Twelve Months At Hurricane Ridge Is Done – Really

Really, Twelve Months at Hurricane Ridge is done! Done. Whew. 48 photos, a few lines of narrative, and the most recent of my Twelve Month books is available. It’s a good feeling. Twelve months, 4 photos per month (2 horizontal, 2 vertical), make a book and a gallery The book is 8.5 square and hardback, which makes it easier to gift and ship. The photos are online, which provides a wide variety of ways to display them. Hopefully everything works. Real-life gallery shows may happen, too. Enjoy.

2025 was a good year for photographing Hurricane Ridge. There was enough snow, but not too much. The lodge is gone (sad), but the view wasn’t filled with construction equipment. Locals were there. Tourists, too. The picture postcard shots show blue skies and a white skyline, but in reality there is also fog, mist, smoke, and whatever evaporating snow wants to become.

The hyper-locals, the deer and marmots, command the place, putting up with our presence. The ravens watch and scavenge. Cougar exist, but I was lucky and unlucky enough to not see any. Hyper-locals don’t care about road closures, weather outages, and whether the bathrooms are open. They tolerate our presence and work and eat around us as they get ready for the next season.

My Twelve Month studies (3 in the Cascades, 10 on Whidbey Island) are Not 12 months of those postcard shots. Postcard shots can be art, and there is a surplus of excellent local talent. But there are fewer chronicles of an entire year there. Twelve Months at the same place are 12 different perspectives. Snow and flowers are natural signs of the seasons. So is the mix of tourists versus locals, newbies versus veterans, one-timers versus returning fans. 

I visit a place for twelve months because I’ve found that going there once is like a one-night stand. I’m also only me, and there’s so much to see around the Salish Sea (pardon the accidental rhyme), that I have found a compromise: visit a place for every month of a year, and then move on to another facet of the area. I don’t see everything, but I’ve been surprised how much one place can seem new and yet familiar. And then move on. How else to truly get to know such a large region?

Of course there are other ways to get to know the area. This is mine. I encourage you to visit. Hopefully my photos help convey a feeling of the place. Enjoy the book. Enjoy the photos. And at best, visit and capture your perspective too.

Book: Twelve Months At Hurricane Ridge
Photos (online): Twelve Months At Hurricane Ridge
Photos (custom – contact me): Twelve Months At Hurricane Ridge

My other Twelve Month series:
Books: Amazon
Books: Blurb
Photos: Fine Art America