Washington – Grandeur of the North Cascades
Looking South from Sahale Peak
Sahale Mountain, one of the most popular climbs in the North Cascades, is located near Marblemount. Compared to some of it’s close neighbors, to climb Sahale is relatively simple and straight-forward. An elevation gain of 6200 feet and outstanding views of the heart of the North Cascades are sure to satisfy. Climbing Sahale is very similar to the alps in terms of weather and the quality of alpine climbing. Source: Summit Post
This was a 12 hour climb for us. Much of it was on glacier, but the most severe effort was on loose shale rock and a couple places of near-vertical rock. We chose the east approach which turned out to be more difficult than the more popular west approach. Coming back down, I asked the climber beneath me to plant my foot in a foothold because I could not see what was below the rock face I was on. I could see the valley perhaps 3,000 feet below to the east. This was a real adventure for me never having any formal rock climbing experience beforehand. There were rope-climbers around us.
Sahale Peak Climbers (me on left)
Tour of a Container Ship: North Star
 North Star |
 Loading Ramp |
 Pilot House |
Complete PhotoSet |
I was recently given a tour of a 839-foot cargo ship moored in Tacoma, Washington. This is the second-largest I had toured, the largest being the USS Missouri.
J. R. Hudson
ZEEHEAN
We were fortunate to get to tour the ZEEHAEN, a 64’ long range trawler built by Northern Marine. She is designed to cross oceans but she is small enough to cruise the inland seas of the Pacific Northwest. Her home port is Seattle, Washington.
Zeehaen is currently for sale in Seattle, WA, USA. Contact Ted Griffin at S-A-S Yachts Toll free 877-223-2023. Cell 206-817-8543. http://www.sasyachts.com
Snoqualmie Falls with a Point and Shoot Digital Camera
You can get good pictures with inexpensive cameras. Before officially switching to digital SLR photography I had a Canon Powershot digital rangefinder camera which I used for family shots. I was very pleased with the shot I got of Snoqualmie Falls. This image was processed with Picture Cooler, a clean-up utility for digital images.
Schooner – Shaw Island
Schooner Shaw Island
“Schooner Shaw Island,” was the first picture I ever took inside of the San Juan Islands of Washington. In 1974, after quitting my job at a camera store in order to temporarily become a “sailing bum,” I sailed a small sailboat from Gig Harbor in south Puget Sound up North through the San Juan Islands, then back again. After sailing in pre-summer weather in June, flirting with capsizing conditions, enduring a thunderstorm, then approaching the Shaw Island ferry landing, I took this image with a telephoto lens. I have not been able to identify the ship but it appears to be a schooner.
The telephoto lens exaggerates cumulous clouds far behind the ship. Appearing to be night, this was midday. I used a blue filter and underexposed the exposure in order to achieve the appearance of night. The camera was a Nikon “Nikkormat FTn” 35mm, the telephoto a Nikor 200mm f4 fixed focal length with Kodachrome slide film. Taken hand-held from a sailboat.
Darius Kinsey, Photographer (1869-1945): Kinsey Log House
With an amazing passion to capture life in the Pacific Northwest during an era when logging was the biggest industy in the region, Darius Kinsey gave us a storehouse of imagery to document that part of our heritage. Darius Kinsey was active as a photographer during the period 1890 to 1940. His images can be found here: Darius Kinsey images (Source: Whatcom Museum).
Mount Si – July 4th 2009
On the eastern end of the most heavily-populated county of Washington State, prominent Mount Si (pr. “Sigh”) rises roughly 4,000 feet off the valley floor of the Snoqualmie River. Named for Josiah “Uncle Si” Merritt, an early settler, Mount Si marks the beginning of the Cascade Range as seen from Interstate 90 as you travel east into the range. Its prominence evokes your attention.
Mount Si may have been the visual source of inspiration for the name Twin Peaks, a 30-episode television show that aired in the early 1990’s. Scenes from Twin Peaks and the expansive movie version, “Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me,” were filmed in a couple of small towns nearby Mount Si. Misty Snoqualmie Falls, the lodge above the falls, railroad cars at Snoqualmie, and a restaurant located in North Bend served as props in both shows. Indoor scenes were typically filmed inside a studio elsewhere.
It is a fascinating mountain. What strikes most people about Mount Si is its abrupt rocky face. I especially like photographing it in the late in the afternoon when it is fully illuminated by sunlight. This mountain has many different looks. Mount Si takes on different appearances depending upon angle of sunlight, time of year, and weather. I only began photographing Mount Si this past year or so, even though I have lived close by for more than 20 years, a testament to the abundance of subject matter the Pacific West Coast of America has to offer. Mount Si on Wikipedia. See more mountains!
Honoring a Pacific Northwest Photographer: Josef Scaylea
 Those of us who have lived in the Pacific Northwest, even if we have not known him by name, have undoubtedly seen the work of Josef Scaylea (1913-2004), perhaps the best known photographer of the region. Mr. Scalea served as chief photographer of the Seattle Times for 35 years. |
Here are the links to explore:
“Classic Northwest Photography” by Josef Scaylea at SeattleGallery.com
Rare and Fantastic Sail
J. R. sailing Clipper
Ship’s Log – 1975 – Sloop Clipper
After an uneventful morning, I found myself simply going with the motions of riding into the mid day on the deck of my small fiberglass sailboat. No work, no commitments, at least that I can think of at the moment. I was bothered by a plugged feed to the alcohol stove which make brewing coffee a little difficult. This was resolved however by dismantling the tube from a small tank using vice grip pliers. I was finally able to have my coffee.
With the mainsail up tight, I motored along the shore pondering how these people can afford the waterfront properties I see along this shore of the island. Furthermore, most of the houses seem to have no activity. Either most of them are at work in other locations, such as in Everett or Seattle, or they are sleeping in. Ten o’clock? I don’t get it.
The drone of the motor, the ensuing vibration through the hull and up through the deck and picked up through my butt, and the low cloud ceiling, all, placed me into somewhat of a numb trance. I leaned on the tiller as necessary to round the point into the wind. Wind!
I dropped off the throttle to a third power, pointed the bow into the wind and hiked forward to where the jibsail was stuffed into the bow pulpit railing. Just as soon as I got forward, the boat pointed away from the wind. This caused the mainsail to fill with wind pressure causing a bit of a heel that made me a little uncomfortable. If I fell overboard there is no one else on board to come back for me – the boat would simply sail on. I ran back to the tiller and pointed it back into the wind rounding the point.
I repeated this trip to and from the bow several times before I came up with an alternate plan. I released the main sheet, the main rope that cinches in the main sail so that when the wind catches it again, it will just release the pressure leeward and I can get on with the business of raising the jib sail. My plan worked and soon I had two sails set and I could sense the increase in hull speed. The motor was not necessary any more so I shut it down,
I sat back to relax, again just applying the right amount of pressure necessary on the tiller to maintain a good heading. My goal was to cross the straight into the next set of islands. That would be a good place to be for a couple of days while I contemplate what I am going to do with the rest of my life, or at least until next week.
Back home, if you would call it that, I have a bedroom in a bungalow that a friend is fixing up to sell. He is the son of the landlord and this is what he does. He paints and performs yard work for his dad and stays in these little houses until his dad buys another one for him to move into and clean up. His dad works for Boeing, the aircraft company in Seattle. I just got off working two years managing a small camera store and got tired of working day and night and on weekends and had enough cash to hold me over for a few months if I am careful how to spend it.
Caught up in the motion of the waves, I let my mind wander. A classic rock tune enters my head, the remembrance of a perfume someone I was once intimate with used to wear, an exotic color with an exotic name, how high can a seagull fly. Nothing in particular. I let my spine just oscillate to the predictable frequency of the waves. Some get sea legs, I get sea spine. I ponder that I am riding on top of very deep water.
Time seems to be an intangible concept for me. Cruising sailboats are not fast. I can barely see any wake behind me, but my craft and I are plying along at what would be jogging speed on land, and I’m not even breathing hard. Nor am I burning any gas. The shoreline I left is fading and the shoreline on the other side is still hardly to be seen. There is nothing to do but to settle in and hang onto the tiller making minor corrections to the heading every so often.
I suppose I should attempt to increase my awareness of my current reality. One can never know what their particular future holds, and one day this will all end and I may never be in such a situation anymore. And, this is certainly a nice situation. At least I think it is. That has got to matter greatly, but I am sort of numb to it all. Seems unreal.
Off in the distance a crack is forming in the cloud cover. Rays of sunlight angle down to the water and lightens it up with a sheen. Soon another break, and another. Multiple bunches of rays hit the water on several compass points. There is a bluff on the windward side of a distant island that is now fully illuminated by the sun. The bluff glow reddish brown and it appears to have a tuft of vegetation at its summit. A white sail balloons above the deck of another sailboat, larger than mine, just appearing out of the direction of the wind. Finally I get it. This is a beautiful day and I am alive doing something rare and fantastic!
