US-2 Corridor West

Not much to report. I went out to shoot some of the creeks along the roads in the corridor of Highway 2 along the west side of the Cascades, but the sun came out and ruined my light. I decided to drive around a bit since I haven't been in this area for a while. I started on the Index-Galena Road, checking out the various creeks there. The water was too high for places like Lewis Creek, and Bitter Creek was full of debris from the winter. Just not photogenic. I was surprised there was no snow at Jack Pass, so I was able to make it up and over to Beckler Road and back to Highway 2.

I back-tracked a bit down the highway to check out Money Creek. I made it all the way to just before Lake Elizabeth before hitting snow. Decided to head back and check out Miller River Road in the area as well. Afterward, I drove up to Foss River to explore a bit, since I haven't been in that area much.

The Foss River Road area is huge and I got to see areas I haven't seen before. There was one potential picture at an unnamed creek, but I had to literally stand on a railroad track to get the shot. The light wasn't right for the risk -- hard to hear if a train is coming when there's rushing water nearby -- so I passed. I was hoping to drive to the top of Sobieski Mountain to see if I could get a view of the nearby peaks that looked pretty good through the trees, but there was snow just before the top, still too far to walk without significant effort. Next time.

I decided to give Tonga Ridge a shot, since I'd never been able to make it all the way up before, and again to my surprise, I made it over without much snow. Once over I didn't expect to see any -- if there was any snow, you'd think it would be at the top -- but there was much more on the other side. Northern slope gets less sun, I suppose. There were some nice views of the setting sun in the Skykomish Valley, but the trees and underbrush were always in the way. I was cruising along looking for a good vantage point, hoping to get at least a snapshot, but ran into a downed tree on the road that was just too big for me to try to run over. A 4x4 truck made it across, but there's no way my RAV4 could make it.

That was it for the day, since it was getting dark. I logged lots of miles and saw lots of terrain, but only took a few snapshots. None of them worth posting.