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tomsart

@tomsart@mastodon.social

I guess I like to make stuff, such as tomlechner.com, laidout.org, hikertoonist.com

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tomsart, to Bloomscrolling
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from sunset at Dog Mountain a few days ago. The hills are alive with the sound of balsam root jumping around! Mainly because it was pretty windy! Also around were paintbrush here and there, lots of cow-parsnip(?) and occasional chocolate lily! Seems like the lupines are finished for the season.

Bright yellow sunflower-like balsam root in the lower foreground, a bunch of long stalked white cow-parsnip(?), and trees in the background with blue sky visible through the branches.
A single tree that seems to be dancing in a field of blossoming balsomroot under a blue sky.
Chocolate Lily, aka checker lily, aka Fritillaria affinis. Small flowers that have a kind of mottled texture of dark red with yellow sprinkles.

tomsart,
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More on Dog Mountain.. Sunset appropriately had some sun dogs! Mt. St. Helens (aka Lawetlat'la) trying to grab attention from the combined might of the sun and the balsamroot.

Just after sunset on the trail down from Dog Mountain. Steep slope with lots of balsam root, and an orange-blue sky in the distance. Mt. St. Helens also way off in the distance.
The sun setting. Horizontally streaking clouds reflect the sunlight, and a zigzagy mountain line along the bottom waits to eat the sun.
After sunset, a darkening orange sky, with a pile of rocks along the trail, along the steep slope, still with abundant yellow balsamroot. You can also see Wind Mountain off to the left at mid-distance.

tomsart, to hiking
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More travel photos.. I had a plan to do some around for a few days, and when I got there, it proceeded to rain with thunder for most of the time I was there! There was however one clear morning and one clear afternoon, so I did get a little hiking in.. Stretch number one was taking their cable car up to the Fort de la Bastille, and hike some trails behind it. A bonus was a long rocky tunnel (Grotte de Mandrin) which from the outside had a questionable wood plank walkway above.

Some old ruins of previous fortifications near the Fort de la Bastille, with Grenoble in the background below, and mountains under partly cloudy skies beyond.
The view from above the Fort de la Bastille, which from this side just looks like a forested mound, with a really wide view of Grenoble and mountains beyond.
Outside the Grotte de Mandrin, with big windows carved through the rock, and a "walkway" above the windows made of wire and thin wood planks spaced pretty widely.

tomsart,
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I had found a trail on openstreetmaps that seemed to have a "cave", but when I got there, it was more like a hole about a foot wide. It did lead into darkness so it's technically a cave I suppose. Still though pretty nice through some forest, up to a rocky ridge for lunch.

From the river through Grenoble, looking up and the nearby mountains under partly cloudy skies. The big one in the middle is where Fort of the Saint-Eynard is, which I didn't quite get to this trip.
A "cave" which it is technically, but it's about a foot wide leading into darkness, and surrounded by very mossy and overgrouwn rocks. There's a red painted splotch on the upper right.
Panoramic photo of me sitting on a rocky cliff top, surrounded by forest with the city of Grenoble down below, and clear blue sky above.

tomsart,
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My final afternoon in #Grenoble, being a fan of somewhat strange public #staircases, I went to the Escalier des géants, roughly 380 steps (or about 140 big steps). Then once you get up the stairs, you are invited to do pull ups! I'm pretty sure Grenoble trains ninjas around here, because there's also a decked out obstacle course nearby. I'm apparently bad at pull ups so I just continued walking around past the Bastille and back down to the city, via many other twisty trails with stairs.

The Escalier des géants (Giant's staircase), a really long, straight staircase, with two lanes. On the left is human sized steps, and on the right are steps a little over a foot tall each. Between the lanes every 15 feet or so are 5 mid sized steps leading upward from the human steps to the giant steps.
Looking down the Escalier des géants (Giant's staircase). The steps disappear into a dark green tunnel made of thick vines and drooping trees.
The sign at the top of the stairs, reading "Barres Fixes, Tractions sur les bras, la barre devant la tête. Tractions sur les bras, la nuque sontre la barre". There is a diagram of a guy doing a pull up.

tomsart, to hiking
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Back in the US, but my brain's time zone is still Iceland, so what better way to cope than get up at 3 am for in the dark up Silver Star Mountain to see the sunrise! An excellent view of Hood, Adams, St. Helens, Rainier, and even Jefferson.

Mt. Hood and the rising sun, with some low clouds hovering over distant ridges, and some mottled freeze/thaw ice patterns in the snowy summit in the foreground.
More snowy slopes of Silver Star Mountain, with a fresh golden sun rising over slightly misty mountain ridges in the distance.
Mt. Adams in the distance during the sunrise. Long sunrise shadows of the trees on the snowy slopes below the Silver Star summit.

tomsart, to random
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Temporary change of venue: Iceland! So far, saw one waterfall, so 10,000 to go. Kind of saw a faint ribbon of an aurora, but there were also light clouds and a full moon, so I'm not sure that counts.

A cat in a parking lot at night with some street lights in the background. This guy followed me around for an hour or two, while out searching for elusive auroras.
Reykjavik's rainbow street receding into the distance, where you can see the city's big church poking up.
Eastward view from the Perlan Museum at night with a full moon lighting up spotty clouds, and a line of street lights along the bottom.

tomsart,
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Further sights! A couple spots around Reykjavik, including actual trees! On the whole I saw many more trees in Iceland than I had been led to believe existed, though I'm sure there were way more before the vikings and their sheep.

A clear sky sunset on the coast near Reykjavik with golden colors on along the horizon above the ocean. In the distance is a puff of clouds emanating from the ongoing eruption near Grindavik.
An extremely sketchy wooden mountain bike path through the forest near the Perlan Museum. Bits of the path have fallen down, but I'm sure it was very exciting once upon a time.
At the Recycled House at Laugarnes, looking into the ocean with a rusty desk in the foreground, which has a rusty spiral chain rising off the desk and over the horizon.

tomsart,
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Frozen #waterfalls, such as Sjávarfoss along Hvalfjörður in Iceland.. Quite a nice fjord! Started in Akranes, which has a lighthouse you can go up for a great view. Ended up at Hvammsvik hot springs, at which you can go from steaming pools right into the freezing ocean! I still have to work on my freezing dunking will power, I only got in the ocean up to my knees. Maybe next time! Plus I'd love to go back to hike up the Akrafjall mountain, which to me looks like the top of a giant owl.

Lots of icicles and other flows of frozen water oozing out of the walls near the river that feeds Sjávarfoss.
Looking down at Sjávarfoss. The river is mostly frozen, but there is still some flowing water to be seen down the middle, adding to the blobby icicled crusting of the waterfall itself.
The view from the Akranes lighthouse, looking back toward Akranes. There banks of land that kind of look like dikes on the left, and a giant fish drying rack on the right. Past the town on the right is a dramatic Akrafjall Mountain with a sort of double ridged shape.

tomsart,
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Some more #waterfalls in #Iceland! Öxarárfoss along plate tectonic rifting, also Þingvellir which was Iceland's parliament location for roughly 1000 years. Plus Gullfoss. Utterly amazing.

Þingvellir, a tectonic spreading rift. Vertical basalt cliff on one side of the rift, slight lower and sloping down to the right on the other side, with some nice pahoehoe (i think) patterns in the rock.
Gullfoss! A gigantic blue green waterfall raging down a canyon, cutting diagonally through the river and twisting off into the distance. Steep columnar basalt walls alternate with eroded, sloping sedimentary layers.
Alternate view of Gullfoss showing the falls cutting diagonally to the left through sedimentary layers along one fault line, then cutting diagonally the opposite way across the river again along a different fault line!

tomsart, to hiking
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Some city in icy snow near the Columbia River, near Vancouver, Washington. A few spots near the riverbank had drapes of icicles. Otherwise, had to keep walking to rough up the ice layer slowly forming on me while I walked.

Me in a big fuzzy hat and buff, with a thin layer of ice slowly building up across everything, including my glasses.
Iced over bush on the banks of the Columbia River. Long icicles hang off the branches, while small waves lap against the shore.
Looking down the middle of a highway in Vancouver, Washington going off into the distance, small snow drifts separate the lanes, which are still mostly clear of snow.

tomsart, to hiking
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Short to Hardy and Rodney Falls near Hamilton Mountain. The falls pours into the Pool of the Winds, but it's been raining so much, today for it's more like Pool of the Oh My God So Much Water!! Also went up Beacon Rock basically across the street, well, down the trailhead road and across the highway.

Bits of the Columbia River winding around, as seen from halfway up Beacon Rock. Lots of yellow fall colors still hanging on through all the recent rain.
Particularly flush multi-tier waterfall pouring out of the Pool of the Winds above, down and under a wooden bridge across the river.
Rodney Falls gushing down profusely, overflowing the viewing area above, flowing down multiple streams. Not yet flooding out the bridge from which I took the picture though!

tomsart, to hiking
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up Table Mountain in the Columbia Gorge for the first time yesterday! On the whole, quite a nice hike despite its length, right from a fabulous sunrise, to the clouds being amazing instead of annoying. This mountain is the one that broke in half and crashed down into the Columbia River 600-ish years ago, creating the original Bridge of the Gods, which later collapsed sometime around 1690. 1/4

Tall, sharp mountain high point on the way up Table Mountain, just below a layer of fog. Everything started to get icy around here, 2000 feet elevation, forming some fancy rime frost on all the vegetation.
The rock section of Heartbreak Ridge trail, lightly frost covered, steep jumble of rocks 1 to 3 feet wide, for several feet. The trail was rerouted here several years ago to prevent hikers trampling nearby subalpine vegetation.
Some Turkey Tail mushrooms on a mossy log along the lower trail not quite up to the mountain. I think you have to eat one of these in order to hear gobbling (not recommended).

tomsart,
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At the start, the summit was covered by a cloud that I was worried wouldn't burn off by the time I got up, but when I did get up, the peak was poking above the fog, and below another cloud layer that was about as high up as Mt. Hood, making for some lovely clouds to watch rolling across the hills. Also the whole top was frosted over and slightly below freezing, but was fortunately not slippery. 2/4

Looking out past cliffs of Table Mountain, across a fog bank covering the Columbia Gorge, and across to Mt. Hood which seems to be holding up a whole other cloud layer.
Looking kind of northwest, fog rolling over mountain ridges, with Mt. St. Helens visible in the distance.
On the summit, frost covered trees apparently emerging slowly from the fog, and coming uphill for unknown purposes.

tomsart,
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There's unconfirmed speculation that the landslide here coincides with one of the huge earthquakes that cause giant tsunamis along the coast every 400 years or so, but some data trying to date these things don't quite line up entirely with the estimated date of the landslide, which is around 1450. 3/4

Mt. Hood, wanting you to believe it's erupting instead of just poking up into a high up cloud layer. Some Gorge mountains, and fog rolling over the river in the foreground.
Looking straight down the vertical cliffs of Table Mountain, waaaaay down, disappearing into the fog below.
Table Mountain cliffs, with basaltic columns covered with frost and fog below. These cliffs are where the mountain sheared off.

tomsart,
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Another fun fact, the whole region is tilted slightly southward, which tends to make the Washington side of the Columbia River have landslides like this one, and the Oregon side has tall cliffs with fancy waterfalls. ...I guess I took a lot of photos this hike! 4/4

Mt. Adams trying to slide by, hiding behind some cloud layers. One little mountain island poking up through the fog below, and ice covered trees in the foreground.
Columbian lewisia, on a rocky clearing midway up to Table Mountain, with a rock on the left that looks kind of like either a skull or a gray alien going "Woah!!!"
A toppled information sign in the middle of the forest, one of two! Not sure what made it fall over. Beavers? Termites? Heartbreak? This is after all right at the start of Heartbreak Ridge.

tomsart,
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Ok, one more, a lunch time timelapse, because the fog was just so cool. Mt. Hood agrees.

Timelapse of a low fog layer swooshing around Table Mountain's cliffs, while a high cloud layer slowly meanders the opposite direction, seemingly held aloft with the tip of Mt. Hood.

tomsart, to hiking
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Went to Nesmith Point, one of the few Columbia River Gorge trails I hadn't hiked on previously! This trail is fairly steep, 4.5 miles winding up a steep valley to a point that in the past had a fire lookout station, which is now just some rebar sticking out of a rock. Pretty good for conditioning, with a few nice views and a stretch of forest that isn't burn scar.

Looking north down the slope, across the Columbia River, at Hamilton Mountain, and Table Mountain on the far side, with Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams attempting to photobomb.
An old, wet, mossy water tank spewing water overflow, with a bunch of trees in the background wondering why the tank can't throw some water their way once in a while.
Lots of fuzzy frost coating some foliage along the trail.

tomsart, to hiking
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on Mt. Defiance in the Columbia River Gorge on Sunday.. I didn't fall down even once, a personal best for this trail! Someone told me Mt. Defiance is called that because at one point, all the other local peaks had (non-native) names, except this one, which was defying being named, so someone decided to call it Mt. Defiance. Wikipedia however says this name comes from Dr. P. G. Barret, who said the mountain kept its snow late into spring, defying the warming weather.

Large fog bank covering the Hood River Valley, through the area between Mt. Hood in the distance and Mt. Defiance. A little bit of snow on the rocks near the Defiance summit. This was the first Hood vista on the trail, one hiker ran up a little and exclaimed, "Wow this view is crazy!!"
Mount hood under a cloudy sky, emerging from a huge fog bank below. What a show off!
Just to show that the trail isn't just about the views, but also about the weird stuff coming out of the ground this time of year, such as this ramaria (coral fungus), shaped like a bunch of tiny orange forearms. I want to call these finger food, but they are probably poisonous.

tomsart,
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@LeftistLawyer I currently live so close to the Gorge, it fortunately doesn't take me much to get out there somewhat often, there's just so much there, and amazingly, not all of it is full of people!

tomsart, to hiking
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I missed waterfall Wednesday, so behold ! This is from to Abiqua Falls. Technically this land is owned by the Mt. Angel Abbey, but they currently allow people to hike to it. Water flow I'm assuming was pretty high, as the creek was flooding the trail right alongside it. Where I parked, there were dozens of shotgun shells, several beer cans, and a burnt out mattress. One has to imagine what the Abbey people think about that! I think I preferred the waterfall and the forest.

Abiqua Falls, with the creek tumbling past some rocks in the foreground. A person in the background looks tiny, silhouetting against the falls.
The steep currently muddy and slippery section, where people have tied ropes for convenience.
On the road up to the trailhead, with several giant foot deep puddles that question the definition of "road".

tomsart, to hiking
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Tested out my general health by ! Probably could have chosen an easier test, but totally worth the grueling 4500 ft elevation gain over 4 miles, across a lengthy boulder field, and up an ashy slope that was just mean. But you get to the rim, and it's amazing! The dome in the crater down below was even smoking? steaming? Occasionally you could here rocks crumbling off the crater walls and plummeting down for quite a while. So on the whole, just wow.

Midway up the boulder field, sometimes it would graciously level out with sandy clearings.
The treeline, with foreshadowing of the grueling boulder field ahead.
360 panorama from standing right on the edge of the volcano's rim.

tomsart,
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A few more Mt. St. Helens (which some might call Lawetlat'la, or Louwala-Clough) photos so that in the future I can try to remember more than just my current sore muscles!

Looking along the crater rim toward Mt. Adams. You can see the St. Helens glacier below, one of the very few glaciers an earth still growing, since it gets so much shade.
Trying to navigate the boulder field on the way down.
Sunset lighting on the final bits of the boulder field.

tomsart, to hiking
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Photos from at Cape Lookout on the Oregon Coast.. I had only been here once, decades ago, and it's still pretty neat! Lots of roots snaking across the trail.

Northward view along Cape Lookout trail looking down at the ocean breaking on the cape's cliffs.
Lots of roots wringling across the trail
The beach below the cape, with a sea creature who missed the last bus home

tomsart, to hiking
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#hiking among the northern Californian coastal #redwoods.. just.. wuuuaa!

Redwoods!
Trail winding through giant redwoods
Really tall redwoods

tomsart,
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Behold Fern Canyon, which runs into the ocean after winding through #redwood forest in northern California!

Fern Canyon living up to its name
Fallen logs goofing off in the creek of Fern Canyon
Rather large downed tree chatting with the ferns

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