Early morning fall light on cottonwoods in Klickitat Canyon (Philip A. Knouf)

Lovely panoramic view of cottonwoods in a bend in the Klickitat River Canyon.  This section of the river is designated as a wild and scenic river.  It also is included designated as a Washington Natural Resources Conservation Area.  This area includes the only two areas in Washington where the state endangered sandhill crane survives.

Lovely side lighting of Latourell Falls from overlook. (Photographer: Philip A. Knouf)

Latourell Falls with bright, winter side light illuminating the catkins of the Alder trees and the phosphorescence green glow of the new moss on the Big Leaf Maple branches

Storm light on the marshy area next to Horse Tail Fall. (Philip A. Knouf)

Late storm light on the Horse Tail Falls Marsh.  Lovely contrast from the bright fall light on the fall colors in the marsh.  Late fall season rains brought the Horse Tail Falls Marsh back to life with great reflections of the fall colors.

Interesting columnar basalt formations at the base of Latourell Falls. Nice calm day to photograph this location with no mist in the air. (Philip A. Knouf)

It was a fine and calm day to photograph this lower portion of Latourell Falls.  Typically there is a lot of mist in the air that one has to deal with lots of moisture on the lens.  No mist on the lens for this image and lovely and soft light really brings out the color and detail.

(Philip A. Knouf)

This old fireplace is all that is left of the Old Multonamah Falls Lodge more commonly known as Mist Falls Lodge.  A portion of Mist Falls can be see in the background to the right.  There is a rather steep and slippery trail up to a higher viewpoint of the falls.  A very nice historical location that is a rather rare view for most visitors.

Golden colors along Trout Creek in Trout Creek Campground (Philip A. Knouf)

Trout Creek originates on the western slopes of Mt. Adams.  This lovely fall color is along the Trout Creek Campground trail just northwest of Trout Lake Washington.  My friend Ron and I were out exploring on a Friday evening of a weekend when several members of the Pacific Northwest Nature Photographers Forum were meeting for a weekend of photography in the Trout Lake area.  We saw the trail sign but it was too wet and dark to venture out.  The next morning after photographing in Elk Meadows west of Trout Lake I suggested we drive to the Trout Lake Campground to see what we could discover.  I also wanted to venture out along this trail to see what nature would provide.  I was intrigued by this scene with the cold rushing water of the creek in the foreground and the lovely golden energy of the big leaf maples in the background.  This will definitely be a place to visit during other seasons.

Sunrise light on fall leaves in Elk Meadow, Trout Lake Washington (Philip A. Knouf)

I was here photographing with several other landscape and nature photographers with the Pacific Northwest Nature Photographers Forum.  The sun had just risen which provided the warm glow for this fall color.  There is a mix of vine maples, big leaf maples and aspen.  The aspen had just started turning so there was not much in the way of fall color for them yet.  The night before had been quite rainy and cold but we were blessed with some clear sky and banks of clouds overhead.  See my last image posted which is of Mt. Adams with lenticular clouds also taken from this meadow.

Sunrise at Mt. Adams from Elk Meadow with early color of Aspen (Philip A. Knouf)

Elk Meadows is just outside of Trout Lake Washington along FS88.  The meadow has large stands of Aspens, Vine Maple, Big Leaf Maple and meadow grasses.  This morning was a surprise as most of the preceding night we were pelted in our tents by rain and sleet.  And it was quite chilly also.  But before sunrise we saw stars and knew that we were in for some great views of Mt. Adams.  A wonderful lenticular cloud mass had formed over the mountain as the rest of the clouds cleared for about one hour.  There were quite a few trees showing their fall colors in their prime.  However, many of the Aspen were about one week away from peak color.  I was part of a group of photographers from the Pacific Northwest Nature Photographers regional forum of the Nature Photographers Network.   I’ll be posting others images from this very beautiful area as this was a productive image creation weekend.

Falls colors reflected in the surface of Goose Lake (Philip A. Knouf)

Goose Lake is a volcanic sinkhole at the northwestern edge of the Big Lava Flow.  Goose Lake formed when the lava flows filled in a former stream valley and formed the lake.  The lake once had an outlet in the middle through which the lake level lowered each year in the summer.  In 1930 the Forest Service filled in the hole to raise the lake level to improve the fishing.  Thus you now see the silvery stumps of ghost trees!

Blazing Vine Maple color just west of Trout Lake, WA (Philip A. Knouf)

I found this lovely Vine Maple blaze scene along FS 66 just west of the intersection of FS 66 and FS 24; this area is know as Peterson Prairie, which is west of Trout Lake Washington.  The difficult process of finding pattern and form out of the intense chaos that is fall color in this part of the forest was made simple by this lovely arrangement of Vine Maple set in front of the greens of fir trees with a nice large Douglas Fir with the gray-green of lichen growing on the deeply furrowed bark.  The delicate ferns in front were starting to die out from the intense spring green color they display from late spring through most of summer, letting the hidden yellow pigments create a showy display.  There is so much intensity to fall color in October at this elevation and location that the real challenge is to carefully frame your images.