PNWSights

By Astrid · 5 places

Five Places to Shoot Winter Storms and Snow

Storm watching, low light and honest weather

Winter is the season this region stops performing for anyone. Storms hammer the outer coast, snow buries the passes, and the light stays low and workable all day. I dress for it and go.

  1. Timberline Lodge rises in a wide view under a pale blue evening sky, with its steep shingled roof, stone base, and central tower framed by parked cars in the foreground. Small flags and flower boxes accent the rustic Craftsman facade, with a few people gathered near the entrance steps.
    1

    Government Camp

    Timberline Lodge

    Snow reshapes the 1937 lodge into something out of its own film history, handcrafted iron and timber at 6,000 feet on Mount Hood. I carry chains and check the road before driving up.

  2. A sweeping panoramic view from a grassy alpine ridge shows layered green forested slopes dropping into a deep mountain valley, with snowy peaks stretching across the horizon under clear blue sky. Sunlit meadows and scattered evergreens frame the foreground, emphasizing the vast scale of the Olympic Mountains.
    2

    Port Angeles

    Hurricane Ridge

    The road opens on winter weekends for snowshoeing at 5,242 feet, and the Olympics under snow are a different range entirely. Clear cold days after a storm are the prize.

  3. Historic black-and-white view of Ediz Hook Light Station on a rocky spit, with a tall white lighthouse and keeper’s house behind a picket fence. A small outbuilding, a sailboat in the distance, and a bare, open shoreline frame the scene under a hazy sky.
    3

    Port Angeles

    Ediz Hook

    Winter storms send waves over the three-mile spit while ship traffic keeps moving in the strait. I watch the road conditions; the spit occasionally floods, which is rather the point.

  4. Low surf rolls toward a wide sandy shoreline as dark sea stacks rise from the water, including a larger triangular rock with a few tiny birds perched on top. Bright late-day light softens the pale sky and highlights the white foam against the blue-gray ocean.
    4

    Kalaloch

    Ruby Beach

    Storm surf detonates against the sea stacks and rearranges the driftwood between visits. Winter is when this beach shows its actual temperament.

  5. Sunlit morning view of Cape Perpetua’s steep, forested headland dropping to a rocky shoreline, with waves breaking in white lines below. The ocean stretches left under a clear blue sky, while dense old-growth evergreens cover the hillside on the right.
    5

    Florence

    Cape Perpetua Scenic Area

    From the highest roadside viewpoint on the Oregon Coast I watch swells stack up for seventy miles, then drop to the tideline to see the Spouting Horn fire. Big winter swell makes both ends of the cape worth the day.

← All lists

Next shortlist

Where to Take Your Holiday Visitors