First Beach, La Push, Washington
Standing on the jetty in the late afternoon, we wait for the sun to come out from behind a dark cloud.
Tags: First Beach La Push Olympic Olympic Peninsula USA United States Washington coast landscape ocean outdoor pacific pacific ocean sea seascape shore shoreline water
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Palouse Falls, Washington
As the last age ice was coming to a close, a regular cycle began where glacial meltwater and icebergs would be trapped in a huge lake dammed by ice. Known as Lake Missoula for its modern location, the ice dam would eventually and catastrophically collapse, releasing all the penned-up water at all once. The mass of water would race westward from the Rocky Mountains , eventually draining through the Columbia River basin into the Pacific Ocean. This happened roughly 40 times, every 50 years or so over a period of two millennia. Rinse and repeat, as it were.
One of the the landforms created was the Palouse waterfall shown here. Note the layers of earlier lava flows that have been revealed.
Tags: Palouse Palouse Falls USA United States Washington gorge jökulhlaup landscape river water waterfall
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Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington
A black basalt rock and its friends sitting on the ocean’s edge.
Tags: Olympic Olympic National Park Olympic Peninsula Ruby Beach USA United States Washington b&w beach blackandwhite coast landscape monochrome national park ocean pacific pacific ocean park sea shore shoreline water
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Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
Horsetail Creek is dropping over Ponytail Falls (aka, Upper Horsetail Falls) into a dazzling green and cool ravine.
This photo is from spring of 2013. In 2017 the Eagle Creek Fire ravaged much of the waterfall area on the Oregon side of the Columbia River gorge. Some trails have been re-opened, but many are still closed. And of course the forests have yet to grow back.
Tags: Columbia Gorge Columbia River Gorge Oregon Ponytail Ponytail Falls USA United States Upper Horsetail Falls landscape spring water waterfall
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Palouse District, Washington
A view from Steptoe Butte of recently planted fields (the green) and fields still brown with last summer's grain stubble, left to recover their fertility (the fallow). The rolling landscape is due to loess deposits (aka, dirt dunes) laid down by wind as the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age. It is very fertile land and the farmers keep it that way with crop rotations.
Tags: Palouse Steptoe Steptoe Butte USA United States Washington field landscape spring
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