Photos: A break in the weather

It's been extremely wet around here for more than a month. June was in the top-5 wettest on record, and July has been in the same pattern. We've already had a summer's worth of rain.

But last Sunday was perfect: Bright sun, low humidity, and with the air was just warm enough to be comfortable, but still cool enough so that you could exert yourself without overheating. It was a day that demanded outdoor activity, especially after such a sodden start to the summer.

So, I hiked up a nearby hill for the view. It's somewhat grandiosely called "Saddleback Mountain," but it's really just a large twin-summitted foothill of the real mountains further north.

It's shown here: http://tinyurl.com/l4ysvc Toggle the map types and the zoom levels, and you'll get a sense of the place.

It's a forested hike, about a 4 hour round trip walk from my house (including a lunch stop) up some modestly steepish trails to a nice rock ledge that affords a view to the north.

With all the moisture, the streams and rivers are running heavy, and the woods were wet underfoot. The bad news with all the water is that we're growing a bumper crop of mosquitoes, but the good news is that we're also growing an equally-large crop of insectivorous fauna:

This bright blue dragonfly was sunning on a leaf:


(click for larger)

And this iridescent beauty was resting on a hemlock branch. Click for the larger view.


Once I reached the ledge with the view --- it was gorgeous up there --- I played with the camera a bit.

Here's a very wide-angle shot, maybe 130 degrees wide or so:


Below, a high optical magnification zoom shot of Mount Washington, which is on the horizon in the wide-angle shot above.


Camera and optics buffs will note the chromatic vignetting at extreme zoom; the tradeoff you get using one set of lenses for everything from macro-close to 20x optical zoom. It's controllable in post-processing, but the image above exaggerates it somewhat because I was looking for detail rather than chromatic perfection. It's a snapshot, not an Ansel Adams print. =)

A (telephoto) part of my small town, along one of its many lakes:

In the photo above, that distinctly-humped mountain on the right side horizon --- the one with the steep right flank--- is Cannon Mt, in Franconia Notch. "Notch" is the local dialect for what's called a mountain "pass" elsewhere. Franconia Notch is a textbook-worthy example of a glacial valley; ice-scooped into an almost perfect U shape rather than the V shape of stream-cut valleys.

I wasn't the only critter enjoying the gloriously sun-warmed rocks on the ledge:




Harmless, of course, but fun to photograph. Digital cameras usually have a lag between the time you press the shutter to when the image is captured, so getting exactly the right shot when a fleeting event occurs takes a bit of guesswork and luck--- but sometimes, you get it just right: I caught the bright-red, black-tipped tongue in mid-flick (best seen in the larger view: click the thumbnail!):


It was a nice hike on a great day.

And just as well: It's been raining ever since!