July 2021 – Potassium Photography

A few weeks ago, Cobalt and I visited one of the ghost forests along the PNW coast. These forests were formed as a result of the great Cascadia earthquake on January 26, 1700 (super interesting story for how they figured out that date). During the quake, pieces of forests along the coast dropped away and the trees found their roots in salt marshes. These trees don’t like salty water, so they died, leaving behind eerie tree skeletons that remain to this day.

A tree trunk on a beach. There's a puddle around the trunk, in which you can see the reflection of alive trees on the hill behind the beach. — A ghost tree far below the rest of the forest, which stayed away from that pesky salt water.

I first found out about ghost forests from reading Sandi Doughton’s book “Full Rip 9.0” and I’ve been obsessed with them ever since. Unfortunately, the closest ghost forest to Cobalt and me requires a boat to get to it, so we haven’t visited that one yet. The easiest ghost forest to get to in the area is the Neskowin Ghost Forest because it’s just hanging out on Neskowin Beach on the coast of Oregon. Anyone who’s willing to cross a shallow creek can see those ghost trees. So when Cobalt and I decided to take a vacation to the Oregon coast, I made sure we paid them a visit.

Two tree stumps on a beach — Cobalt and I liked these two because they look kind of like ghosts!

This ghost forest is interesting because apparently the trees were completely buried until the epic 1997-1998 storm season exposed them. Now they host an assortment of mussels and barnacles, and sometimes even tide pools, so it’s double fun — see the ghost forest AND sea stars (can you find the sea star in the top photo?).

Cobalt and I got there just after low tide and spent the next hour or so meandering through the forest and searching for crabs (crab pictures coming soon). The weather was perfect: cool and misty, which made our ghost forest experience even more creepy. It was unfortunately pretty crowded, despite it being 8 a.m. on a Thursday. I guess everyone was excited about ghost forests and/or tide pools.

A tree stump rises out of the beach — I think this one looks kind of like a moray eel. :)

A tree stump on a beach with a green hill behind it — Cobalt and I liked this one because it looks like a face.

This was not the first ghost forest we’ve seen. We found our first one on accident. In 2019, Cobalt and I were exploring the area of Alaska near Anchorage and we drove past the Girdwood ghost forest. This ghost forest is much newer than the Neskowin ghost forest though, it was formed during an earthquake in 1964.

White tree trunks rising out of a green marsh, snow capped mountains in the background — Cobalt was driving so I snapped this picture from the car. These trees look like skeletons to me, rising out of the marsh.

Hi everyone! How is July going for you so far? I hope good. I just got back from vacation, so I actually have photos to share for once. Waaaaat. I know, right? It’s been a while.

I think they split roughly into three posts, so let’s see if we can Get. This. Done.

Post number 1 (if you couldn’t tell from the featured photo): The strawberry supermoon! In case you were wondering, apparently the June full moon is named “strawberry” because it falls during strawberry season? Thanks space.com.

So up here in the PNW, we have a thing with clouds and fog. It’s not great for viewing celestial events (ex: we missed The Great Conjuction last year because of an epic rain/snow storm — cue Cobalt and me watching it on TV because we found an observatory live-streaming it. Oh what a time to be alive.). On the night of the supermoon, we had some low-hanging clouds, but it looked like the fog was going to hold off. So we headed outside. And waited.

And waited.

And then Cobalt, who is great at finding things in the sky, said “I think that’s it over there.” There was a bright spot hidden behind the clouds. I played with my camera settings a little to see if we could pull out a moon.

A moon shape hidden in the clouds — DO YOU SEE IT?!?!

We found the moon! Now to wait for it to get out of the clouds…

Note: I am not very patient, so you get lots of moon-emerging pictures now. :) I mean, if you wanted the picture of the moon not in the clouds, just scroll to the top of this post. Done. OK… on to the emergence.

the moon is slightly more visible now — For some reason the moon looks like a giant Communion wafer to me… maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing…

Moon emerging from the clouds — Still getting strong Communion wafer vibes with this one…

Moon still emerging from behind clouds — At this point, the moon was more visible without crazy camera settings and Cobalt was getting excited too. I like that the top is so well defined.

Moon with a cloud in front of it — Oh you thought you were done with clouds? Hahahaha… :|

Moon with one whisp of a cloud in front of it — OK clouds, now you’re just teasing me. Also this cloud makes the moon look like it has a mouth.

Once the moon had emerged from the clouds, the adventure was sort of over for me. I mean, I took some photos of it obviously, but it just didn’t feel as epic. Plus it was late, so it was time to go to bed. I’ll leave you with one more fun photo: grass + moon!

Potassium Photography

A Day in the Life of an Active Metal

Month: July 2021

Ghosts on the beach

Looking for strawberries in the sky