Moonset on the Wild Coast of Washington State

It was late August of 2015. After 12 miles of hiking to reach this location we setup camp on the wild Pacific Coast of Northern Washington State. Hiking the exact opposite direction for a few days you would reach the North Western most coast of the United States. There isn’t much going on in this part of the country and this is what draws me back to it year after year, month after month.

In 2015 I spent 3 months of the year camping in the Olympic Backcountry. This year, 2016 I’ve already spent 3 in the first 6 months of the year. Over all my goal is to hike all of the backcountry trails in Olympic National Park, where there are over 600 miles of trails. Some of these trail systems don’t interest me much, but there are others that are more rewarding and more remote than any other locations in the lower 48.

So far in 2016 I’ve backpacked each of the River valleys on the West side of the park, to their source or to the closest possible area to that source. Some of these rivers are impossible to hike to the source, from the ocean. The Queets being by far the hardest. On the North side of the Park I’ve also hiked the Elwha River to the Elwha Basin and the Low Divide where it crosses over into the North Fork Quinault, some 85 miles round trip.

You’ll see the photos from these trips pop out here and there over the coming years. I find it much more rewarding to hold onto pictures until I have the desire to process them. Sometimes this takes a year or two, maybe more. This allows me to determine that I actually like the photo and separate the actual composition and photo quality from the excitement or attachment of the trip that went along with it. By removing this short term emotional attachment from trip photos I’m able to clearly assess if it belongs in my portfolio or not. OCD, I know!

MoonsettheWildWashingtonCoast

From Portfolio