Photographing Fall Colors During Fire Season in the North Cascades

When I first arrived in Washington State this October I had plans to travel through the North Cascades, taking pictures of fall colors. It was a somewhat disappointing journey, but not a total loss.

Although there were a few bright spots, it was disappointing for two reasons: one, due to the continued warm temperatures caused by global climate change, very few colors were actually changing, and most importantly, two, for that same reason it was still fire season throughout the Cascade Mountains.

Highway 20

And the smoke was thick. It didn’t seem too bad down in the Skagit Valley one day, so I took a road trip up Highway 20 through North Cascades National Park.

That was a waste of a tank of gas. All the waterfalls were dried up by the ongoing drought. By the time I got to Ross Lake, the smoke was so thick that visibility was close to zero. I couldn’t even see the lake when I crossed the bridge right over it! My original plan had been to take 2 or 3 days and camp at Colonial Creek,  the lovely campground situated in the old-growth forest right next to the lake. When I arrived, the smell of smoke was thick, but the air was even thicker. I couldn’t breathe, my eyes burned and instantly I got a screaming headache.

Well, that wasn’t happening! I thought about turning back, but it was still early in the afternoon. Maybe I could get up above the smoke, or maybe it would be better on the other side of the mountains. I really, really wanted to shoot a few scenes with larch trees, those conifers that turn gold with the seasons. Growing up in Colorado where all the conifers are evergreens, larch trees seem kind of magical to me. Since their main habitat is on the eastern side of these mountains, I didn’t want to give up without finding a few.

It did get better – a little. The big scenic vistas were still out – too much haze. But I found a few larch trees – very few. Most of them hadn’t changed color yet.

Mt. Baker Highway

I had a bit better luck further north on the Mt. Baker Highway. I tried to stay low at first – the skies were hazy, and there were plenty of nice spots along the river to walk and photograph. There were even a few waterfalls.

But I couldn’t stop myself. I kept going. I needed to get above treeline and check out the alpine. I’m glad I did. The fall colors up there were phenomenal!

Yes, the haze was bad. I was above the Mt. Baker Ski Area and I couldn’t even find Mt. Baker! But there are a couple of good things about making photographs in fire season.

I’ve always loved those silhouetted images of ridge upon ridge, outlined against the sky, going on forever.  I’ve had my best luck capturing that kind of image in the desert at sunrise or sunset. But during fire season, you can catch that shot in the middle of the day!

And then there are the sunsets. All that particulate matter in the air can lead to some spectacular sunsets. Mt. Baker even showed up right before sunset. It was just an outline. I couldn’t even tell it was glacier covered and all white. But it was there.

We stayed for the moonrise. Although the moonrise was incredible, even better than the moon was the planet Jupiter. As night fell, in concert with the moonrise, Jupiter came up right over the top of Mt. Shuksan, crowning the mountain like the star on the top of a Christmas tree, leading to a very memorable evening.

Thank you to Patti Moed for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Diagonals.