Washington Snow

In the past, I loved playing in the snow. After seeing ugly snow elsewhere, I no longer enjoy disturbing the beauty.

A lot of our snow is light and wet. It doesn’t hide the trees, it sticks to them. Since most of our trees are evergreen, normally green trees develop the appearance of being white from above and green from below. From a distance, this creates the illusion of a softer green color.

I lived in Utah. The snow was gray. Their license plate even reflect this fact. Oh, wait. There was a misunderstanding, and they insist that it’s the “Greatest” snow on earth rather than grayest.

I also lived in Ohio. Their snow might be a little more interesting than Utah’s since it’s at least closer to snow color. Unfortunately, their snow is dry and their trees die for the winter. You wind up with a white floor with sticks poking out of it.

I dare anyone to find snow as beautiful as what we get here in Washington.

While on one of my many walks to Chambers Creek Properties, I brought along a new toy. I recently purchased a waterproof camera that was begging to see some activity. I managed to take a few shots, and some of the better pictures are available on Flickr.


Before you look at these pictures, let me provide several quick warnings:

1. I’m still learning the quirks with this particular camera
2. The telephoto end of this new camera isn’t even close to what I have been using (don’t expect wildlife).
3. The image quality of a small point and shoot doesn’t come anywhere close to the DSLRs that usually use.
4. Contrast-based autofocusing isn’t as good as phase detection, especially in low light.
5. This type of camera is not exactly friendly to manual focusing, so I have to resort to the contrast measurements.
6. The Easy Panorama mode might be easy, but it takes a lot from the size in comparison to photos that are stitched later.
7. As a sub-amateur, don’t expect my pictures to show how beautiful our snow really is.
8. The Soundview Trail was closed today, and I’m pretty sure that it’s due to the snow on the hills.

This is an example of the Easy Panorama mode looking at the Chambers Bay Golf Course. You can see the Grandview Trail on the right side of this picture. A portion of Fox Island is barely visible towards the center.

Here’s another shot of the golf course. The snow picked up, and Fox Island can no longer be seen (It would be towards the top left from this angle).

Although the Soundview Trail was closed, the steeper East Slope Trail was accessible. This Pacific Madrone is near the top, and you can see diagonal lines where the snow is falling in front of the camera. Also notice how the snow sticks to the leaves (not all evergreens are coniferous).

Here’s a Douglas-fir with snow sticking to its needles. This was also along the East Slope Trail.

This Western Sword Fern captured a little more of the snow, but it still provides the glimpses of green that makes Washington snow so great.

This is a view of Chambers Creek (How did you think that Chambers Creek Properties got its name?) from the Canyon. The tire swing thingy helps provide a bit of contrast to the natural beauty.

Do you think that this sign is appropriate? Since the Soundview Trail was closed, I walked along Chambers Creek Road into Steilacoom. In case you were wondering, this was the first time that I have walked from my home all the way to Steilacoom.

This is where I turned around. There isn’t much room between the road and that rail, and the road was starting to look a little icy. I decided to play it safe.

As a bit of a side note, after I turned around, I was stopped by a police officer. Apparently, there has been some copper stolen at a nearby mill. Since I was walking all alone in weather that most people inexplicably fear, he thought that he would ensure that I am merely a wacky individual.

After I headed back up the East Slope Trail, I rechecked the Soundview Trail. As I guessed, it was still closed. This meant that I couldn’t quite get the Central Meadow picture that I wanted. Since it was still snowing, you could barely even see the “Swing Set.” I had to edit to make it as visible as it is in this picture (the concrete structure in the distance).

Between the Grandview Trail and Grandview Drive, there is a buffer zone planted with trees. There is one tree that really stands out to me in this picture. It is a deciduous (usually, I don’t like these) that has been covered with snow. In most places, the snow would have simply fallen off. In Washington, the seasonally dead tree is transformed from brown into a pleasing white color.

This is the Spot of Shade on the Grandview Trail. I figured that since it is a more heavily landscaped area that it would provide a more unique look at the snow.

I should also point out that I captured the snow falling in video mode from two different angles at this location. Sorry about the blue tint. I didn’t have the white balance right (I will probably make a lot of these mistakes when recording video) and I don’t have software that can fix it. I kept the movies to just 5 second each. Beyond that is really unnecessary, and I wanted to fit Flickr’s concept of “Long Photos.”

This picture turned out better than I had expected. This is the Playground by the Sound at a distance through the snow. The snow that is falling seems to obscure the playground while softening colors.

I moved in closer since I didn’t think that I would have many opportunities for pictures of a snow-covered Playground by the Sound. The wet snow stuck to the pickets.

Here is another shot of that same playground. This shot and the previous shot were taken from the Grandview Trail. I found it interesting that the snow was blowing in a direction that “Welcome to the Playground by the Sound” was still visible.

Here’s another shot in Easy Panorama mode. If you can overlook the snowflake right in front of one of the Giant Tree Houses, it didn’t turn out too bad (despite the same low-res problem that I already mentioned). If you look to the left of the Tree Houses (and a little up), you can see a speck of light. That was the evil sun trying to poke through. Also notice that we have another one of those deciduous trees changing from brown to white on the right side of the image.

Since I walked to Chambers Creek Properties, I had no problems walking home. Curran Apple Orchard Park is another local park. As the name suggests, this is the home to Apple Trees that are also among the formerly brown trees that become more interesting in Washington snow.

The last photo-op of the day was a roundabout off of 40th street. This is a piece of artwork known as “The Eagle’s Nest.” There are two Eagles, one is a little easy to overlook near the middle (just right of the nest and egg) and the other has a fish near the light post on the right. The nest and egg are in the middle. There is also a small waterfall on the lower right.