Tag Archives: oregon

How Stable Is This Snow?

While Mark and I were visiting Crater Lake, we saw a guy wandering down the hill to get a better shot. The only problem was that he was on the snow bank and there was no way of knowing whether the snow was on solid rock or even was stable. It didn’t seem like a good place to go and stand, even if the photo was better for it. A short while later, I was looking up at the side of a cliff and saw this snow build up on the cliff edge. This looked like just the sort of thing that could go at any time. I wondered whether the space the guy had been on was more reliable than this!

Stop At The Side Of The Road For A Mountain

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Driving down through Oregon, you have no shortage of mountains to see. There are plenty of volcanos in the state and other mountains which may or may not be volcanic. On a longer drive, you find yourself trying to work out which mountain is which. Normally they are far enough away to not make a picture worthwhile. However, as we came over a ridge and dropped down the other side, the view dead ahead was too good to ignore. I just pulled to the side of the road and grabbed a few shots. A car was pulling away as I approached so, clearly, this was not an original idea!

Portland Eagles

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The first stop on our Oregon odyssey was Portland International Airport. Aside from being a commercial airport, PDX is also home to an Air Force Reserve unit of F-15 Eagles. I have visited the base before for their open house but I have loved the F-15 from my childhood so I was hoping to see their jets in action again. They were done for the day when we arrived but the following morning we were optimistic that we would get a launch before we headed off on our further travels.

The aircraft were parked up under the shelters when we arrived but they are quite regular with their launch schedules so we were listening out for the whine of low bypass turbofans kicking in to life. We were also joined by our friend, Bill, who works locally and is familiar with what to expect. As we scanned the flight line, we noticed one of the jets had a sharks mouth painted on the front fuselage.

The airliners and freighters were busy with their operations when we finally heard the noise we had been hoping for. Sure enough, first two jets and then a third taxied out. Even better news was that one of the jets was the shark mouth jet and another was the one with unit colors painted on it. They taxied to the last chance, got checked out and then went to the departure hold.

I decided to be safe with the first jet to make sure I got a shot so I kept the shutter speed high. It was not configured with external tanks so was airborne as it passed us and tucking the gear up as it accelerated. For the second jet, I dropped the shutter speed a little to try for a more dynamic image with a blurred background. For the third, I dropped it even further. I figured it was time to get brave. High frame rates are your friend in this case and I was happy to get some acceptable shots of all three jets as they departed. With them on their way, it was time for us to depart too. Plenty more to do on this trip.

Is That A MiG 21?

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Chatting with Kev Perry, who we met in Klamath Falls, we got on to the topic of a Taiwanese F-5E Tiger II located at Corvallis Airport in Oregon. This was on our route home so we figured we would check it out. Corvallis is not a particularly busy airport and we drove around looking to see if we could find this jet. We got to the center of the airport and it involved driving past the open frontage of a large hangar. As we drove by, a look inside showed the nose of a MiG 21! This was a bonus that we hadn’t expected but it wasn’t alone! More to come.

Return To Crater Lake

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Nancy and I made a trip to Oregon many years ago and included Crater Lake as part of our itinerary. It was a beautiful spot but the only downside was that there was a lot of fire activity in the state at that time and the view across the crater was a little obscured. We could still see across but it was all a bit washed out. I have been pondering a return ever since.

Since the road trip with Mark took us down to Klamath Falls, Crater Lake was only a short distance away. One afternoon, after we had wrapped up the aviation photos for the day, we decided to make the trip to the mountain. Not only did it make the possible plan to go there when heading to Medford the following day simpler it also meant it was a weekday and the visitor count might be a little lower.

There was no traffic on the road to the mountain which made it very relaxing. It is a steady climb to get there with a steeper climb for the final section. We got to the Rim Village area pretty easily and the conditions were fantastic. The late afternoon light was really great and, while there were plenty of people around, it wasn’t crowded. We also found that the rim road was open to the north entrance along the west rim but the east rim was still closed – presumably because the snow was still blocking things. With the sun being in the west, this meant we had access to the best side.

There are plentiful pull offs along the rim road and we stopped at pretty much all of them. Each one provided a slightly different perspective on the view and it is so beautiful, you don’t get tired of having different views all of the time. (It is true that you can get a little blasé quite quickly about just how stunning it is, though.)

Mist In The Distance Along The Shore

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While the weather could be quite nice during our winter visit to Cannon Beach, the steady wind and the waves meant there was a lot of water in the air. With the length of the beach, this meant that things could look quite misty as you stared in to the distance. This look makes for quite an ethereal feel to the scene and it was something that I found appealing yet hard to capture in an image. I tried some wider shots and some tighter ones to emphasize the effect. Not sure what works better.

Geology Lessons In Stratification

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Short Sand Beach was a pretty place to hang out but it also would be great place for a geology field trip. There were some very clear strata in the rock and they were angled from the level. It appeared that the corner of the beach was in the middle of the slope of the strata with the angles opposed on either side. Low winter sun makes the shading on the strata stand out. Every time I see something like this, it reminds me of a friend from school who used to impersonate a teacher whose Welsh accent really made the words sing! You know who you are…

Patterns In The Sand

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Another repeat of a previous theme. Water flowing over the sand on a beach creates some interesting patterns. The sand on Cannon Beach included a lot of very dark grains. These made the visualization of the movement of the sand easy to do. It also allowed you to see where the water was flowing deeper or shallower which helped when walking through the water running across the beach.

Backlight For A Seastack

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During the evenings at Cannon Beach, we could see lots of lights out on the water. Fishing boats were out at work and their lights were very bright. I am not sure whether they only fish at night or not. During the day, it would be hard to spot them without the lights giving you a clue since they were generally quite far out. However, one boat was closer in than the others. It was right behind on of the sea stacks near Haystack Rock. With a lot of mist in the air, the light from the boat was diffused and provided a backlight to the rock. It wasn’t lone before the boat came out from behind the rock and the effect was lost.

Short Sand Beach

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We had a sunny, if chilly, day while down in Oregon. We headed south of Cannon Beach to Oswald West State Park. There was an easy trail down to a bay with a sandy beach, predictably named Short Sand Beach! The parking lot was very icy and we wondered whether the trail would be okay but, once you were on the gravel, it was a good surface. Coming out of the trees on to the beach, was a lovely entry. You couldn’t see much until you got there and it was a gorgeous beach.

Plenty of people were down there. It was popular with surfers and a number of them were out in the waves. Headlands were on either side of the bay so the beach was sheltered from north and south. The sun was low in the sky since it was December, so the south end of the beach was pretty cold. Get a bit up the sand and out in the sun and it was a lovely spot to be standing and walking. I imagine it will be very busy during the summer.