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Within 684,000 acres of Washington’s North Cascades, you can find any of the following: hundreds of glaciers, forested valleys, mountain lions, rivers, flying squirrels and wolves. If it were this past summer, Zurich, Switzerland-based nature photographer Ethan Welty could be included on that list. Participating in an artist-in-residency program, Ethan made the “camptender cabin” in the heart of the national park his home as he photographed his scenic stay. He began shooting landscapes of the region back in 2010, hoping to assist conservation groups in their battle to expand congressional protection of the area. Since then, his body of work has expanded to all possible peaks and pockets he can make his way to. His intentions?
“My goal is to build a comprehensive portrait of this shy and beautiful range, and put my photos to work advocating for the admiration and protection the region deserves.”
Also referred to as the American Alps, North Cascades is the second least-visited national park in the country. More than 1,630 species of plants have been identified in the park, the highest recorded in the United States. Previous to it’s establishment in 1968, minors occupied the area for gold, lead, zinc and platinum. Today, it is a destination for adventurous hikers and mountaineers like Ethan. He summarized his experience living in this natural environment:
“It was a wonderfully simple life, disappearing into the back country for days at a time before coming home to the cabin-turned-editing-cave to reflect on what I’d seen.”
In exchange for residency, Ethan gave public presentations to guests and agreed to display prints from his time there in the visitor’s center. This experience benefited him as an artist, as well as a student, researching glaciers for a PhD at the University of Colorado Boulder. It reflects his passions– he believes it’s important to help others discover that although rugged and inaccessible to many, these beautiful places do exist.