Forest Pictures!!

[Sheilawisz]

You are correct Severin, sometimes there are so many trees up there that you cannot see the forest =)

Today I share with you two pictures of the Las Ventanas East Summit, but first, this is the story: I had no idea that there were two summits at the valley, and when I reached the West Summit I was sure that I was standing at the highest point of the national park.

Then, the fog dissipated a little and I discovered that there was a slightly higher, steeper and rather dramatic summit to the East... and I thought: "What, now I have to climb that one?"

First picture: The East Summit seen from the West:

There is something eerie about the East Summit. I calculate that it is some twenty meters higher than the West, and the entire thing is about the size of a thirty stories building.

I tried to climb it and managed to reach about half the way up, but in the end, realizing that the wet, slippery rock could send me crashing down to my death any moment, I decided to retreat...

The view from the top must be wonderful, and the next time I visit Las Ventanas I am going to climb it!

The East Summit, seen a little closer this time. I have other pictures of this rock seen from the camping grounds, but I want to post those tomorrow.

Comments are appreciated!!

 

[druidofwinter]

Looks great Sheilawisz! Reminds me of something you might see in Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. The fog might have cut down the visibility, but it definitely gives it a fantasy "look" What time of day were you there?

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hey Druid, thanks for your comments.

We were at Las Ventanas between 11:30 and 13:50. The fog was already passing when we left, and many people were getting ready to depart after spending the night at the valley.

When I see my first picture of the East Summit, I imagine a great, black dragon landing on the rock and resting there some time, exhaling purple fire and spreading its wings. I have the idea for a Fantasy world that would be composed entirely by forest and rocks with eternal fog, that would be so beautiful =)

A last picture of the great rock, taken from the camping grounds:

I promise that, when I finally get to climb the East Summit, I will share the pictures in this thread...

 

[ThinkerX]

because Ms Sheilawisz keeps expressing interest, am because others may find it of some interest...

East and West sides of Cook Inlet, edge of the civilized lands on the one side, literal trackless wilderness dotted with camps and tiny villages on the other.

First off, the area on both sides is heavily forested. Like the forest in the rest of the state - and most of the state is wooded - there are just four types of trees: Alder, Birch, Cottonwood, and Spruce. You see anything else, somebody planted it. All of these tend to be stunted by the standards down south: alder rarely tops 4 meters in height, and the trunks are typically only a few centimeters thick. The other trees seldom top twenty or twenty five meters, and while the trucks of the older cottonwoods may be as much as a yard thick, the trunks of the birch and spruce are rarely thicker than 40 centimeters or so. At the moment, spruce is far and away the most abundant, but it is also perishing rapidly due to a beetle infestation. (Said infestation could have been stopped decades ago by intensive selective logging, but enviromentalists groups balked at the concept). Smaller vegetation includes various types of brush, ferns, thorny plants (especially 'devil's club), and an assortment of berry bushes, ranging from cranberries to rasberries to strawberries. And mushrooms, though I know little of those. There are also warnings about poisonous plants, including 'monks hood'.

There has been a great deal of oil and natural gas development on *both* sides of Cook Inlet. Many (male) members of my immediate family have spent a lot of time in the camps and villages of the West Side. Likewise, so have many of my friends. The norm, all to often, is to live on this side of the inlet, and spend weeks on end working on the other.

Down through the years, I've picked up an assortment of stories and anecdotes.

Cook Inlet runs north - north-east. The mountains (many of them occasionally active volcanoes) on the far side run north and south, leaving a large slab of triangular flat land. The triangles third side, more or less, would be the Susitna river. As to camps and villages, from north to south:

Beluga is, or rather was, a power plant situated in the midst of a coal and natural gas field that supplied Anchorage with much of its electricity. These days, its in the process of shutting down, though there is active interest from abroad (Asia) in the coal deposits. One scheme I heard of involved taking the coal to tidewater view a twelve or fifteen mile long conveyer belt. Beluga is also on the 'Beluga Highway', a gravel service road not on most maps, which connects the site with other camps in the region.

Trading Bay is a sort of 'hub' for the camps. Its also where my relatives have spent the most time. Used to be a bar/eatery there called 'Fat Alberts'.

Tyonek is a native village (athabaskans, if memory serves) of a few hundred. Not reputed to be a friendly bunch.

Drift River is a pipeline terminus to the south of Tyonek, where the mountains finally intersect the shore. The site had to be abandoned some years ago because of massive flooding. For a time, it was feared we were looking at a world class environmental disaster. The site is still abandoned, though there is debate about reopening it.

Chinitna Bay is a camp of a different sort: a summer camp used by commercial 'set netter' fishermen. One of my childhood friends, long deceased, spent most of his summers over there as a boy. I'm told many of the trailers and rude shacks over there have been replaced by nice houses...but it is still an isolated part of the world.

South of Chinitna Bay is Iliamna Bay. The only place of note there is 'Williamsport', which is where one finds the narrow road leading through the mountains to Iliamna Lake. This road is typically used by heavy duty vehicles towing trailers with large fishing boats upon them: its easier, apparently, to take this route over the mountains and follow the river from Iliamna lake to the fishing grounds of Bristol Bay than to brave the storm tossed waters about the Alaskan Peninsula (I get to listen to reports of missing and sunk boats in THAT region rather frequently). Sometimes bodies or debries is found months or years later.

Anyhow, the road from Williamsport eventually reaches the village of Pile Bay on Illiamna lake. From there, a rough track continues to Pedro Bay. Note that while there are other settlements these are all *villages*, with populations in the low three digit range at most. Apart from them and a few isolated lodges, cabins, and camps, there are no people. Lake Iliamna itself is around 70 miles in length by about 25 miles wide, with imposing mountains to the north, east and south. West, the land turns into a sort of treeless swamp reaching to Bristol Bay. There are isolated reports of some sort of lake monster in the water and more isolated reports of a sort of 'bigfoot' type creature in the wilderness.

North and east of lake Iliamna is Lake Clark, extending NE for about forty miles, and a bit under ten miles across. Like Iliamna, it is surrounded by mountains, save to the west, which is merely rugged, heavily forested wilderness.

In the region between the two lakes is the proposed site of one of Alaska's great controveries at the moment: the Pebble Mine, a truly gargantuan open pit mine if ever completed. There are frequent 'for' and 'against' articles about this project in the press. The project has been mired in permitting issues for most of a decade now with no end in site. I find myself skeptical of the claims made by both sides here; too many things unsaid or glossed over. If built, the mine would be connected to Cook Inlet by an all weather road (though in my view a rail link would be a better option).

North and east of Lake Clark is a narrow, harrowing pass through the midst of the regions most rugged mountains: Lake Clark Pass. While there is a path or winter snow machine trail through this gap, it is most commonly used by aircraft.

Think I'll call it quits there before everybody falls asleep.

 

[Jabrosky]

Tropical rainforests, also known as jungles, are without a doubt my favorite kind of forests. They're wonderful for inspiring adventure stories like King Kong or Jurassic Park. When I spent my childhood in Singapore as an expat, I absolutely loved gazing at the jungle that grew beyond the highways, wondering what kind of mysteries the luxuriant vegetation concealed.

 

[Svrtnsse]

To me it's all about the coniferous forests of the north. They trigger my imagination and fill me with awe.

None of the pictures are taken or drawn by myself, but they serve to illustrate what I mean:

Random pine tree forest.

Winter forest. Note the tiny little hous up the hill.

Princess Tuvstarr as illustrated by John Bauer.

 

[Sheilawisz]

It's time to bring my Forest Pictures thread back to life!

I was up at the Las Ventanas valley just recently, in my birthday. The place is really beautiful, it was quite sunny at that part of the day and I ended up taking loads of pictures with my Panasonic Lumix camera. This time I did not climb all the way up to the West Summit, but it was great anyway... these are two of those pictures:



That's a part of the fascinating meadow that is well looked after by the Las Ventanas staff, since it's the camping area. If you leave that part of the valley, the forest becomes very wild and dangerous immediately. You can see the East Summit in the background, it's a really huge rock.



That's what the forest looks like a short distance from the camping meadow.

Las Ventanas is the name of the huge rock, and also the valley in general. This is part of the El Chico National Park in the Pachuca mountains, Hidalgo state, Mexico. The elevation at the meadow is 3000 meters. That day, I climbed a little to an elevation of 3037 meters while the East Summit reaches around 3100, all according to GPS readings under a clear sky.

It's warm during the day, and freezing cold during the night.

 

[Chessie]

I love forests! Thanks, Sheila!

Alaskan forests:

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Why had I never seen this thread before??!?!?!!

I absolutely love forests. Sadly I don't get much of them...

 

[skip.knox]

Ghost Forest of Nienhagen

 

[Malik]

As you drive west from here, the forests get progressively darker and more tangled until you hit the Olympic Peninsula, which has a massive temperate rain forest. Giant moss-hung trees, waterfalls. Otherworldly. I've done a lot of writing out there.

 

[Malik]

One more, for perspective:

 

[Miskatonic]

The Hoh Rainforest is one of the few places in WA I have yet to visit.

 

[Chessie]

More Alaskan boreal:

 

[ThinkerX]

Ah, devils clubs, bane of the Alaskan wilderness...

Later this winter, my nephew and I will be taking a look at the wild woods on the back side of the folks homestead. Hadn't been back there since I was a teenager.

 

[Chessie]

There's some Cow Parsnip in the top picture, too. There's prime bear territory in all of those images. -_-

 

[skip.knox]

More than once I've thought there should be a picture collection specifically for fantasy writers. I can't tell you how many times I've gone looking for what a chestnut forest looks like, or a beech forest, or ... well, pretty much anything except conifers, which is about all we get here in the Intermountain West. And aspens.

For that matter, let's have a video library: wolves, foxes, elk, other animals.

And another one for flowers, complete with notes as to generally where they can be found.

Another lifetime's work, this.

 

[ThinkerX]

More than once I've thought there should be a picture collection specifically for fantasy writers. I can't tell you how many times I've gone looking for what a chestnut forest looks like, or a beech forest, or ... well, pretty much anything except conifers, which is about all we get here in the Intermountain West. And aspens.

For that matter, let's have a video library: wolves, foxes, elk, other animals.

And another one for flowers, complete with notes as to generally where they can be found.

Another lifetime's work, this.

Suggestion: Go to one of the local 'wilderness' type parks - or in some states, the bigger 'rest areas.' Look around a bit. About a 50-50 shot you'll find one of those big woodsy outdoor bulletin board things with pics of the local plant life, including the more exotic stuff.

 

[skip.knox]

Sure, and thanks for the suggestion. Alas, the flora and fauna here in the Intermountain West is more or less the same for, well, for hundreds of miles in every direction. Changes west of the Cascades, but that's still heavily coniferous. The stuff I want is European; just now, Mediterranean.

But I keep thinking a library of stuff would be a great resource for fantasy writers, especially for the more exotic-looking plants and animals. Yes, we can do a search and come up with it, but a central resource would be great. Just incredibly laborious to assemble.

 

[Chessie]

I just realized that there are no winter pics of Alaska, so here!