August 19th. Pouring rain. Snow Level on Mt. Rainier down to 6500’. Summer still hasn’t really arrived. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest 13 years ago, I haven’t seen a summer like this. It is weather like this that creates the unmatched beauty of the NW. The trees are so big. The rivers so wild. The glaciers unmatched in the lower 48. This is the price we pay for the staggering beauty that unleashes itself when the sun does come out. So for this week, when I thought I would be shooting pictures of wildflowers and dramatic alpenglow on Mt. Rainier, I turn the camera down and shoot the finer and often overlooked detail of Mt. Rainier National Park. One morning last week I went to a favorite shooting spot in the park. I arrived an hour before sunrise and stood there with 4 other photographers in the cold fog waiting for it to lift. It never did, but I talked for hours with a photographer from the east side of the mountain, which turned out to be enriching as making a good image…. That didn’t stop me from trying though. Like my experiences climbing the mountain, Rainier does what it wants, and whether or not it fits in to my agenda it is always spectacular.
