Out Past Sultan, Toward Lake Spada

Our weekly drive takes us east into the woods north and east of the settlement of Sultan. The Sultan Basin road takes us out to Lake Spada. Of course, we can't actually get to the lake because it is on national park property and it is closed for the apocalypse. However, along the road are some interesting places to stop and take a few images.



Near the end of the road, ast least while we cannot continue onward to the lake, is a pond of very still water and next to it is this remaining patch of snow. Snow's on the ground and I'm getting eaten by mosquitos! What kind of place is this? These first images are all taken with the 100-400mm lens on the X-H1 so I stood beside the car to get these. No chance that I was going to slide and fall in the water.

This tree without foliage ... dead? Perhaps...is sporting quite a show of moss. Like an old man with his hair getting too long, it is drooping in ways that are not showing the best the tree has to offer. However, I may be getting a bit too autobiographical here.

This (really) dead tree in the pond is poking its head(?) out of the water and looking more like a crocodile than I'm entirely comfortable with.

At another spot, the Olney creek runs along the road and I climbed down the embankment to get a few shots closer to the water. For the rest of the photos today, I used the GFX-50R and the 32-64mm lens.

After a short scramble, I found a the end of a log that offered some mystery with the rotted, dark interior.

But the stream is the most interesting feature of this stop. It makes about a 75 degree turn pretty sharply here enabling me to stand on the (very rocky, bouldery) shore and look downstream.

A walk around the tripod and look back toward where I was standing, reveals the other end of the large stump I had just photographed. You can see that the stones come in all sizes, some of which are pretty large.

After shifting a few feet, I could get a better vantage of the creek. This time I believe I got the length of the exposure about right. With a little dodging and burning, I am able to lead your eye along with the flow of water into the forest.

Looking more nearly upstream, we see a creamy foam of water rushing down the hill. Today was a good day for this type of photography...overcast. This keeps the light even and prevents the white water from being totally overexposed.

Overexposed is what I was, however. I thought there might be a landing strip near me with all the B52's flying around and the kamikazes making straffing runs at my head and hands. Holy moly! These skeeters are big!!

After a scramble back up the road side to safety, we headed off down the road.

Lots of people were out today for a hike, mostly. We did pass some who were out beside the road enjoying some target practice. It is a more than a little disconcerting to drive past a spot with 3-4 people and the sounds of gunfire right next to the road. Welcome to Washington, I guess.