Joel was right. The Olympic rain shadow is pretty amazing. It was to be sunny & dry.

A good friend of mine and I went backpacking in the North Cascades a couple of weeks ago (been busy, this post is a bit late), setting up camp on the slopes of Mt Baker – unfortunately the weather prevented us from seeing it clearly except from a distance on the hike up to camp.

I spent Saturday and Sunday with a couple of friends escaping the rain and cold in Puget Sound by traveling over the Cascades to the Eastern slopes for an overnight backpack to Ingalls Creek. We had originally planned a trip to Spider Meadows but some concern about snow caused a change in plans.

Last weekend I had the good fortune to backpack the High Divide and Sol Duc River trail, enjoy an overnight at Lunch Lake and summit Bogachiel Peak for unobstructed views of Mount Olympus.

With clear weather and field reports of wildflowers in bloom, a friend and I decided to backpack up to Marmot Pass in the Olympics and spend some time shooting photos.