We spent a day (well, technically it was a little over 24 hours) in Olympic National Park after we completed our Best of the PCT hikes and had a little time to spare. Since that was an ultralightweight trip, I only had my iphone with me, and so had to make do with it and capture some landscapes with a little creativity.
We drove out to the park in the evening after dinner, and hiked up Hurricane Ridge to catch sunset. An it was a gorgeous sunset, with all sorts of colors lighting up the sky, and no shortage of subject matter.
I was on an ultralightweight backpacking trip, and so I only had my iPhone with me to take photos. These days, I’m finding less of a need to carry a lightweight camera with a small sensor, like my Sony RX100, and simply rely on the iphone’s camera on such ultralight trips. I still carry and use my full-frame Sony camera on less demanding trips, and when I want high quality output. I wrote about that here.
The iphone already works some magic into each shot, so I didn’t have to do much post processing. The key to getting great shots from my phone’s camera is to make sure the lens is clean. I wipe off the lens before each shot to make sure there’s no grease, sweat or water on the lens.
The next morning, we drove back into the park. Our intention was to visit the Hoh Rainforest, but there was a queue to get into the parking lot. We waited about 45 minutes, and it looked like there was still another hour to wait, so we bailed and headed out to Rialto Beach a little early. The tides worked in our favor as we took our time walking down to the Hole-in-the-Wall, looking at the multicolored stones the Pacific had washed in.
After dinner, we hiked up Mt. Storm King to catch the sunset, and ended our visit to the Olympic National Park with a hike back down in the dark.
adventure nomad 