2-17-19: East side of Mt Rainier

Hope to shoot more of the Tieton River this morning (pronounced “titan”): expecting some sun, with better light. May go back to Hwy 410, but don’t know if I could improve on what I shot last time, except for the wide angle shots I messed up by not being set for Autofocus.

On the way @ 7:15, 30°, roads were icy. Did not snowshoe today: just pulled off everywhere I could, starting on the East end of the river access points. (Yesterday I was moving down the highway from west to east, and today I was westbound). Stopped a couple of times where the shoulder had not been plowed, but the snow soft enough to drive into:

There was significant new snow accumulation and the sun was breaking thru, making for some nice scenes. Too much contrast at times, but did OK. Did not make it all the way to where I stopped yesterday: I just felt like I needed to head for Hwy 410.

I had two scenes that I needed to re-shoot because the 11 – 14mm was set for manual focus, and I really wanted the photos from those places. I looked up the GPS coords from the photos, entered them into GAIA GPS (iPad app), then requested driving instructions: took me right to the spots. It was a good thing, too, because there had been so much snowfall since the last time I was here that the snow was well above the railing (about 5′ tall) where the top of the rail was exposed before. Today I could not see that there was even a railing or river there:

N 46 57.9971 W 121 15.2229

I scraped some of the snow off with my tripod legs, but still had to stand on the tailgate, and even on top of the camper shell at one point, just to see over the snow and get shots of the river.
Hwy 410 was especially gorgeous: the clouds were wispy and the snow deep, and covering the trees well – I’m so glad I came.

N 46 41.6178 W 120 54.6249

I post-holed seriously once, when I stepped over the end of the bridge rail: went down to my belt with my right leg. A bit of work to get out, but I sat on the snow-covered rail while I worked my leg loose. In another spot, when I leaned over the rail (covered by 2′ of snow) with my elbows in the snow, I got snow all over myself and my glasses (hanging by strap around my neck) got filled with snow. I was having such a good time I just laughed out loud whenever things like that happened.

Decided to go to the Quinalt section of Hoh Natl Rainforest: don’t remember what is there, but that there is something, and I want to check it out on the way to Cape Disappointment.

No showshoeing today, but a good bit of walking – to and from the roadside scenes and where I could park the truck. Looks like I got a bunch of great ones too!

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