On August 10th I co-led a trip for The Mountaineers to Seven Lakes Basin after the original co-leader was unable to make the trip. Located in the heart of the northern Olympics, this alpine basin is, as the name suggests, dotted with lakes and has been near the top of my to-do list for a couple years. Unfortunately, lousy weather meant a lack of both views and dryness so I’m hoping to return next year to take in the full experience.
On the plus side I did spot six black bears in the section between Deer Lake and the basin itself. Having lived in Washington State my whole life for an indeterminate number of years these are the first bears I’ve ever seen inside the state. Maybe I should get out more.
Day 1
Our journey began at the incredibly popular and amply-parked Sol Duc Falls trailhead. After navigating through the crowds for three quarters of a mile we briefly enjoyed the falls, crossed the Sol Duc River, and began a more solitary ascent to Deer Lake.
The lake itself was calm and beautiful but often obscured by low clouds – the picture above was taken during a brief interlude in which the other side was actually visible. A trail circumnavigates the lake and includes a boardwalk over the marshy southern outlet as well as the beautiful pond at the northwestern corner of the lake pictured at the top of this post. As far as facilities there was as unmanned ranger “station” (a large heavy-duty canopy tent on a platform with a bunk bed inside) up a trail off the northeastern side of the lake and a portable toilet on the east side of the lake just south of a bridge. The eastern shore of the lake sported a makeshift bench and there were some folks fishing from this spot when we first arrived.
We split the group in half – my half spent the night in a small group site just above the toilet. It was convenient and had good access to flowing water from a nearby creek but somewhat cramped – my Lunar Solo uses up gobs of space compared to what I often refer to as “coffin tents”. Mostly this is a plus as I’m able to keep all my gear inside with room to spare but in a group scenario where you’re all forced to camp close to each other it’s definitely a drawback. There’s also the whole headroom/sitting up thing which, while it doesn’t usually bother me since I tend not to spend a lot of time in my tent, is also an area for improvement. I’ve had my eye on the Dan Durston X-Mid as a possible replacement: a batch went up for sale just the other day but I hesitated to pull the trigger so now I’m stuck waiting until this winter for the next drop. Four stakes and no guylines sounds like it’d be right up my no-fuss alley.
Day 2
The second day was a doozy.
In the morning we departed southward towards Seven Lakes Basin proper, aiming for the High Divide Trail which follows the ridge making up its southern border. Just a few minutes later I spotted a bear meandering on a slope opposite one of the many ponds dotting the valley we were walking through. The wide angle lens doesn’t do it any justice at such short distances (it’s just a black blob in the center of the photo), but in person it was very exciting. I’ll discuss wildlife lens options later on in the photography section.
After passing the first bear we saw another just above it, and then another during a brief stop on the opposite side of yet another pond, and then three more below us as we traversed a steep mountainside. That’s six total, which is six more bears than I’d ever seen in Washington state before that. Exciting stuff!
As we closed in on the southwestern corner of the basin we reached what the rangers had described as a “geologic event”. It was a flat area that looked like it was formed by the face of a mountain falling away. The ground was a massive pile of boulders and shattered earth and the trail crossed over deep fissures. The guts of the mountain had been exposed. There was also an unrelenting dense fog which caused all of the pictures to be unusable. It was a strange place.
At the far side of the event was a junction with the Lunch Lake Trail which descends into the southern corner of Seven Lakes Basin proper. The trail was more granite steps than trail and we quickly found ourselves at the bottom, views still hindered by the clouds. We stopped at Round Lake to drop off gear before visiting Lunch Lake, Clear Lake, and Mirror Lake. There were more lakes north and east of this corner but there didn’t appear to be any official trails connecting them. Seeing as how there’s only a single camping area at Lunch Lake in the basin as well as a prohibition against dispersed camping (designated sites only) it seems like the intent is to preserve as much of the basin as possible.
After getting our fill of lakes we returned to the ridge and trudged onward, passing Bogachiel Peak (whose oh-so-close summit we skipped since the top was firmly rooted in the clouds) and Heart Lake before turning north to camp at Bridge Creek. We bumped into another one of those ranger tents but this time with an actual ranger, although he did not join us later that night to tell us exciting ranger stories as promised.
Day 3
We packed up camp and headed a bit north to rejoin the other half of the group who had camped a half mile downstream. From there we continued to descend until we crossed a bridge over the Sol Duc River. On the other side the trail turned west to follow the river and we began the final stretch back to the trailhead. However, the rest of the group opted to take a detour up to the top of Appleton Pass while I watched their packs down below. This gave me some nice alone time with my new Pedco Ultrapod Grip tripod as well as a chance to let my feet rest. While the bottoms were a bit sore (probably from the fact that the High Divide Trail is more rock than dirt, coupled with all the steps through the basin) I had started to get some chafing on the tops of my toes and every step had become painful – more on this later.
A couple hours later the group returned and we finished up our journey back to the cars. As always, on the way back I stopped at the Port Angeles Wendy’s to enjoy a Baconator, chocolate Frosty, and fries and then picked up even more ice cream from MORA in Kingston while waiting for the ferry.
Route
Gaia folder:
https://www.gaiagps.com/public/AYxpwD1stT0VYOd9l6NlPwtF
The first day was easy: the trail is flat until you reach Sol Duc Falls at which point it gently ascends to Deer Lake. Since campsites in the basin itself are quite limited this day is really all about shaving off miles (about 3.2) from your actual visit.
The second day was long, about 11 miles total with a bumpy ridgeline section as well as a steep in-and-out to the basin. It doesn’t sound like a lot but due to all the rock steps my feet were feeling sore by the end of the day.
Third day was a breeze: downhill all the way.
Gear
LighterPack:
https://lighterpack.com/r/ul39dd
The steady drizzle meant that I was finally able to give my Montbell Travel Umbrella a whirl. At a measly 85 grams it’s about the lightest umbrella you can get but it’s also only 34.6 inches across when fully opened which is almost enough coverage, but not quite. I found that when holding the umbrella in, say, my left hand with the shaft just to the left of my head that the outside of my right arm would get wet and vice versa. Functionally this made very little difference since I was wearing a rain jacket but it still felt like the umbrella wasn’t really doing it’s job – I found myself alternating hands every so often so that I could give my arm a chance to dry off.
If the umbrella was just, say, 2-4 inches wider it would be perfect (at least for rain – I have the white version and I can’t speak to its sun reflecting powers). Unfortunately the next largest umbrella in Montbell’s lineup is the Trekking Umbrella which at 150 grams is almost twice as heavy. Is it worth another $45 and 75 grams for another 4 inches of coverage? If you’re always wearing a rain jacket while using your umbrella, probably not. But if your goal with the umbrella is to be rain jacket-free then there’s no question – the travel umbrella just doesn’t offer enough coverage.
This was also my first time actually remembering to bring my new Ultrapod Grip Tripod. Verdict: pretty darn good! I had an hour and a half to kill at the Appleton Pass junction so I spent some time hunting around looking for flowers to photograph. I ended up finding several patches of pinesap and practiced on those – the shots turned out good as far as focus and depth of field but in the end I decided they weren’t fancy enough to keep. Still, the tripod did its job and since I’m really only interested in close-ups of flowers and astrophotography I don’t think the lack of height will be an issue. Given the massive weight savings (1020 grams or over two pounds lighter than my MeFoto Backpacker Classic) this is probably the best gear upgrade I’ve made all year from a weight perspective.
A member of the group brought a pair of Croc Swiftwaters to use as water crossing/camp shoes. I didn’t handle them personally but folks seemed impress by their exceptionally light weight and toe protection. Unfortunately Swiftwater is actually the name of a whole collection of Crocs but I believe the specific model was the Mesh Wave. I’m not a camp shoe user myself and I’ve never felt the need to use separate shoes for a river crossing but these might be an option should I change my mind.
Another member of the group was using an electrolyte supplement that I’d never heard of: SaltStick Fastchews. Fruit-flavored and chewable, these seem like a solid alternative to supplements which need to be dissolved in water such as Nuun tablets. On the other hand some flavors of Nuun contain electrolytes as well as caffeine whereas the Fastchews are electrolytes-only. The one I tried was delicious and more like eating candy than a supplement – could be dangerous.
Finally, I learned that the sport cap on my 700mL SmartWater bottles can be used to backflush a Sawyer Micro. By inserting the outflow spout of the Sawyer into the sport cap’s opening on a full water bottle and squeezing you can force water back through the filter. Although I can’t vouch for the amount of pressure generated versus the dedicated cleaning syringe it was enough to force noticeably dirty water out of the filter. In a pinch I think this is a great way to backflush in the field without carrying extra gear.
Chafing
Near the end of the second day I noticed that the tops of my right two toes on my left foot were feeling tender. It was if they were rubbing against the tops of my shoes on every step, something they don’t normally do. They were also itchy and – misdiagnosing this as some sort of moisture-related athlete’s foot – I applied Green Goo First Aid balm since it claims to be antifungal as well as anti-itch.
In the morning the condition of my toes had not improved and every step was quite painful. In a desperate move I applied Purell hand sanitizer which burned like crazy but offered no long-term relief. It wasn’t until I got to the car and stopped walking that my toes stopped bothering me.
When I arrived at home I did some research and decided that this was actually a very localized case of chafing. Now, chafing is something that’s usually associated with thighs rubbing or ill-fitting clothing (two things I’ve never had an issue with while outdoors) which is why it hadn’t occurred to me at the time. In any case I believe applying the balm was still the right thing to do (adding in some tape would have probably helped as well) but it opened my eyes to the fact that I don’t have extensive experience dealing with wet conditions over multiple days. That’s unfortunate from both a preparation standpoint as well as the fact that it keeps me indoors on drizzly weekends when I could be out exploring. This fall I’m going to make a point to get out in the rain and discover how to maximize my enjoyment and comfort in adverse conditions.
Flora and Fauna
As mentioned previously, I spotted six black bears on the stretch between Deer Lake and Seven Lakes Basin-High Divide junction – this was the first one.
I also got a decent shot of prince’s pine (chimaphila umbellata). There were many other wildflowers but they were the usual suspects so I didn’t think they were worth making note of.
Photography
SmugMug gallery:
https://turigrinos.smugmug.com/Adventures/2019/Seven-Lakes-Basin/
Now that the season is winding down and I’m not backpacking every single weekend I thought I would take a little more time to comment on every photo individually. Here goes:
I think this photo is a stunner.
It was hard to get the color temperature right (without resorting to a gray card, which I never remember to bring…) because the clouds weren’t gray, they were just barely obscuring an otherwise blue sky so they had a blue/turquoise-ish tint to them. I was tempted to just desaturate the blue channels using the HSL slider to completely gray out the clouds but this didn’t look quite right and left some funky halos around the tops of the trees. So, although there is a somewhat-distracting color in the clouds in the top right of the photo this is actually what it looked like in person.
The other thing I started playing with on this photo was the high key filter. I wanted a way to make the log in the lake and the snags in the trees really stand out, like sun-bleached bones. The high key filter let me do this, and I’ve since applied it on a couple other shots with pleasing results.
When we came to Deer Lake I immediately knew that I wanted to incorporate this sweet bench into a shot. I did a couple in the clouds and then snagged this one during a break when the clouds had cleared up. The dark band of reflection was more striking than the foggy nothingness so I settled on this version.
The next issue was cropping. There were a couple variables at play:
- The trees continue up quite a ways and then there’s an uneven ridgeline and cloudy sky – nothing really interesting up there.
- There was an unevenness in the grass along the near shore of the lake on the right edge.
- I wanted to center the bench at the bottom-right third of the photo (meaning, the center of the bench would lie a third in from the right and a third up from the bottom).
In the end I decided 1 and 2 were more important considerations than 3 so I went for a close-in crop with the bench right up against the bottom right corner. This allowed me to incorporate the other elements into an artsy horizontal banding effect of ground, grass, reflection, and trees. By making the structure of the rest of the photo regular and nondescript I feel like it really brings the focus to the otherwise out-of-the-way bench.
Speaking of the bench, I again applied the high key filter to really accentuate the highlights and give it a bleached look. I also deepened the shadows on the bench a bit to increase the contrast. I think the end result is that the bench stands out and the background sort of melts away.
This picture gives me a sort of detached, otherworldly feeling. There’s enough background to understand what you’re looking at – the picture is not visually confusing – but there’s so much context missing and with the added horizontal banding of the elements it all feels a bit… off. But in a calming way. I like it.
I’ve decided that in the outdoors your photos fit into two categories:
- Documentary, meaning, it’s a record of a place you went, a thing you saw, someone you met, etc.
- Artsy, meaning, it’s just a beautiful photo to look at.
This photo is firmly in the documentary category.
Lately I’ve been trying to reduce the number of photos from the documentary category that I publish publicly in favor of more artsy fare. This has the intended side effect of making me look like a better photographer since there’s a lot fewer mediocre photos, but it also means there’s important experiences that – were I going solely for artsy – could get left out completely. Like this bear, for instance.
For me personally, this was an exciting moment – my first bear in Washington State! But because I was lacking the proper equipment (really, anything other than a crazy-wide angle lens would have been a significant improvement) I don’t think there’s anything that could have been done to put this in the artsy category. A black speck is a black speck no matter how you slice it, but it was an important enough moment that I wanted to share it regardless.
It did get me thinking about the equipment I would have needed to have in order to get a nicer shot. Unfortunately, telephoto lenses for the Fuji system are both spendy and heavy. The number-one XF 100-400mm costs two grand and weighs three pounds – ouch.
We all stopped and had a look at this odd cluster of trees somewhere along the High Divide Trail west of Bogachiel Peak. I took what little blues were present in the sky away in order to make the background less interesting but failed to make the photo really stand out.
Lunch Lake was perfectly calm and had a surreal turquoise tint to it, two elements that should have wound up in a real keeper of a photo. Unfortunately I just couldn’t make it work with the clouds and there was nothing interesting along the shoreline to feature in the foreground. So I wound up focusing on a bright pile of rocks on the far bank with the rocky bottom of the lake for the foreground. Cropping out more of the clouds took away too much context and made the photo look weird, and I couldn’t find a way to incorporate the dark tree on the left as framing without getting the proportions all wrong. I think the setting had a ton of potential but I just couldn’t find the right location to make all the elements line up.
This is not a good photo, but I kept it as a reminder of how HDR can fail us. The subject is a barely-discernible deer (if I could have gotten closer and had the body of the dear obscure the light-dark boundary it might have been a different story) in a field of “overly ripe” wildflowers. What I really liked was the contrast between light greens and yellows in the foreground and dark greens and blacks in the background. The original attempt was using +/-2EV bracketed exposures but this brought out all the detail in the background, reducing the contrasting light-dark effect and making the photo even more of a visual mess that it already was. By switching to just a single exposure it preserved the contrast, giving the picture at least a little something to work with.
This is the most post-processed photo I’ve ever taken. I think there are over 30 separate effects applied in various places.
It sounds corny but I had a sort of vision in my head for how I wanted this photo to look: bright inner rails fading off into brightness (a sort of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel effect), darkness everywhere else, extra glare on the main walkway, and as much grit and texture on the foreground wood as possible. I also wanted to shift the yellow on the sunlit trees more into a green and keep things generally desaturated and brown. Basically, a gritty brown high key feel, and I think I pulled it off.
I do wish that the bright trees in the background were centered but the bridge is where it is.
I have a rule that I almost never remember to follow which is to convert every photo to a black-and-white just to see if it might work without color where it otherwise wouldn’t. Often times color can distract from interesting underlying textures. I actually prefer the color version of this one but I think this is still very cool to look at.
Last but not least (probably), some prince’s pine. This was taken hand-held during a water stop and I had recently rewired the focus selector controls to be able to move where the zoomed-in rectangle on the picture was when using focus assist. The result was that I was able to center the camera further down the stem while nailing the focus on the flowers above. In the high-res version in the gallery you can see the little green pods hanging down from the centers of the two flowers – they remind me of Octoroks.