Pacific Northwest - Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood

After Portland, we made our way over to the Columbia River Gorge for some all day hiking. We spend a whole day hiking the gorge, and then headed down to the Mt. Hood and surrounding areas the next day.
Our first hike in the gorge was the Multnomah - Wahkeena Loop Hike that looped us around 5 waterfalls in 5 miles.


Fairy falls was the second waterfall on the hike, and one of my favorites. I love how it splits out like a fan. The slow shutter really emphasized this.





The hike itself was great, filled with tons of trees, moss, and just green everywhere. Here are a few shots of a river winding through some of the moss:




Look who also got the photo bug and decided to snap some pictures:


One of the last falls on the loop hike was Weisendanger falls. By this time the sun was above us, so I wanted to get it peaking through the clouds, catching the mist from the falls:




I did get a few of Multnomah falls, but it was so crowded by the time we finished the loop that I didn't feel like breaking out my tripod to set it up.

After the loop hike we headed to Oneonta gorge for a 1 mile hike / swim to get to the waterfall at the end. This is not so much a hike as you have to walk through the gorge and at times wade through water. There was one section that was so deep, Jaime had to swim it. The water came to my upper chest, so I had to hold my gear above my head while wading through it.


The water was freezing, but the sun was out and it was a nice day for a swim. We also came prepared with swim clothes and water shoes, as reviews said you will get wet on this hike. There were a lot of people who did not know this and tried scaling the wall on the right which took 5x as long. To my surprise this was actually Jaime's favorite hike of the trip.....







After Oneonta, we headed to Elowah Falls, which was a 1.5 mile hike. When we got there the falls were misting, and the strong wind was pushing it way to the right so we just turned around and headed back to the car.

Last stop for the day was the 4 mile Eagle Creek trail to Punchbowl falls. We didn't arrive to the location until around 5pm and we were already pretty beat, but the trail itself was relatively flat.

We hiked a total of 12 miles that day. We had plans to check out Screen Door for dinner which is suppose to have real good fried chicken but we were so tired so we ended up getting gas and Popeye's haha.
The next day we headed south to Scott's Mills for some hiking. Both Abiqua Falls and Butte Creek Falls were in the same general area so we hit up both. The road down to Abiqua was sketchy; a 1-way road of mainly dirt, gravel and rocks. When we finally got down to the dead-end it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere....not a good place to be lost. The 1 mile hike was more of a scramble down. People have tied ropes to trees for assistance in steep areas which helped, but my legs were tired from the day before and carrying all my camera gear didn't help much.

The falls itself was very nice. After heading upstream, you end up in a huge cove which we had all to ourselves.







Jaime passed the time by building rock sculptures while I was snapping away.



I had to wade through the river to get from side to side of the gorge, so she also amused herself by taking pics of me struggling and walking on the slippery rocks barefoot.



Jaime also wanted to take a pic of our shadow...so here it is:



Butte Creek Falls was a short drive away so we headed there next. The hike was relatively flat, and only about 1 mile. The hike down led us to another cove, however a lot smaller than Abiqua. However, there was a cove behind so we were able to go behind the falls.








We ate lunch, and headed 2 hours NE to Government Camp, Mt. Hood. I was hoping for some clouds for a nice sunset from Trillium Lake, however the sky cleared up by sunset. I still snapped a few, capturing the last bit of light on Mt. Hood.



The next day I woke up for sunrise hoping for redemption. However, the sky was as clear as the night before so I waited for the sun to rise over the mountain and light up the remaining fog lingering around.


We did a lot of hiking over the 2-day span, but I wanted to pack it all in. My polarizer was my best friend for all these pictures, as it removed a ton of glare from the waterfall shots and the foreground, allowing me to capture the submerged rocks in the foreground.

We headed north 3 hours to Mt. Rainier National Park the next day which I will post on a separate entry.

Brandon Yoshizawa
B.A.Y | photography
Landscape and Wildlife photography
http://www.bay-photography.com/

Pacific Northwest - stop 1 Portland

The wife and I took a trip up to the Pacific Northwest which went from Portland -> Columbia River Gorge -> Mt. Hood -> Mt. Rainier -> Seattle. We were fortunate to have nice weather the entire trip.

Portland was cool; full of good eats and nice people. Most of the shots were taken by Jaime on her compact as we really just went to check out all the food trucks and good restaurants. However, I did manage to get a few shots of the skyline overlooking the Willamette river.

All were taken at different times of the evening, which was really reflected by the various shades of the sky.









As I said, we probably did more eating than anything else but hey we were on vacation!

Our first lunch we had 2 food trucks. Potato Champion and Pyro Pizza. The pulled pork fries were good, lots of flavor and a slight kick. The chili cheese fries were ok, nothing special. We also got a margarita pizza from Pyro. Nice and thin with a great crunch.








The next day we stopped at Voodoo for doughnuts and Big Ass Sandwiches for lunch. We probably waited around 45 minutes for Voodoo, and 1.5 hours for the sandwich. Ever since Big Ass was on the food channel for best sandwich of the PNW, the line has been crazy.

line for Voodoo




We figured since we had to wait so long, we should just get a bunch to try. So we got 2x maple bacon, a voodoo doll, a portland cream, a mango tango, a lemon crueller, and an arnold palmer. I'm not much of a sweets person, but they were all good.

The sandwiches were good. I thought they were bigger after seeing them on TV.

The Big Ass roast beef which won the travel channel best PNW sandwich. It was good, loaded with slow cooked roast beef, fries, homemade cheese sauce, and more fries.


The pork hammer was also good, which had 3 types of pork, slaw, fries, and their hot sauce.





That same night for dinner we ate at Pok Pok - a Thai restaurant (thanks Paul for the recommendation). Per Paul "it was the best Thai food I had outside of Thailand." I immediately changed our dinner plans because of that statement haha. The wait here was also about an hour, as it was pretty popular as well.


Fish sauce wings! Soooo good. Need not say more.


Flank steak salad. Good too, similar to the spicy beef salad that I love.


Sticky Rice, I can eat this all day!


Curry noodle soup - very flavorful

Jaime also went around taking pictures of all the weird signs and random things in the city, so here are a few:












We definitely want to go back and try out all the other delicious food the city has to offer. I'll post pics from the next legs of our trip, but I have a lot to process first!

Brandon Yoshizawa
B.A.Y | photography
Landscape and Wildlife photography
http://www.bay-photography.com/

Bolsa Chica trip

I haven't been to the reserve in quite some time, let alone been out to take some pics so I headed down last Friday during my off day. Checked out the front of the reserve to snap the usual pelicans, egrets, terns, etc. Went around back to look for some hummingbirds.







I was able to also spot a perigee falcon, which is pretty uncommon at the reserve, and an osprey. Another photographer there said they have been hanging around for the past few days. I stayed and took pictures until they flew off, as it was the first time I was able to see these at the reserve.

Osprey











Falcon










Even with my 300 + 1.4 TC I didn't have enough reach but the 400-600mm lenses are pretty pricey. It will have to do for now.

Brandon Yoshizawa
B.A.Y | photography
Landscape and Wildlife photography
http://www.bay-photography.com/

More Hummingbirds and a huge moon?

So I headed back to the Bolsa Chica reserve in Huntington equipped with my 300mm F4 + 1.7 TC. Seems like all I take pictures of are hummingbirds, but I do love taking pictures of them. The dolphin is still swimming around in the harbor, and busloads of kids were there to see it.

I moved on to keep away from the crowds.

This little hummer didn't like me taking pictures, and gave me quite the expression:

This one let me get real close for a close-up portrait:



This was unexpected, as I couldn't see the small fly/gnat as I was taking pictures, but came home and saw that it was eyeing it. Pretty cool picture.



I also took a trip to the Griffith Observatory to see the Perigee super moon. Little did I know that it would be completely packed, so I was unable to get to the location I wanted to by the time the moon rose. I was looking to capture it as it rose over the Observatory, but at the location I was at, it was way to the left. I did take a picture of it rising, and a picture of the trail leading up to the Observatory from one of the trails.


There was a lot of smog to shoot through. It would have been cool to head inland to shoot away from the light pollution of the city....maybe next year.