The Silcox Warming Hut, or simply the Silcox Hut, is located at about 7000 ft on the southern flank of Mt. Hood in Oregon.  Climbers for generations have used the Hut to mark their progress up-mountain, and as a beacon home in inclement conditions.  The structure was built by the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1939.  The Hut was designed as a warming station for skiers on the (then, circa 1938) famous Magic Mile run.  The development of the much higher chairlift on the Palmer Glacier made the Silcox Hut obsolete, and it fell into disrepair over the years, until efforts following it’s addtion to the National Register of Historical Places rescued the structure.  Anyway, it’s a spooky location and I believe that the fantasy-HDR is an appropriate medium to record the visit, which occurred at about 09:00 (PST) on June 20, 2009 – it’s just a short hike uphill from Timberline Lodge.  The image was made using the Nikon D700 and the AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lens at 14mm.  Exposure was f/16 at 1/320s, ISO 200.

The original image was recorded using the Nikon D700 and the F-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lens at 23mm.  Exposure was f/16 at 1/160s, ISO 200.  The (pseudo)-HDR image was tone-mapped using Photomatix Pro 3.1 in the Detail Enhancer mode…

Luminosity:  0

Strength:  90

ColorSaturation:  46

WhiteClip:  5.000000

BlackClip:  5.000000

Smoothing:  Medium

Microcontrast:  10

Microsmoothing:  0

Gamma:  1.375542

HighlightsSmoothing:  0

ShadowsSmoothing:  0

ShadowsClipping:  0

ColorTemperature:  0

SaturationHighlights:  0

SaturationShadows:  0

Shadow/Higlights adjustments were made subsequent to the HDR conversion.

I’ll return to this image for a discussion on eliminating the highlight halos – stay tuned!