Fine Art Photography Blog

Like the Siberian Highway, travel through America’s trans-continental freeways is subject to approval from the weather. This weights heavy on our minds given the recent flooding along I-5 and the official state of emergency that ensued. Of course this has been a tragic, highly unusual storm; ordinarily the mountain roads can be treacherous, but far more predictable.

To Seattlites, Snoqualmie Pass and the Mountains to Sound Greenway can easily become old hat. Taking a step back, though, there are few similarly breathtaking freeway landscapes in the continental United States. Donner Pass is another example, crossing through the Sierra Nevada at more than 7,000 feet.

The freeway more or less follows the route of the Iron Horse Trail - a railway converted to a foot and bicycle path - through the mountains to the eastern desert. Obviously the experience is quite different along a ten foot wide dirt trail than on a two to four lane superhighway. Being several hundred feet above 90, the trail has the feeling of being more in and of the mountains, although the two converge around Keechelus Lake.

Befitting a national forest, the Iron Horse is far from the only chance to leave one’s car behind. In the 20 or 30 miles surrounding the pass itself, there are more ‘recreational’ than commercial exits: parks, forest service roads, camp grounds, and so on. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, a patchwork of ~700 mountain lakes: the world renowned Enchantment group, Talapus, Olallie, Kachess and nearby Cle Elum, Mason, Pratt, Toscohatchie and Snow Lake, among others. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and the region is also home to Franklin Falls, Twin Falls, all too popular Snoqualmie Falls, plus hundreds of unnamed natural showers.

Gold Creek Pond, near Hyak, is an unusual legacy of the freeway, and yet, for its industrial birth, the place manages to attract as much wildlife as human visitors. An unchallenging, and largely paved, loop around the water gives inspiring views of the mountains nearby.

Snoqualmie Pass itself is a popular - and very conveniently located - ski area. Less dramatic than Whistler, Aspen, or Big Sky, the Pass makes up by being close to home.

The Old Milwaukee Railroad, that would later become Iron Horse State Park, elected to go straight through the mountain rather than overland. Today hikers can traverse the 2.6 mile - each way - tunnel dug under a peak. On a hot summer day, the cave-like tunnel cools almost instantly to about 40 degrees, water dripping from the ceiling, all light quickly choked off. After traversing most of the length in darkness, a light starts to appear, taking on the same star-point diffraction pattern as a small aperture night photo. The light steadily grows brighter, and rounder, until you finally emerge on the other side of the summit.