[/caption] A great way to view the Western Cascade foothills is by hiking in the higher elevations of any the many Cascade mountains and look west. This particular photo was taken from the western flanks of Mt. Hood and I was facing south west when I took the photo. The sun was almost directly overhead so the sky is somewhat hazy but it does give a cool glow to the foothills in the distance. I was at about 5,000 feet and since I wasn’t using a tripod I had to make sure and keep a steady hand and hope that the shot was level. I attached my Sigma 17-70m lens and set the focal length at 70mm in order to frame only the foothills in the shot. I set the ISO at 100 and reduced the white balance to -1 due to the glare from the sun. I also attached my CIR-PL and warming filter in order to tame some of the glare. The shutter speed was at 1/166 second and the aperture was at F-5 due to the ISO and white balance settings. I would always recommend using a tripod but since I was covering a lot of ground on this day and because I was carrying a lot of weight I chose to leave my tripod in my car. Luckily there was plenty of sun and no shadow’s anywhere in sight to cause any blur or camera shake. It’s always important to look for great photos of mountain ranges or foothills whenever you’re hiking in the higher elevations since you can forget to look beyond your main subject and miss some great opportunities.