Anyone who has spent time in an alpine landscape can tell you that the mountains often are an environment of extremes: The sun is more intense up high than it is at sea level; winds in the mountains can knock you off your feet; and a chilly day in the lowlands can feel bone-chilling and frigid up high.
This past winter was a very light snow year in the Cascade Mountains, and this summer has been unusually hot and dry. High country hikes where I'd typically expect to find snow, even in July, take me this summer to a landscape that is bare and dry.
There has only been one day of rain in the last six weeks in the lowlands near Seattle, and lawns and gardens in populated areas are brown. Of more concern -- to me at least -- is that our mountains are tinder-dry, and fire danger in our forests is extreme. Two weeks ago I hiked in the Olympic Mountains, and the landscape (photo above) looked more like the arid American Southwest than the rainy and green Pacific Northwest.
I shot the two photographs below last Sunday when three friends and I hiked at Rainy Pass (not aptly-named this dry summer) in the North Cascades. Part of the day I could see and photograph the dramatic peaks that surrounded us. When the wind shifted from the southeast, however, haze and smoke filled the atmosphere, stark evidence of a wildfire that was burning near Lake Chelan about 50 miles away.
