Hunting Fall Colors in the Cascades

This year has been an exceptionally good year for fall color in the Pacific Northwest. Lots of reds and brilliant yellows, and the leaves have stuck around even through a bunch of days of rain and wind. The changing colors and the colder temperatures make fall my favorite time of year, and so I set off for a few hours the other day to explore.

This late in the year, the leaves have mostly dropped up in the mountains, but I saw some reports online about some good color in the lowlands of the east slopes and decided to go check it out. I ended up driving over to Easton Ponds which was a location I had driven by hundreds of times, but never stopped. What a cool spot! There are 3 or 4 ponds ringed by colorful yellow and red trees. On the day I was there, the weather started with rain but quickly cleared out and I got some beautiful light on the trees, with a calm reflection in the pond.

I had a lot of fun in this location playing with different looks at the trees, from all angles. I even found a bunch of neat scenes in the reflections in the lake that looked almost like a painting!