Category Archives: Hiking

Backpacking, Backpacking, featured, Hiking, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post

Gladys Lake – Olympic National Park

I’ve been to this little slice of heaven many times. I didn’t make it this year, so thought I needed to make a painting of it instead. I honestly don’t think I needed any references as I know the place very well. It’s a relatively small subalpine lake, a place few other hikers seem to go to, and maybe that’s why I like it. Often, I’d be all by myself here, camping in the trail crew area where the black-tails also hangout. Only the deer and myself in a place like this. Imagine!

The mountain in the background is Grand Peak, the notch seen just to the right of it Grand Pass, the trail on south to Cameron. It’s not orange rock, that’s my rendition of sunset. The slope on the left is what created Gladys Lake in the first place, glacial rocks plowing up the valley into various ponds. I just love these wet meadows, their meandering little seasonal streams, flower-covered meadows with outcrop rocks where trees have a dry enough foothold to grow. I’d bet that center little island with it’s stunted subalpine firs has been unchanged for centuries.

This painting is oil on canvas, 24″ x 18″ framed or not and is available on by Etsy Eifert Gallery. Email for more details if you want at larryeifert@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

featured, Hiking, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post

2026-8-26 Lillian Ridge Divide

A new oil on canvas, 24″x 18″- with the paint still wet. With this frame, outside measurements are about 30″x 24″. https://www.etsy.com/listing/4564405586/lillian-ridge-divide-larry-eifert

This was painted with those painters whose work I love from a century ago. It’s not a fictional place – just a bit of pushing reality around a little. I solo day-hiked here two weeks ago and it definitely made an impression on me. How could it not? The layers and layers of subalpine fir, avalanche chutes and knife ridge lines were just so paintable. I could paint these places every day until I croak.

The scene before me was on Lilian Ridge in Olympic National Park, with Lilian Creek in the valley far below. As I walked along here, two Columbian black-tail deer showed up to question my right to be here. A painterly experience.

My heroes that have painted these places have remained constant through the years. I still enjoy seeing paintings by Albert Bierstadt, Gunnar Widforss and Carl Rungius. This painting can be traced to those guys, especially Rungius, who painted in Banff until he died at age 90. I’ve always thought of wilderness painting as an old-man’s game, mainly because there isn’t a swift and sure path to understanding how to do it. If you’re a young painter, it’s easy to get up there. Not so easy to understand how to paint it when you get there. How to paint luminous depth of huge landscapes crammed onto a small piece of linen cloth? It’s not easy. Maybe I’m getting there, maybe I’ll do some more.

Curious about the exact location of this, my reference place in Olympic National Park for this painting? It’s just 30 air miles from my studio in Port Townsend, WA.

This painting is available on my Eifert Gallery Etsy website, free of gallery commission. You can also have it framed as you see it here. Other photos are on my Etsy site. https://www.etsy.com/listing/4564405586/lillian-ridge-divide-larry-eifert

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

featured, Hiking, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Washington State Parks

2026-7-24 Tolles Road

An original oil painting by Larry Eifert.

I hike a lot, and one of favorite local hikes on the Quimper Peninsula is around the top of Fort Worden in Port Townsend. Plenty of uphill to work the painter’s heart, enough solitude to look for owls and the robins that yell at them. Near the top, where the old gun batteries are, there’s a side dirt service road that has a deep bed of conifer needles, making it shine a warm orange during summer and fall. I just love that shine every time I hike on it. This road was built along with the fort, so I figure those needles have been coming down as long as the forest has been here – a century. So, you can see why I painted this. I see the story, of me on the trail and marveling at the colors.

This painting is an original work of art, not a print, and is 18″ wide and 24″ tall on stretched linen canvas. The 2 1/2″ silver frame is included, making the outside about 23″x29″. The frame is included at our cost and is included in the price, and maybe most of the shipping cost (depending on where you live). A final varnish sealer coat was added to seal the painting. You can buy it on my Etsy Gallery here. https://www.etsy.com/listing/4542176607/tolles-road-larry-eifert

There’s just nothing better for me, an old dirt road in a forest. I just soak up these places. I think it’s the idea of travel itself, going into the unknown and making a memory of it. Walking down this road this afternoon will be like walking into the painting I made a few days ago.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Hiking, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Small oil studies, Wildlife

2026-5-10 Various Experiments

Our Swainson’s Thrush is on the elderberry, a soft mix of elegance – at least I hope that’s how it turned out.

These new oils are part of my efforts to learn more about liquid mediums, mixes of various evil brews of linseed oil, driers and thinners. Oils are complicated – you almost have to be a chemist to mix this goop, but I’m getting there. It makes life easier for the brushes – and painter if I get it right. Problem is, there isn’t a ‘right’.

These are all 9″ x 12″ on canvas and most are available on my Eifert Gallery on Etsy here.

It’s a fairly complicated painting for only 9″x12″, so here’s a larger version.

This second painting came from a recent hike up the Dosewallips River in the eastern Olympic Mountains. This isn’t the actual river, but a side tributary carrying water from the Tunnel Creek divide. Falling Water, 9″x12″ includes this silver frame or a gold one, you pick. Outside measurements are 14″ x 17″. Spring runoff is happening at a very alarming rate this year and I wanted to remember it. This painting is available here on my Eifert Gallery site on Etsy.

And below is a similar painting that is now available, but it’s painted in acrylic on canvas instead of oil. Acrylic has served me well for everything from wall murals 90 feet long, to something like this, a 9″x12″ painting with a lot of controlled detail. It’s from a sketch I made in the Hoh Rain Forest, a backwater of the Hoh River. In winter, this is a wild and crazy river, bringing down entire old-growth trees to pile up against the shores in big logjams. The road is washed out often because of it, but then when summer comes it’s a very beautiful place – as you can see.

Logjam, and these others, are available in my Etsy gallery for $295 framed as you see it. I can send it framed in a gold or silver frame, your choice. You can compare the two in the Eifert Gallery on Etsy.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Backpacking, featured, Hiking, Nancy Cherry Eifert

2026-3 New Paintings from Larry Eifert

Several new efforts here from the same on-going series of small oils on canvas board. This week I sort of jumped all over the ideas, as you can see, because I’m also onto bigger park projects now. These small paintings are all either 5″x7″ (framed outside is 7″x9″), or 6″x6″ as with the square one. All are currently available on my Etsy Gallery. They’re all $125 framed and freight-free. https://eifertgallery.etsy.com

The top painting is a chestnut-backed chickadee, a local guy I see every day here. I had another project going on that needed a mossy log and found this great example down our driveway. The mushrooms are inky caps, but young enough they weren’t really ‘inky’ yet. Here’s a link if you’re interested. https://eifertgallery.etsy.com/listing/4469193245

This second painting, American dipper, is a little portrait of a gray bird on a gray rock. These little guys are river-specialists, walking underwater to find food, nesting behind waterfalls – and John Muir’s favorite bird. Maybe mine, too. https://eifertgallery.etsy.com/listing/4468115377

This trail is right around the corner from our place in Port Townsend, in a state park with some of the best forest trails I know. I originally made the right side dense with ferns and salal, a rhododendron – but changed it to a more simple scene to focus on the trail. 6″x6″ canvas, it’s available here: https://eifertgallery.etsy.com/listing/4464943181

And finally I was trying to remember a special spot on the Upper Dungeness River, about 25m south of home. I get that way in late winter. I was there last fall when the late afternoon sun was streaming in and lighting up the river with golden afternoon sun. The big glacial erratic rock had me sitting on it, so I reversed the scene as if I were on the far shore. This one is available here. https://eifertgallery.etsy.com/listing/4466197478

Below: A new little bonus portrait of my partner of many decades, Nancy Cherry. It’s acrylic on watercolor paper, and it was painted on a little card for her birthday. Happy Birthday, my partner in life, as well as countless trails and places I’ve painted in a very long and fantastic ride of being an artist.

Nancy Cherry Eifert, March 2, 2026.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Backpacking, Hiking, Interpretive Art, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Green Rock – oil on canvas

Green Rock is an oil on canvas painting, now available. The canvas is 30″ x 40″ on stretched canvas. It is big enough I thought I’d sell it without the frame, so someone could buy it unstretched, rolled in a tube with the stretcher bars ready to go. We can talk about it.

Below is the painting in a frame, just so you can see what it looks like. I don’t have this frame at the moment, but go ahead and ask.

Where is this place?

The painting is, of course, about salmon (not the green rock). But in these big canvases I find great enjoyment in hiding stuff and telling stories – so how many salmon can YOU find?

I’ve seen many salmon along the Sol Duc River, mostly in Olympic National Park. I even have outdoor exhibit panels there telling the Sol Duc Coho salmon’s story. It’s a special place for both Nancy and me, a place many paintings have been hatched (to use a salmon word). In fact, counting up how many paintings Olympic National Park owns of mine of the Sol Duc Valley: 17! (including one with Nancy in it) Most of them are in a vault at the main visitor center in Port Angeles, so even I can’t see them. All were used for exhibits and reproduced.

If you’d like to find out more about this painting, or if it’s still available, write me at larryeifert@gmail.com.

This is a link to our new Esty store online with some of the available originals.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/EifertGallery

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Backpacking, Hiking, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Royal Lake – Olympic National Park – oil on canvas

Royal Lake is an oil on canvas painting, now available. The canvas is 18″ x 24″, with the silver frame as you see it making it approximately 23″ x 29″. It’s now available. I’m offering it with the frame.

Where is this place?

Royal Basin is in the upper Dungeness River Valley, and Royal Lake is exactly 25 air miles from where I write this in my studio – but it will take you a long day to get there. The lake is surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the Olympic Mountains, seven of them and maybe more. I’ve been there to enjoy it many times. What makes this different is that just above the lake the valley broadens out into a plateau where three glaciers once lived. With little cirque lakes, colorful heather meadows and meandering trails – all of it is above treeline. Sit on the rocks above a tarn there and one can hear the Mt Deception glacier towering above you, as it breaks off chunks of ice and rocks, cascading it all into the valley floor below. It’s a place of great beauty. But below, two meadows down, Royal Lake is another, softer world.

This painting is $1300 with the silver frame you see here. It’s not a cheapy, but a quality gallery frame. Shipping is extra but boxing is included. Outside framed measurements are about 23″ x 29″. It was painted with oil on canvas and varnished. If you’re interested, or want it without the frame for a lower price, or just want to communicate, write me at larryeifert@gmail.com

Above is the back of the frame showing the canvas – and a small part of my messy studio. As someone once said “a clean studio is the sign of a unclean mind!” And possibly the reverse might be true as well.

Below: here I am, solo hiking in those same meadows.

This is a link to our new Esty store online with some of the available originals.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/EifertGallery

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Hiking, Interpretive Art, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Dipper Flying Home – a new painting

American Dipper Flying Home is an original oil painting – not even varnished yet. It tells the story of a little flying dipper flying into a big waterfall, high in the Olympic Mountains of Washington.

This is an 18″ x 24″ oil on canvas, and it is now available. The frame in the photo comes with it but we have other choices – I just really like how the frame colors fit with this painting. Outside measurements are about 24″ x 30″. We can ship this at cost, double-boxed and ready to hang. Email me at larryeifert@gmail.com if you’re interested in more information. The framed price is $1300.

For those who don’t know about these interesting little birds – dippers, here’s a short essay about them. Also known as Water Ousels (East Coast), they make their living completely dependent on cold, clear mountain streams. They lives are entirely connected to these streams and they don’t migrate – even in winter. They even nest behind waterfalls in mossy wet pockets they build.

Dippers were John Muir’s favorite bird, and maybe mine, too. (their name is because they tend to bob up and down as they stand on rocks) The young birds are wet from birth from the constant cold spray of snowmelt water. The parents teach them the routine by diving in, then ‘walking’ underwater, kicking over stones searching for insects and larva. They use their wings outstretched to hold them down in the current. Dippers never leave their streams, and if a tight river bend means a brief flying detour over land, they, instead, fly the long way around the curve to stay connected to their water-home. It’s the very definition of wilderness I’ve always been drawn to and love to paint.

Below is my photo of Royal Falls, one of the sources of the Dungeness River and a major reference for this painting. Royal Falls is high in Olympic National Park, but only about 25 air-miles from where I write this in my studio. The Dungeness is one of the steepest watersheds in the country, dropping over 7000 feet in just 28 miles.

A dipping American Dipper at Tunnel Creek, Olympic National Forest.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

Click here to go to our main website – with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Hiking, Nature Art, New Painting Post

Little Oils – Late Afternoon, Grassy Trail

There’s a brief time during a hiking day (imagined) when the sun is almost down, the atmosphere seems overly warm and sort of glowing. I envision going down a trail and seeing a big meadow ahead. Anticipation of something that might be really meaningful.

This is an 11″ x 14″ oil on stretched canvas. The gold frame as you see it makes the outside measurements about 14″ x 17″. It’s currently available from me for $275, frame included – Yup, no gallery upcharges. Shipping would be a bit more, depending on your distance from me. If you’re interested, please email me: larryeifert@gmail.com. Please see the little essay at the bottom.

I love that experience of the good experience about to happen and have tried to get that feeling here – and in almost all my ‘trail’ paintings in the past. These mostly come to me in winter, when I can’t go actually get here, can’t enjoy it as I would in the warmer days of summer.

When I paint these landscapes, especially ‘trail’ stories, I get lost in making them – it’s like I actually really am hiking along in a real place.

Below is a corner of our studio I’ve been using for these current batch of oil paintings. French easel, glass palette, maul stick – and a great view of the forest beyond. See that little ledge below the gold frame, the one with the Atworth logo on it? About every third brush stroke whacks that right end of it on the way back down to the palette for more paint. It gets more paint than the canvas.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Hiking, National Park Service, New Painting Post, Wildlife

North Fork Nooksack River – a new painting

This painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas, and is available. Email me if you’re interested at larryeifert@gmail.com.  It’s also available with the nice Taos school inspired frame (like you see here) and I already have a shipping crate ready to go. The offering price framed as you see it here is $950 – shipping cost is extra but it will go double boxed UPS.

The Nooksack River, just south of the Canadian border in Washington State. It’s one of our favorite Northwest rivers because it drains water from two of the greatest Pacific Northwest peaks, Mt Baker and Mount Shucksan. North Cascades National Park: big mountains, big glacial power, and the river valley shows that with miles of beautifully sculptured river rock. I’ve painted this area before, but pulled this painting together after I found an unfinished canvas just waiting for me. For some reason, I started this then it just sat there. I especially liked the way the foreground goes blue at the bottom, showing the sky overhead, the water tinted with glacier flour that always makes these river more aquamarine than cobalt.

Someone already asked me about the ducks in the painting, a pair of common mergansers, male has the green head. In the Northwest, these guys spend winters out in salt water. Then in spring, mated pairs head back up rivers to nest in tree cavities beside their grocery stores – the rivers. Their routine is to float leisurely downstream from pool to pool, diving for fish, sometimes resting on a rock in midstream. Then they fly back upstream and start the routine all over again.

This, believe it or not, this was my model for the painting. I like to take an idea and just make it up into a painting that’s far beyond what I originally saw. Let’s see, bigger rocks, add the birds, make the thing glow with Hudson River School late afternoon light.

Again: This painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas, and is available. Email me if you’re interested at larryeifert@gmail.com.  It’s also available with the nice Taos school inspired frame and I already have a shipping crate ready to go. The offering price framed as you see it here is $950 – shipping cost is extra but it will go double boxed UPS.

Thanks for reading this week.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

Click here to go to our main website – with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.