Deep Shadows on Silver Falls.

“The Deep Shadows of Afternoon on Silver Falls”

(Mount Rainier National Park, Washington Cascades)

A Miniature Oil on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

4” x 6”

 

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The Brush Drawing

The Block-in

It's been too long since I last posted, but time has a way of getting away from you, when you're not looking. I see in my files that this post was begun in November and intended to be posted then, but ‘what the … hey?!’ It's going out now … finally!

This little Miniature was supposed to be entered into the Park lane MiniSmall 2020 Exhibition last Autumn, but I only got as far as the brush drawing on the panel (see above), before I realized I was going to have to frame and take the photos of the other works being entered, do the paperwork, and enter them on line. As it happens I pulled my first all-nighter, in many years, getting that accomplished. And that was well worth it, selling three during the show, and winning the Ampersand Landscape Award for fourth painting; the latter you already know. So after the Miniatures and Small Works were sent off to the Park lane Gallery, I finished up this one and , as stated, intended to post it here in November. I am offering this, at present unframed, Oil Miniature at a reduced price, from what it will be once it is framed and ready for future Miniature Shows. Once I frame it This reduced price ends and I will re-introduce it at a higher, but still reduced price. Once it starts going to the Miniature Shows, this offer will no longer be available.

But things moved off in a tangent. I spent part of November & December, having my annual check ups, with both my doctor and dentist (root canal … ouch! Not the physical pain, which was nothing, but the monetary pain), and getting equipment ready to drag a small utility trailer from some friends’ field, to store at my Sister's new mountain home in Colorado. She's dreamed of being there for much too long, and finally is there. I left Oregon on the 18^th of December, and took six days to get there, staying off the Interstates and driving the small roads instead, avoiding the high passes in the mountains and driving sedately between 45 & 50 mph. We (The trailer & I), made it without incident. She and her husband will have the use of it, as long as it’s there.

While enjoying their wonderful views of the Sangres de Cristo Mountains, I worked on my accounts; did as much computer maintenance as I could, consolidating or eliminating files; photo-recon, and a lot of working on my those photos and older ones to put in my ‘reference photo folders,’ for future paintings. An old high school friend lives just 50 miles away from there as well, so I was finally able to visit him in spite of the bloody covid! So being side-tracked with all that, this post never got completed and posted … until now … ta daaaaa!

The fifth day after leaving that part of Colorado, I ended up at 8500' up in the Zuni Mountains of New Mexico. It was supposed to be an overnight camp, then because it was Good Friday, it behooves me to stay over the Easter weekend, thus avoiding traffic, and any crowds. Then I found a snowbank in a ravine, which supplied me with snow for my Yet I cooler, and water, after straining particulates out of it through my British Army Millbank bag, and the boiling it. I decided to remain as long as my supplies lasted, or the snowbank melted, thus allowing me to organize my gear more efficiently, do some paperwork, and get some painting done. That camp was almost The perfect campsite, half a mile off a main forest road, so I could hear the occasional vehicle, but nobody ever came down past my camp. The only downside is there was no cell connection, so I couldn't post this earlier. But it's been kind of refreshing having no connection, and thus no news (no car radio). That camp was closer to Grants, the second Zuni Mountains camp is closer to Gallup, and neither one had cell connection, and I haven't seen another soul for 26 days, until today … talk about your covid free environments!

These postings will be a bit more regular now that I'm sending my very slow way back to Oregon, painting all the way.

 

 

On the Forest Roads from Mount Rainier south to, and beyond, Mount Hood.

Take Note that some friends and family, who have signed up to receive email notifications, whenever this blog has a new posting, have not received these notifications for about a month, so I suggest that to receive further notifications that you sign up your email address, on my blog, to do so (www.StevenThorJohanneson@blogspot.com.  This is to those of you who have come manually to this site, wondering where I am, so please do sign up again.  I don’t have any idea why this would happen … perhaps hackers from you know where(!) … or Gremlins, I expect.

Sunday, 17^th of June to Monday, 25^th of June – To Seattle, WA, and then the Forest Roads back to and through the Washington & Oregon Cascades.

Two days later I was off to Seattle to collect paintings from a gallery that had shut down while I was away.  He next nine days I spent on the forest roads east and south of Mount Rainier National Park, wending my way south through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in the triangle formed by Mount Rainier to the north, Mount St. Helens to the southwest, and Mount Adams to the southeast, before crossing the Columbia River back into Oregon at the Dalles, and then into the Mount Hood National Forest, on reconnaissance for future campsites, and paintings.  I found some great sites.

Cluster of butterflies at my first camp
on the way up to Government Meadows.

The first two nights were spent east of Mount Rainier, following the Greenwater River up to, Government Meadows near the crest of the Washington Cascades; deep valleys; steep road; snow patches still up there.  After that I proceeded into Mount Rainier National Park, stopping off at Silver Springs Camp Ground to fill my water bottles, with Stevie Nicks, of MacWood Fleet, singing the song “Silver Springs” in my mind ;)  The Sunrise Visitors Center was still closed, due to snow, but I only wanted to get some photo from the White River Campground, and later at Silver Falls … I have been to Mount Rainier before, in 2010, and on this trip really wanted to get onto the forest roads.

Mount Rainier on the way back
down from Government Meadows.

Skookum Falls across the White River from State Hwy 410.

Silver Springs.

Mount Rainier from near
the White River Campground.

Tipsoo Lakes in the Snow … this is on June 19^th!

Bunchberries in the Forest.

Silver Falls, Mount Rainier National Park.

The glacial waters of Silver Falls.

Unknown waterfall, on State Hwy 123, going south from Silver Falls.

That night I camped well south of the National Park, and deep into the aforementioned triangle, with a view of Mount Adams, not far from Chambers Lake … oh, and with a few mosquitoes as well.  It is wild country up there, and the snows were still halfway across some of those forest roads, but none were blocked.  Takhlakh Lake (to be pronounced “Toc Loc”), was my favorite of the lakes I visited, because of the view of Mount Adams reflecting in its waters.  I also dropped in on Twin Falls, which I had visited back in early June 2011, this time approaching from the north, the direction I tried to go from Twin Falls, but was stopped by snow back then; now it was two weeks later in the season, and the snows were sufficiently reduced to allow travel on most if not all the forest roads.  This is wild country worth exploring a little further, maybe later in the year.

Evening on Mount Adams,
from my camp near Chambers Lake, …

… and in the light of morning.

Mount Adams from Takhlakh Lake.

Morning mist at my camp near Council Lake.

Mist settling on the Strawberries.

Twin Falls, flowing into the Lewis River.

Once I crossed the Columbia River and back in Oregon, it was late in the day, as I climbed southwest out of Hood River, heading for Lost Lake, where I had not been since, probably, 2006.  I wanted to get a few more photographs of the view of Mount Hood from there, to augment those from twelve years ago.  Inadvertently I found a great campsite, a few miles from Lost Lake, tucked in a small space in the forest, with a stream running through it.  For several years I have had a gravity system for water filtering that I had not used before, and so used it here for the first time.  All last year in the Southwestern Deserts I had been afraid of clogging up the filter pores with all that silt in those waters.  Here in the Cascades, I had a perfect water source.  I now have discovered a Millbank Bag that I received from England, which is used to filter out all the mud, silt, and detritus, from an “iffy” water source, and once the water has gone through that it can be finally filtered through the “gravity” system, to keep out all the microbial nasties.  So … if I ever get down to the Southwest again, I am prepared to filter water to my heart’s content, by first using the Millbank Bag, developed for the British Army; of course up  here in the Pacific Northwest, the Millbank Bag can be used when the river is full of glacial flour, as many are, coming off many of the high Cascade Volcanoes.

Mount Hood from Lost Lake.

Rhododendron blossoms.

Stunning blue blossoms.

Bear Grass.

Bear Grass, looking off towards
the Lolo Pass, west of Mount Hood
(not the Lolo Pass in Idaho).

The creek at my campsite not far from Lost Lake.

Mount Hood.

Mount Hood from Trillium Lake …
I chose a moment when the floaters had largely dispersed for lunch. 
Lost Lake is the other side of Mount Hood.

My last campsite was south of Timothy Lake, south of Mount Hood, with another creek running by.  I had stopped at Trillium Lake, which was a zoo, because it was a Sunday, and hot, and close enough to Portland that it’s an easy day trip up there … flotation devices were thick enough on the lake, that I might have been able to stroll across the lake, dry-shod, had I so desired.  I declined the opportunity.  Timothy Lake was a little better … it’s bigger, farther from Portland, and has four or five campgrounds, all full, to absorb the numbers.  Just two miles south of that lake, I had peace and quiet.  The next day I found my way down to the Clackamas River Road and followed the river down through Estacada, skirted the south side of Portland, and so back to the McMinnville area.

Last camp in the Cascades, south of Timothy Lake.

On the Clackamas River, going down to Estacada.

The next few weeks I spent catching up on things at my home base, getting work framed for galleries, posting my blog, etc., before I headed down to the south Oregon Coast and the annual Maritime Show at the Coos Museum of Art in mid-July, where I still am for the next few days.  It’s downright cold here, in the sixties and with a vicious north wind, but to me that is far preferable to the hundred degree weather, back in the Willamette Valley. 

It's been a great year in search of, and finding …  “Wonder” … and yet there is more “Wonder”  … out there.