Where did the snow go?

I went into the lower levels of the Mount Hood National Forest, south of Estacada, Oregon, last Wednesday, 1-19-2011, to revisit one of my favorite river areas in hopes of getting some river/forest/snow pictures.  The elevation there is roughly 900 feet. 



40,562.02485 forest moss cliff

 Woops!  The first two ideas were fine (river/forest), but the snow was totally gone.  However, I did have a chance to photograph the forest displaying unusually brilliant greens and browns for this time of year.  It was like walking under a rainforest's deep canopy.  Heavy rains (which knocked out the snow) a couple days ago, and fog earlier in the day had made everything brilliant green -- the conifer trees, moss (which was everywhere), and even ferns made it look like late spring. 
The river was running very high, just at the top of its banks.  Had I been there three or four days earlier I would have seen the river about two feet over the banks and looking even more mean than it was.  The cause of all the water and lack of snow was not just local.  The Mount Hood area (4-12,000 foot) about 35 miles away has been getting 9-10 inches of rain for a couple days, which fell on their deep snow and compounded the water runoff.  Naturally, roared downhill it even took out some houses and roads in different areas.  My area wasn't hit as hard, but it definitely flooded. 

 40,562.02583 Storm flood hits Roaring River

On my day out, the sun was spotty and didn't provide all I wanted for pictures, but it all worked out.  You can see a couple of my photos here, and more will soon be on my website. 

Feel free to look at my photos at Bob Paulson's Photography In Natural Settings, as well as those held by my agent -- see Bob Paulson at ALAMY IMAGES.

Thanks for visiting.