two more images from Trinidad....

[mike_c]

The fog bank was offshore this evening, so there was a sunset at Trinidad beach in Northern California. The low sun was still kind of flat on the western coast because of the fog bank, but before the sun disappeared I got a few shots.







The full gallery at higher resolution is at https://mcamann.smugmug.com/Misc-photos/. I hope you like them!

[Solly Mack]

1. Beautiful!

[mike_c]

8. thanks!

The coastal weather is such a crap shoot here. I live about 20 minutes south of Trinidad, where this photo was taken. At first I was ambivalent about driving up there after dinner-- the sky over my house was clear and cloud free, not particularly conducive to colorful sunset photos. I watched the clouds begin to blow in from the coast, just wisps of possibility. When I finally thought "this might turn into something nice" it was only about an hour before sunset. Thinking that you can't get the shoot if you're not there when light happens, I jumped in my car and drove to the beach.

At first I was disappointed by the offshore fog bank. At best it would mask the horizon in my shots, and at worst it would move ashore and create bland grey skies and shadowless landscapes, but it stayed put offshore throughout the sunset. It blocked the horizon, but I still got a couple of good photos.

[shenmue]

2. Hooray!

[mike_c]

9. thanks!

[mnhtnbb]

3. Gorgeous!

[mike_c]

10. I'm glad you liked them!

[Mira]

4. I have to go now

and find my jaw.

[mike_c]

7. I hate it when that happens....

[alfredo]

5. Beautiful. Looks like a change of weather coming.

[mike_c]

6. thank you-- we have a saying on the north coast....

If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes or drive fifteen miles for something different.

[alfredo]

12. From where you are, you can see it coming a long way off.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. Omigod, my dear mike_c!

Gorgeous!

Breathtaking!

Astonishing!

Wow!


Yes, I like them.

[mike_c]

14. thank you!

Some evenings it's fog as far as you can see and other evenings the sunset gods smile.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

13. Beautiful pictures - thank you

I love Trinidad. My brother built a home on one of the cliffs there, with beautiful sweeping views of the ocean. At night you can hear the sea lions (and the drummers). Thanks for sharing your pics.

[mike_c]

15. I'm glad you enjoyed them!

I only got a few photos because I was late for the sunset but also because while I was on the beach shooting, this random guy who had been watching me walked over and struck up a conversation. Turns out he lived in Sacramento and was traveling down the 101 south from business in Portland on his way home. I've never seen this guy in my life and probably won't ever again-- it was just a random encounter on a nearly empty beach-- and it turned out that we knew a dozen or so people in common, mostly former colleagues of mine who have since retired. Is that crazy? Just some random guy passing through, stopped at Trinidad to take a look, and we've got like two degrees of separation. Trinidad is a lovely place.

[Tom Kitten]

16. Beautiful colors - mackarel sky!

I know I can't look at or take enough pictures of sunsets on the beach. Where is Trinidad? I ask because I've taken 8 road trips between Portland and Santa Ana the past 3 years. Several times I've taken 101, it is one of my all time favorite places I've been to. I have friends who live in Orleans and l stay there sometimes, the whole region has a feeling to me that's hard to describe but I really like.

These are gorgeous photos, I'll check out your website too!

[mike_c]

17. thanks!

Trinidad is right off the 101 maybe ten miles north of Arcata/McKinleyville, right on the Pacific Coast. Sounds like you've driven by the exit several times. It has a lovely harbor.

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. Stunning

[mike_c]

20. thank you!

[They_Live]

19. Your gallery is amazing.

It's inspiring me to take some road trips. Thanks for sharing!

[mike_c]

21. yeah, me too....

Fall semester has started and I'm back to work, but I'm crazy jonesing for another road trip. Retirement is coming.

I'm glad you liked the photos! Some are over sharpened, IMO, and I'm consoling myself for being stuck at home by looking forward to reprocessing some of them in the meantime.

[chknltl]

22. Unrelated question.

I am 62, went to school at Dupont Jr/Laughbon Sr High in Washington State with a guy by the same name (not sure of spelling-it's been a looooong time), any relationship?

Oh and nice photos, I love the lower one of the two best...I can almost hear those waves breaking and the hiss as the water melts into the sand-pure poetry that shot!

[mike_c]

23. well, we're almost the same age....

I'm 61, but I went to high school in Virginia and have never lived in WA. So nope, I didn't do it. Yes it has been a long time!

[Mz Pip]

24. Lovely.

The colors are spectacular. I want to be there.

[mike_c]

25. I think I'm going back this evening....

Happy Labor Day weekend!

[PufPuf23]

26. Outrageously awesome photography!

I went through the entire Summer 2016 gallery.

My mother and grandmother were born in Blue Lake and I have great and great great grandparents buried in the Blue Lake cemetery.

I never knew there were Zebras in Mattole Valley.

Unless there is a 2nd set of Twin Lakes in Six Rivers National Forest, those photos are in Humboldt and not Trinity county. I really liked the shot of chinquapin, madrone, and rhododendron forest. Are these Twin Lakes located north of the Klamath up Slate Creek Road?

[mike_c]

27. yup, that's the place....

Thanks for the correction. You're right-- that's still Humboldt. I glad you liked the photos! I'm still learning a lot-- many of those I posted during mid-summer are over sharpened. I'm slowly revisiting them to correct the sharpening.

[PufPuf23]

28. I first went to Twin Lakes in 1967 on a Honda trail bike.

Last edited Mon Sep 5, 2016, 08:40 PM - Edit history (1)

The "logging roads" were built in the early 1970s for Twin Lakes and Slate-Robbins timber sales (and several subsequent large timber sales).

In 1967 the way to Twin Lakes was to go up Cedar Camp Road and about a mile past Dyer Place there is a 1930s era jeep road that goes to Cedar Springs, wraps around the head waters of Slate Creek, accesses several mines (chrome), and accesses Twin Lakes.

There is a blocked old truck road between the upper and lower Twin Lake that accesses a small clear cut (now a 40 plus year old plantation). Spring 1973 I was reviewing Twin Lakes timber sale units logged in 1972. I flagged where fire line would be built and sketched maps of where hardwoods needed to be fell in the clear cut, and snags needed to be fell outside the unit boundaries in preparation for broadcast burning. At the bottom of that specific clear cut I found an old fashioned logger's hard hat that I ended up using for 30 years, now hanging on a nail here in my office.

There are Brewer Spruce on Slate Creek Butte.

[mike_c]

29. thank you for sharing that story!

I've loved the Slate Creek drainage since the mid-90s, when I did some work for the Orleans/Ukanom RD on the Six Rivers NF. On one trip we scrambled WAY down off a ridge into a steep canyon to take water samples and collect stream invertebrates from the headwaters of Slate Creek. The RD had sent a work crew ahead of us to "provide access" by chainsawing a path straight down the canyon wall through stands of relatively young reqrowth, thus removing all handholds and anchors while leaving behind a shin high slope of punjee sticks. Thankfully the work crew had stopped about half way down, when the descent got really hairy, and I have to say the path they cleared did make the ascent back up out of the canyon easier.

There was serpentine bedrock in the Slate Creek stream bed, and the steep canyon walls admitted sunlight that shone directly into the stream channel. It glowed green in the sunlight. I'll never forget how it shone in the otherwise dim and shaded bottom of the densely forested canyon.

In my early forties at the time, I was the oldest member of the sampling crew-- I was training them-- and the climb back out was memorable for its wheezing, knee buckling, and interminable duration.