Hannah and I recently travelled through Washington, Oregon and Northern California after visiting with some family friends in Puyallup, WA. With an ambitious itinerary, we camped and hiked at Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and Crater Lake, and spent some time driving south along the coast. We were last up that way in 2004, and this trip was just as exciting as the first. Mountains, glaciers, volcanos, lakes, and redwoods – all unspeakably beautiful. So much so that I can only provide photographs to count as something resembling an interpretation of nature’s resonance with me.

I brought a new 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR lens for my D700 so I could carry one lens with more range than my usual 50mm fixed lens, and I’m fairly pleased with the versatility it provided, especially for the longer day hikes we did. Of course I would have liked more time to use a tripod instead of shooting at higher ISO in the woods, but we only had a limited amount of time in each location, so that we could visit so much. It would be nice to slow down more next time, but I say that every time we travel. I also wanted to blog the trip before we started, and quickly realized I can’t work that way, at least not yet. It’s enough already to camp and hike and shoot. To edit and post from the field, especially with no internet connection most of the time, seemed too much. Maybe next time.

My current workflow after shooting is:
1) Dump photos to Lightroom
2) Pick good shots
3) Pick favorites
4) Edit for white balance, contrast, crop, etc.
5) Convert specific shots to B&W
6) Pick favorite favorites
7) Limit to about 10-20 to post

This takes forever, because I’m slow. So here, a month after they were taken, is the first installment of shots. These were taken during a hike to Summerland, at Mount Rainier National Park. The two days we camped at Mount Rainier it was very foggy and we could not see the mountain at all. The hike was 8.5 miles, from about 4000 ft elevation to 6000 ft. When we arrived at Summerland, the flowers were everywhere, along with the marmots. Streams flowed quietly, and the fog rolled in through the hills.