Fall around Washington - short road trip...

[sulhan]

Hi Pals...

Heres a short photo series on my exploration of this new part of the US. Its been about a year plus that I have not visite land of Uncle Sam. Previosly, I frequent the coasts of California and the bay area and now is a new opportunity to explore the Beauty of Gods...creation. The volcanoe region around the Washington area.

I got up on this Saturay morning at around 4.30am....with the help of my biological clock gone wrong from the jet-lag. Well, almost over. As the weather has been on the wet-side for the past week. Its been raining and the temperature was 9 degrees C. when I stepped out of my room into the car to go for a ride along highway 84 East. Why East? Well...the the chain of mountains along the vancouver washington areal that runs parallel to the west coast of the USA form wall of high elevation.

Clouds that comes from the sea will meet warm fronts on the lee-ward side of these mountains and resulting in rain...rain...rain!! I have been wearing wet-cold snickers for the past week. SO from a collegue's tips who is a local living here in Vancouver...he showe me the map an pointed out the wee-ward region of the mountians. Its around the region after Rufus. Wanting to get some SUN!!! I hit the roads and started off the long U-turn Journey at about 5.30am. It was a rainy...rainy...rainy drive for the next 1.5hrs first leg fo the ride. Driving in the dark, cold and rainy morning.

My first stop was at a truck rest-point where i took a short break.






You can see the amount of clouds passing by in the short 10 minutes between the two photos. It was soo cold out here that i had a thumb squirshed between my tripod legs while setting-up. It caused a 1cm blood clot on the front of my left thumb. The cold helpe to "cold compress it though!!!".

I continued the journey as the sun was rising and manage to pull over to catch a shot of the silhoutte of the pine trees.



I continued the drive and did not have good opportunity to stop to take any shots for the next two hours of drive as the rain kept falling and falling. It was after I arrived near Sherman county that the clouds starts clearing and blue sky welcomed me. Not only blue sky, the high alpine mountains is gone.....totally replaced by dry arrid and grassy flatland. A great change in the environment just along the same road.



I drove up to Arlington region and then stopped over for a short break and enjoy the Sun!! It was really grealt to see the sun after a week here in Vancouver.

I drove and stopped over at one fo the loout points over seeing the columbia passing thorugh Arlington. See the dry ground and rocks in the foreground. In the background is the dry mountian chainsof the north part across the columbia river.



Having achieve my goal to gat some Sun...I then decided to head back west back towards Portland, to go back into the Columbia Gorge region. Hopefully to catch some shots of the colurful trees along the river.

Continued...

[sulhan]

I drove and entered back into the Columbia Gorge region and stopped to check out the river area. I found a point that is good enough to catch a straight region of the river for a pano shot...an I manage to get this.



The hills across the river is colourful with different ground composition. Also you can see that there are now patches of vegetation appearing on the hills as I entered back into the forest regions called Multnomah County. Here you can find a number of waterfalls and one of the most visited ones is called Multnomah Falls. You can do a search on this waterfall and read some interesting history about it. It has an arch bridge on the mid point of the falls.



The Multnomah Falls shot taken above was really a tough shot to take. Why? Okay let me share with you the obstacle that i had to go through.
- Rain - I arrived at Multnomah slightly after lunchtime and the rain is still falling....falling...on me. So I decided to let the time pass for another hour and went to a nice trout lunch. Hoping for the rain to stop. Yes it did!!! Right after i finished my Lunch....the rain stopped and as I stepped out of the eatery...it started to rain again!!!
- Umbrella - Well, figuring that I may not have any means of preventing the rain, I decided to go to the gift shop and buy an umbrella for myself. No way am I going to take photo in the rain wiht my gear!!! Went to the gift shop, made four complete rouns manuovering through the people in the shop and found nothing....no umbrella.
- Thank God ... they loan out umbrellas free - I visited the Visitor Info Center just next door to thi gift shop and asked the ranger if they would have any unbrellas on loan by chance. The lady pointed me to wards the wall behind me......hahah it reads "LOANER UMBRELLAS". Its Free!!...You can just grab them, use it and return it back to them after using. Yahoo!!!

I took the umberella and went back to my car and tok my camera and tripod and headed for the falls. It was still raining...quite heavily when I arrived at the foot of the falls. Since it was a tourist spot. Well, I had to wait patiently for the following to clear:
- tourist in the forefrint for me to deploy my tripod
- tourist to clear from the arch bridge (they were wearing colourful umbrella an rain coats...that my have spoiled the shot.
- Splashing mist form the waterfalls from the strong valley winds.
- And of course the rain.

After a long forty five minutes standing(I cant sit on the wet benches...my newly bought levi's would have been soaked)....it all paid off. I managed to setup the euipment while doing a balancing act with the umbrella held between my face and neck.....you can imagine this i hope. Well, no chance to do a proper longer exposure shot with the ND-gra filters as the long duration will have had water droplets sprinkled all over the front.

I had in total 5 times wipng the front of the lens. Well all this hardwork paid off. I guess, with some planning and proper handling fo your euipment and also some patience will surely get tyou the shot you wanted.

Happy form this part of the trip....I then, packed my gear up, returned the umbrella to the rangers and got ready to head back to Portland. Hah....I also got a Ranger stamp of the Multnomah Falls into my passport!!!



Happy that I manage to get a shot of the waterfall inspite of the rain....I then hit the roads and headed back to Vancouver...



With the leaves on the trees red and yellow everywhere....everyone is now getting ready for winter!!!!

Well...thats the end of this short photo essay....and thanks for spending time to check it out....

rgds,
Sulhan

[asterixsg]

Lovely

Interesting read of how you managed the photo of the waterfall

Bro, these are the things we are gonna remember even when we grow old (and not the frustrating 90 minutes spent on CTE coming to work...)

Well done. Look forward to some winter landscapes...

[graphicz]

lovely. love the colours and thanks for sharing your great experience

[hobbes187]

Wow nice... How cold will it get in winter? I'm going to Washington end dec...

[cheeliang500]

Amazing photos.... very nice.

[psychobiologist]

oh dangg.. you make me wanna go back to the states now

[chegr]

Sweet pics.
I love the scenery in autumn with the leaves changing colors.