Month: September 2014
Hi
Of course having no sleep is good for you, what are you talking about?
So, on a bright early Sunday morning, I decided to wake up at 6AM and head over to Kerry Park – see the sunrise. Half-asleep, with my mind set on a hot coffee waking me up, I managed to get there around 6:30AM. And while I was expecting 1-2 people with cameras … there were like 30 of them.
In any case, people are not why I’m here, so let’s try to get some photos.
Why sunrise? There is a concept in photography called the Golden Hour (or the Magic Hour) – it states that at sunrise and sunset, the colors given out by the sun are warmer and with a shade of red / pink. Why? The angle of the sun relative to the Earth (very low) means that light travels more through the atmosphere (therefore, the light scatters more so you have indirect light). The atmosphere filters out the blue color, resulting in more red. At noon, the reverse is true – the rays of the sun travel at a straight angle and therefore, there is less scattering and more blue sky.
So we have Seattle, in an orange / pink / red “shirt”, with Rainier barely visible in the background.
The morning dew and fog helps at this time as well, as you can see below (this is fog on top of Lake Washington, looking towards Bellevue and the Cascades).
The city is mostly sound asleep, so no background noise, just the lonely buildings.
And why golden? Look below.
And now with a broader view towards the Cascades and East Side.
Slowly, but surely – the sun starts rising, the orange starts fading and turning to just yellow.
Good morning, happy people, the first rays of light hit an apartment building. We can also see the Ferry’s wheel and the Centurylink field in the background and KeyArena in the lower left
The first rays of light start hitting places close to us as well.
Once the sun is out, the pictures start looking more and more bland, so decided to head back home. On the way back, I stopped by this blueberry farm – where the fog was playing a cool game.
And that guy on the trail …
Over and out,
/cd
Blanca Lake is one of the cooler, “in this for the end” hikes. It takes a while to climb up and down to the lake from the parking lot, but the lake… This is a hike that I intend to do again and possibly spend more time around the end of the hike, at the lake. Rough estimates for this hike: about 7h both ways, with 1h to spend at the actual lake. The hike is made of 3 portions: a long portion of abrupt switchbacks through the forest followed by a plateau with small ups and downs and an abrupt descent to the lake. All in all, a nice hike. More pictures, less words.
Here we are about 1h into the hike. Spirits still up.
After about 2 more hours of “are we there yet?”, short breaks for water and physical wear-out, we got to see this:
I had seen pictures of the lake … but this looks amazing!
Small glimpses of it.
Until we got to the edge of the lake. The water looks amazing, even though I would not drink it 🙂
The “source” of the lake is this glacier melting during the summer.
And finally, proof that I was there 🙂
On the way back, we stopped for a bit (even though the hike was a lot easier on the way down – go figure) to admire the northern view towards Mount Baker.
Over and out,
/cd