Steptoe Butte Revisited

I visited Steptoe Butte in 2013 on my annual camping trip with Bruce Gregory and Steve Johnson, and liked it enough to revisit with my wife, Linda, this May.  This post is about 6 weeks late because I’ve been on another annual camping trip.  Having fun gets in the way of timely posts.

The view from Steptoe Butte varies from month to month as new crops are planted and others are harvested.  On this visit, we saw patterns created by combinations of bare ground and growing crops.  The air was quite hazy, so these photos have been processed to increase clarity and contrast.

We stayed fairly late, so we were treated to some great sidelight touching beautiful farms nestled in green valleys.

The Palouse region of Washington is a remarkable area of gently rolling farmland.  We enjoyed photographing it from below (see previous posts) and Steptoe Butte gave us an entirely different view from above.  Large curvy fields became wonderful abstracts when viewed from here.

Since we were shooting across the tops of the fields, the best abstracts were usually fairly narrow, so I have cropped them.  But this image had two complementary abstracts that I think look pretty good together.

Sometimes I wonder if the farmers arrange their fields just for the benefit of photographers.  The view of these curvy fields from Steptoe Butte is just phenomenal, and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Palouse.

However, I did have one complaint.  Steptoe Butte is a state park, and whoever is in charge of this place should be ashamed of the poor condition of the park.  We were there on the Memorial Day weekend, so it was crowded, and the garbage cans were overflowing and the restrooms unusable.  There are potholes big enough to swallow a Toyota.  Come on, Washington, you can do better than that.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and must not be used without my permission.

Palouse Back Roads, Washington

As I mentioned in my two previous posts, back roads are the way to go in the Palouse.  There is no traffic, it is easy to find a place to stop, and maybe you will discover a location that isn’t photographed very often.

Most of our Palouse photos were taken on dirt or gravel roads, and sometimes I found that the roads themselves were great photo opportunities.  This one was near Steptoe.

How did we decide which roads to take?  This one is Rim Rock Road near Colton, Washington.  In this case we just had a few minutes and took a turn at random near our B&B in Uniontown.

I like S-curves, and roads often have this great composition element.  We found this road near St John on a “Photographing the Palouse” brochure that highlighted barns, lone trees, windmills, and abandoned houses.

This is another dirt road near Steptoe.  The rolling hills and fields were wonderful to explore.  The best resource for finding back roads was a map of Whitman County, Washington that shows every little dirt track.  I picked it up at the county offices in Colfax on a previous trip.

I loved the way this road followed a bank covered with wildflowers that led right to a lone tree near Steptoe.  It is important to be cautious on these roads.  You will be a long way from help, and may not have cell phone coverage, so if you don’t have four wheel drive, keep out of mud holes and loose sand.  We didn’t take chances, and turned back twice in our four days in the Palouse, but we had a wonderful time.

As always, please do not use our photos for any reason without our permission.  Thanks.

Palouse Contours, Washington

The Palouse region of Washington is a remarkably beautiful area of rolling hills and well-kept farms.  Photographers enjoy patterns of green fields cultivated along the curves of these hills.  This is my second post from my recent trip with Linda.

We explored several areas looking for patterns in the cultivated hills.  These two photos were taken near Almota on the edge of the Snake River Canyon.  They are pretty good examples of how many of the fields are farmed wherever the hills aren’t too steep for machinery.  In fact, in many parts of the Palouse, special hillside combines are used.

These two photos were taken along back roads near Steptoe.  You can see what a wonderful effect cloud shadows have on the rolling hills.  Back roads are the best way to explore the Palouse because it is easy to stop anywhere without worrying about traffic.

The last two were taken very close together near the small town of St  John.  Very often two crops are planted on the same hill, for example, rows of garbanzo beans over wheat.  This often results in beautiful stripes or contrasting patterns.  This early in the year we found many fields with unplanted layers over lower bands of green.

It is a good idea to visit the Palouse in different seasons.  In the fall, harvest time brings out the big combines, and winter may add snow drifts to the curves.  The spring curves of new crops were just gorgeous.

Please respect my copyright, and do not use these photos without permission.

Flying Over Bear Lake Valley

Every year the LOTOJA bicycle race passes through the Bear Lake Valley.  It is the longest sanctioned one day bicycle race in the country, and it goes from LOgan, Utah TO JAckson, Wyoming - 206 miles.  I was invited by a friend, Jim Parker, to photograph the event from the air, and he asked Rodger Sorensen if he would give us a ride.  Rodger brought his 1979 Maule four seater from Soda Springs to Bear Lake County Airport.  It was great.  No TSA, check-in lines, tickets, baggage, or hassles.  The first thing they did was take off the door so I could get a better view!  I had the back seat next to the non-existent door, and Jim sat up front with a small porthole to shoot through.

The weather was heavily overcast so the light wasn't too great.  I set the camera for a high ISO, opened the aperture all the way, checked my seat belt, and started shooting.  We found the racers on the highway from Emigration Canyon to Montpelier and got a few photos.

There is so much to see from up there.  Rodger took us as far as Copenhagen Basin summit, then turned back toward the valley.  The ride was incredibly smooth and he gave us a steady platform for photographing scenes like this farm.

We flew over the valley and continued east over the Preuss Range to the Geneva, Idaho area, then turned south toward Bear River.  The fields, creeks, river, and irrigation ditches made wonderful geometric patterns.

Near Pegram, we passed a train as it went under some power lines.  I thought the towers added an interesting perspective for the view from above, and the sun came out for a moment.

We flew over this beautiful green field with its single red tractor.  I could show you a lot more, but we returned to Bear Lake Airport.

After a perfect landing, Jim and Rodger replaced the back door and posed for a photo before Rodger took off for the return trip to Soda Springs.

What a great experience.  Thank you, Rodger and Jim for a wonderful morning and a smooth flight.  I would fly with these guys anytime.

Steptoe Butte, Washington

Steptoe Butte is a high quartzite island rising above the beautiful rolling hills of the Palouse in southeastern Washington State.  I was on an annual camping trip with two friends, Bruce Gregory and Stephen Johnson, and we decided to photograph the landscape at sunset from the Butte.  We wanted a viewpoint that would look across the hills instead of straight down on them, so we drove about half way to the top and waited for sunset.

The sky was gorgeous, but the beautiful clouds blocked the sun from touching the ground below.  All we could do is wait, and hope the sun would drop below the clouds before it went below the horizon.

And then it happened.  The sun found a slot below the clouds and sweet light touched the tops of the hills below, lighting the immaculate farms of the Palouse.

A grain elevator stood out like a beacon in the soft light.

We had five minutes, or less, to capture the rolling landscape before the sun disappeared.  As I was photographing these hills, the light went flat almost without a transition.  It was an amazing evening.  We had waited an hour or so for the light, and when it finally came, we captured a few memorable images and the show was over.  We will have to return to Steptoe Butte again soon.