Nooksack River

I too a couple days to drive north to see Mt. Baker. I stayed in a condo in the small settlement of Glacier. The condo is located right alongside the North Fork of the Nooksack River.

Taking photos in the forest is always a challenge since the dynamic range required to get both the shadows and the highlights included is very wide. I handle this with HDR. But, of course, it is fun and visually pleasing to have a long exposure to smooth the water a bit. So, to get the best of both worlds, I made a series of images with exposure time ranging from 15 to 60 seconds. This gave more than enough (too much?) smoothing to the water and a wide range of exposures to work with. The result is above.



In other directions, getting the exposure right was easier. the snowmelt is really flowing fast here.

Looking upstream (to the east, more or less) we see what appears to be a near vertical mountain standing next to us. My elevation is roughly 1000 ft. The mountain here is in excess of 3500 ft.

The trail along the river is very reminiscent of Australian rainforests. There are lots of mosses and ferns here to soften the trees and rocks (at least visually if not literally). Even though nearly every plant is different from those we saw in Australia, the feel of the forest is quite similar.

I don't know enough about the history of the area to know if this an old-growth forest. In any case, there is are plenty of trees that have fallen to supply food for the insects, birds, and the next generation of trees.

In places, the mosses that grow on the trees have the appearance of some sort of wild spider web. If such a thing were really part of a spider web, it would naturally only exist in Australia, so of course these are just plants.