Crater Lake Blueminosity

On my way up to Oregon, on my usual pilgrimmage to Mom's, I made a stop at Crater Lake National Park, for several hours. I had hoped to focus on the Phantom Ship, a small volcanic spire near the southeast shore. As I was driving up the road into the park, I noticed there was still plenty of snow around, and realized my original plan wasn't going to work. Now, I had already shot much of the area around the Lodge, so I picked some other spots along the west edge of the scenic caldera.

There was a healthy breeze down on the lake's surface and it produced these very interesting ripples reflecting the morning sun's rays. I wanted to take advantage of this unusual vision of Crater Lake by not using the polarizer.

Using the polarizer facing away from the sun produces the usual stunning blues that Crater Lake is so very famous for. YES, it really DOES look that blue to the naked eye!

Here's another example of not using the polarizer and seeing the wind's ripple patterns on the lake, near Wizard Island. It's a very surreal scene, very much like a painting might produce. Nope, I didn't apply any filters or processing to get this unique image!

I ventured around the lake to see how far the road had been opened with the snowplows. I can certainly testify as to just how much snow this place gets during a wet winter. Nearly half of the road around the lake was closed due to snow on July 1st. The boat tour wasn't running yet, either. However, I did find some nice shots looking down into that perfect blueness.

I finished up with a peek over the side at the "Devil's Backbone" and the amazing blue water.

Forest Carnage

You've seen many of the great scenic places I have been in my life. However, I have also seen a lot of "environmental ugliness" in my career. I'm currently on a mission to convince people that "letting nature take its course" is definitely NOT the thing to do, in this day and age. Posting pictures here means they will be available to me to post in eco-forums. A picture is worth a thousand words and, since I was once a "Freddie", my words are automatically tainted. Soooo, I think that posting pictures of the mess our forests are in will go a long way towards convincing people that our forests DO need human intervention and that they are NOT "doing just fine for the last 10,000 years without humans".

.

Here is a picture of the Lake Tahoe area behind Kings Beach, during the early 90's drought and bark beetle emergency. Environmentalists and misguided people stopped much of the salvage efforts and most of the dead trees you see in this picture have fallen over and lie in wait for the next inevitable lightning fire. In this dry summer environment, wood simply doesn't decay into soil. It BURNS!

Eco's always try to say that wildfires are "beneficial" and "low-intensity". This shot of Oregon's Biscuit Fire shows, without a doubt, that fires indeed cause forest destruction and very longterm damage. Even with a minimum of ground cover, due to rocky terrain, the fire burned with such intensity that it killed almost every single tree.

Here is another picture in the same area of the Biscuit Fire. For as far as you can see in the distance, the fire killed trees and burned up spotted owl nesting sites, and habitat. The areas that weren't salvaged, due to them being within Spotted Owl "circles", are now doomed to burn again, causing hellish fire intensities near the ground and sterilizing soils for decades into the future. They will no longer be able to support the large trees that were once there.

Here is a dramatic picture of a burn area in the Bitterroot National Forest, where mortality looks to be about 90%. The wood became unusable due to litigation against the Forest Service and now, this area is also doomed to burn again, at high intensity. The original fire is clearly NOT "beneficial", and the land will suffer for decades.

Here is an example of a "biological wildfire", where bark beetles have overwhelmed every single pine in the area of Camp Seeley, near Crestline, in the San Bernardino National Forest. A lack of scientific forest management allowed this forest to become overstocked with trees, causing it to be ultra-sensitive to even minimal drought. As the drought worsened, the entire forest became completely stressed and the bark beetles "bloomed" into an unstoppable force and the forests had no defense against them.