Ian's Car

Day 57: Imagine finding this as you were leaving for work. This is the sight which greeted our SCA Centennial Ambassador Ian this morning. Yes, it's his car, the most damaged of three which were attacked by a Douglas fir overnight. Whether snapped by a freak gust of wind or by the weight of torrential rain caught in its needles, the tree left behind a four-foot tall shattered snag and blocked one leg of the loop through housing at Tahoma Woods. When I arrived on the scene several hours after it was discovered, crews were preparing to section the tree for removal, and Ian was waiting patiently for a call from his insurance adjuster. His tour of duty at Mount Rainier National Park is certainly proving to be unforgettable!

Boundary Trail, Tahoma Woods

Day 118: When the forecast rain hadn't materialized by 10:30 AM, I decided to seize the day and go for a walk. In so doing, I discovered a trail I hadn't known existed on the north and east sides of Park Headquarters at Tahoma Woods. The forest floor was lush with some type of step moss (bryology is a sea in which I do not swim at all well) and my poor little point-and-shoot camera, carried instead of the SX30 IS, recorded the melange of winter greens and browns with a warm wash, warping the photographic temperature toward an unnatural yellow hue. But it was not the color I wanted to capture. It was the complexity of the environment I hoped to portray, and I found that tone-mapping and converting the image to "box camera" served my purpose best. Here, you can see each scale of bark, each ferny frond of moss without the distraction of color. It makes me wonder if perhaps color vision isn't inferior after all.