Tag Archives: washington

Winthrop

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Drop over the North Cascades Highway and you come into Winthrop.  This is the first significant town you come to after going through the passes and it is definitely picturesque.  I had no idea what the town was so coming in to the center and seeing all of these western style buildings was quite a surprise.  Time to park and go for a walk.

The old style of the town jars with the cars parked everywhere.  However, while the cars would be better if they weren’t there, the town still has an old school feel to it.  I wonder what their planning consent rules are in order to stop the place being transformed.  Even the gas station fit in.  It was old and the pumps were pretty old too – not as old as the town of course but still dated.

We wandered around the town and checked out the different shops, restaurants and bars.  There was a brewpub that was really tempting to me but, since we were aiming to be back home by the end of the day, that was not going to be a good idea!

Gulf Air 787-9

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I caught this Gulf Air 787-9 as it returned from a test flight to Paine Field.  It was at the end of the SkyFair event so the crew will have noticed that there were a lot of people on hand to witness their landing.  Not a particular problem of course but probably one of the few landings of the Boeing production tests to get a large crowd.

Minke Whale Feeding

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On our trip back to Edmonds, after we left the orcas, we had a lucky encounter.  We came across a minke whale.  It was having a good time feeding on bait balls that were easy to spot given the large number of birds on the surface above them.  We saw the whale surface a few times and then it headed for the bait.  Timing its surfacing was tricky.  The birds all started to take flight but they did so a long time before the whale came up through the fish.  I missed the key moment.  However, I did get a few shots of the whale as it was feeding although not of the swollen lower jaw folds as it took mouthfuls of water in.

XF8U-1

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I certainly won’t stand out from the crowd by claiming that I am a bit of a fan of the F-8 Crusader.  Plenty of people think it is a cracking jet.  I didn’t get to see many of them.  French Navy jets were still in service and, while the RF-8s were in use with the Navy at the beginning of my interest in aviation, I don’t think I ever saw in in service example.  Doesn’t stop me liking them though.  The Museum of Flight has the prototype jet in their collection.  Prior to the unification of the type identifiers between the services, it was known as the XF8U-1.

I first saw it while it was undergoing restoration at the museum’s facility at Paine Field.  My first visit there was when it was free.  You could just show up and wander around.  Now you have to pay to get in but it is still a good visit to make.  Restoration is when things are a lot less glamorous but you do see the work underway to makes things look great.

Now the jet has been moved to the main museum facility at Boeing Field.  It is polished to a fine finish and is complete with an air data boom.  The markings it carries appear to be authentic based on some original photos of the aircraft and, with its location close to the window, it does gleam nicely.  Oh to find someone with a lot of money and a desire to have one of these jets airworthy again.

Diablo Lake Vista Point

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Diablo Lake sits behind one of the dams as you head across the Cascades.  Overlooking the lake is a vista point and we stopped there to have our lunch.  We certainly weren’t the only ones to think of this.  The parking lot was pretty full and there were tons of people enjoying the view.  For being up in the mountains, you certainly weren’t a long way away from civilization!  On a sunny day, it wasn’t hard to understand why it was so popular.

Across one side of the lake you could see the top of the dam.  Meanwhile, you had great views in all directions.  The vista point was quite high above the water level and looking down on the water and the islands in the lake, you had a perspective that almost felt like flying.  One of the islands had a nice jetty and the water was clear enough to see down to the bottom in the shallows.  I guess the water is snow run off from the mountains so it probably doesn’t pick up too much sediment.

Stuka Time

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FHCAM opened up a new hangar at their museum facility in Everett.  To coincide with the new opening, they unveiled a new addition to the collection.  This addition was a Stuka.  They had hinted earlier in the week that it might be a Stuka and I was hoping that would be the case.  The other aircraft they were hinting at was the Me262 and, since we know they are close to flying their example of that, having a Stuka would be a significant addition.  I was really pleased to see that was the case although the 18-24 months until it is airworthy will be a bit of a drag.  Good things come to those that wait, though.

I put a fuller piece on GAR which you can see at the link below.  Here are a couple of shots of the current state of the airframe.

Warbirds – FHCAM Stuka Unveiling

Lichenfall

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Walking along a path up the Cascades, I went passed a rocky wall that was totally in the shade.  The shady and damp environment makes it the perfect place for lichen to grow.  The whole of the rock surface was covered in this lichen and it blurred the shape of the surface.  The effect was to make it look like water was washing down across the rocks but, since it was lichen rather than water, I felt it should be called a lichenfall.

Gorge Creek

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The North Cascades Highway crosses a bridge at Gorge Creek.  We had stopped to go to a lookout point on the lake side of the highway and the trail to this point ran alongside the creek.  As we headed back, I wanted to take a quick look from the bridge.  I walked out a short distance and could see the creek below.  I almost turned back at this point but, fortunately, I kept walking a bit further and suddenly a waterfall came into view.  I could easily have missed it.  Indeed, Nancy almost didn’t come out when I told her to come and have a look as she similarly thought she had seen all there was.

The falls were slightly tricky to photograph.  The top section of the falls was the first to be seen as you walked out on to the bridge.  The bottom section was obscured.  As you walked out further, the bottom came in to view but the top started to become obscured.  Getting the full scale of the falls in one shot is not really possible.  While you are there, you appreciate it of course but it is not so easy to portray to someone remotely.  With the shadow of the gorge as well, getting a shot meant dealing with a wide dynamic range.  This would have been a good time to try a pano in HDR.  The latest version of Lightroom has that functionality automated but it hadn’t come out when I was there and, to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered trying it!

Stellar Sea Lions Taking It Easy

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Sealions are not small creatures when you get close to them.  However, the ones you more normally come across have a larger relative.  The Stellar Sealion is a big beast of a creature.  The females are large and the males are huge.  When we used to visit Ano Nuevo, you could see the Stellars out on the island.  What looked like large rocks were actually the males.  These things are big.

A colony of them was hanging out on some rocks we came across during our trip to go whale watching.  They were basking on the rocks or swimming in the waters nearby.  The boat was able to get quite close to the rocks so we could see the sealions out enjoying the sun.  Seals and sealions seem to be very happy when they are dozing on the rocks in the sun.  We weren’t close enough to disturb them but we were close enough to get a good look.