’t the sort of shot I had in mind when I got out of bed, I liked the feeling of the distant ridge barely emerging from the clouds above the lake.

During a Sierra Club trip in late June, I went with a small group of hikers on a trip to Cowiche Canyon, in Yakima. Cowiche Canyon is a Rails to Trails conversion, with a creek running the length of the canyon alongside the former railroad grade. The Cowiche Canyon Conservancy has done an excellent job of restoring the habitat and establishing hiking trails through the grounds.

From the Uplands Trail along the rim of the canyon, the views are expansive, including Mount Adams on a clear day. The vegetation along the Uplands trail is desert-like, with a lot of sagebrush interspersed with various desert grasses with small flowers. On the canyon floor, along the creek, is a riparian habitat with deciduous plants, and is a good place to view wildlife.

Don’t let the scultped canyon walls distract you from the wildflower show. In spring, Cowiche Canyon shows off quite a display of wildflowers, like this green-belted mariposa lily (Calochortus macrocarpus).

Photographing flowers can be challenging, especially when you do it with a 4×5 in a breezy locale like this one. I was fortunate enough to catch a break in the breeze to get this shot, particularly since there was a small insect that I have not been able to identify on one of the sepals. In order to have a chance at getting a sharp image, I opened up the aperture to f/22, and took advantage of the fact that the day was bright, with the sun out and a mostly blue sky. Even so, getting a shot with this magnification is not easy — this is slightly larger than life-sized, which means that I had to open up an extra stop in order to compensate for bellows draw.

All told, the shot took me nearly 40 minutes, including only around 15 minutes of waiting for the breeze to calm down long enough to get the shot.

This video is worth watching — and sharing. It’s not at all cheerful, but it’s honest.

The image above is certainly more cheerful — it’s a view of Glacier Peak from the ridge above Blanca Lake.

On a beautiful July 4th weekend, I took a trip up to Crystal Lake, Mount Rainier National Park, with a friend. Although the snow at lower Crystal Lake was almost completely melted off, the upper lake was still frozen over and surrounded by snow. The reflections in the melting snow atop the lake made a good foreground for this shot.

It was hard to get the reflections just right, because I was standing just about at the edge of the lake (which was hard to find under the snow), and I ended up shooting from a fairly high angle in order to shoot over the reeds in the foreground.

The combination of black basalt, snow, and pines against a cloudless sky made the scene almost completely monochromatic to begin with, so I used Ilford Delta to get this black and white image.

Over the weekend, I led my first Sierra Club hike for the Club’s 2nd Hike-a-Thon. The hike I lead was to Blanca Lake, in the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness.

The hike begins with a brisk walk through a second growth forest, until a short distance past the Wild Sky Wilderness boundary. From there, the switchbacks begin, grueling and relentless.

We split the group into two, with co-lead David Porter taking the faster group, and I the slower; the three young ladies in my group had never hiked before, and we were concerned that they would not make it to the lake.

They didn’t give up.

Three and a half miles in, we reached the snow-covered ridge above the tiny upper lake. Torn between watching our footing and gazing at majestic Glacier Peak, we scrambled and slid down the snowy hillside, pausing for lunch on a log above the small lake.

From there we descended 600 feet to the cirque, containing the lake. After all the toil, we finally got to see beautiful Blanca Lake.

We made it. In spite of the steep climb, inexperience, and inappropriate gear (Shirley was in tennis shoes, not ideal for snow), we made it.

A few of us descended to the lake shore to get some water, the rest of the group waiting up on the bluff above. David, having sent his group onward, returned to begin the trip back with us.

After too short a pause to enjoy the beauty of the cirque, with the collection of waterfalls coursing into the lake, we began the trip back up to the ridge. Climbing the snowbank was interesting, especially for the beginners who were not confident about their ability to slog through the snow without slipping. In the top picture, Marya and Darian are helping Shirley complete the ascent, while I paused to photograph it. I don’t normally carry my digital SLR when hiking these days, but this is one time I’m glad that I did.

On the way back, Shirley commented that this was the most worthwhile thing that she’d ever done.

After carrying a 65-pound pack all the way from the Snow Lakes Trailhead to the top of Asgard Pass and back (30 miles round trip, 7000 feet of elevation change from trailhead to summit), I started looking at ways to lighten my backpack.

The first thing to go was the Nikon D300. With it and a fairly basic 3-lens kit (28mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4, 105mm f/2.8 VR macro) and a teleconverter, it ended up weighing almost as much as my 4×5 with its 3-lens setup (80mm f/4.5, 135mm f/5.6, and 300mm f/8) and 4 cut-sheet film holders.

Next I started working on the shelter… I carried a 3-pound, 2-person tent, a Big Agnes Seedhouse SL2, which doesn’t much of a vestibule. Now I’m using the setup shown here; a Grace Duo from Mountain Laurel Designs, and a Serenity net tent from the same.

The combined weight of the entire setup is around 18 ounces, and it’s surprisingly comfortable. Having the sides up so high isn’t required, but when you’re in a warm desert clime, the breeze feels rather nice.

The tarp is shaped, with Catenary curves along its ridgeline and edges. It’s designed to pitch in an A-frame shape like the one shown here, and it only took around 10 minutes to get a decent pitch, which isn’t bad given that it’s my second attempt at pitching it. The odd fabric is in large part the secret to its light weight. It’s made of a fabric called Cuben, which is very popular with sailmakers because of its high strength and low weight, plus its complete lack of elasticity. As far as shelters go, it also has the advantage of being entirely water and windproof if you pitch it properly, and since this model has a taped ridgeline rather than stitched, it doesn’t even require seam-sealing.

The road curved sinuously through this aspen grove, so I asked Bailey to walk out toward the curve while I framed the shot. Even though it was mid-day, the light was pretty soft under all those trees, so I didn’t need to worry about dynamic range. The hardest part about this shot was communication, though. Bailey was pretty far away from me, and the road wasn’t far from the Rapid River, so we wouldn’t hear each other over its roar. We had to make do with gestures and a bit of luck

I have a black and white version of this image shot on 4×5, that I will post after I get the scanned image cleaned up to my satisfaction. I also learned that I am probably not loading my cut-sheet film holders correctly, leading to my chromes being underexposed by what looks like 3-4 stops, and also showing some severe (red) color casts, not at all typical for Astia. So I’ll fix that before I shoot again

This weekend I’ll be camping in Yakima, so I’ll be trying out my new camping gear; I’ve only pitched my catenary tarp once, and it was a pretty lousy pitch. Hopefully, I’ll get a better pitch out of this time… because the following weekend it’s going to be my shelter for a trip from Rainy Pass through Cutthroat Pass, and out to the Pasayten Wilderness. There should be plenty of photo opportunities on that trip!

For anyone interested in an easy, pretty desert hike, I’m going to be leading a photo safari in Cowiche Canyon on Sunday (info here).

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a protest organized by Sierra Club member Kit McGurn. We set up signs along 45th Street, on the overpass above I-5 just as rush hour began.

We were protesting against oil drilling. We got quite a few compliments, as well as a lot of honks and waves from passersby.

I walked along Cannon Beach while the sun dipped toward the horizon. Since I was shooting with the 4×5, I was a little bit too late to catch the sun partially hidden by a sea stack, so instead I decided to experiment with silhouetting them against the setting sun. I was pretty pleased with the result.