July 4, 2005
Mason Lake
On Saturday, I went hiking up to Mason Lake, which is on the other side of Snoqualmie Pass from Seattle (I think). It was rainy on the hike up, so I kept my camera safely tucked away inside its Ziploc waterproofing. Unfortunately, that means you miss out on seeing the wonderful views of the forest when we took the wrong path. Our guide (the fisherman) said that the path we wanted to take was a bit overgrown. We left the main trail after a short while and headed up his path. It was indeed overgrown at first, but as we went straight up the side of the mountain, it cleared up, eventually leaving us in a rich red and green world of cedars and moss. Every step felt not like dirt or rock, but centuries of decaying wood underfoot. It was something I never would have done alone. It was magical. And exhausting. The outside tendons or muscles on the upper back sides of both my knees are still a bit sore.
Things cleared up enough at the top for some shots at the lake. We found the main path and took that route down past the alpine wildflowers.
(An apology about the reds. Either iPhoto doesn't like RAW format reds, or my Olympus is putting out way too strong a signal in that channel. The detail is all there, but I can't mute the reds alone with the software I have, so some of my flower shots will have to be a bit desaturated until I figure out how to fix that problem.)
Posted by jonhanneman at July 4, 2005 5:45 PM | TrackBack