Gettin' Loose in the Palouse, 5.18.19 - 5.24.19, Part 2 of 3
After our most excellent excursion to Palouse Falls State Park, we headed back to Boyer for some chill time before our next adventure. For me, the main reason I wanted to come out to this area was to photograph the rolling hills of The Palouse in the late afternoon and evening sunlight, knowing that typically that is the best light of the day for photography. We ate an early dinner and hopped back in the Corolla (we need a name for our Corolla) and drove back up and out of the canyon.
Road out of the Snake River Canyon
This old barn just begged to have its picture taken in the lovely valley between the Snake and the highway.
We left around 5:45PM for the hour drive to a place called Steptoe Butte. Steptoe Butte is a 3,612’ bump sticking up smack dab in the middle of The Palouse and as a result it provides spectacular views in every direction. When we first arrived the wind was howling near the top and I wasn’t sure I would get any good pictures with the wind practically blowing my camera off the tripod. The road to the top winds around the butte like a corkscrew so there were several spots to pull off on the way up to take photos. I also got the lay of the land and calculated where the best spots might be as the sun sank in the west. What happened next was simply amazing.
With storm clouds off in the distance and high clouds above, the sun shone through a thin filter which softened its harshness. Over the course of the next couple of hours, I had some of the best lighting conditions I have ever been privileged to see, let alone photograph. The odds of going to a specific place for the first time with the intent to photograph it and getting the kind of light I was seeing is extremely rare. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would have rated the light as a 50. I found the photography to be very different than I was used to and mostly I ended up using my 300mm zoom lens to focus on patterns of shape and light down below me. It was an incredible experience and it truly felt like I was in the midst the Perfect Light.
We actually started heading down before the sun completely sank and as we drove down to the bottom of Steptoe Butte we were once again below the tops of the hills. as it grew darker, the higher hills were bathed in the softest light you could ever imagine and they almost seemed to glow from within. It was truly otherworldly and we all just rode in silence as night fell upon us.
Continued in Part 3 of 3