Mount Rainier

mount rainier sunrise reflection lakes

Photo: Mount Rainer at dawn from Reflection Lake, Mt Rainier national park, Washington.

I know better than to show up in a national park without a campground reservation on a Friday, but I had to be back in Portland on Saturday so I didn’t have much of a choice.  I thought that by arriving pretty early there might be something available, but nope, the whole place was reserved.  Oh well, I guess I’d worry about sleeping options later and so I headed up to Paradise to do a bit of hiking.  The perfect summer weather and seeing a few climbers coming down off the mountain made me wish I’d brought my gear with me, but without a partner there wouldn’t be much I could do anyway.  So I had to content myself to wandering around with the crowds of tourists on the hiking trails.

Sunset was boring and uneventful.  And anyhow, summer is not a good time for the south side of the mountain as the sun sets too far to the north for any good light.  I headed off to the overnight hiker parking to sleep in my truck for the night and hopefully not to get a ticket from a ranger.  As the morning arrived I ended up at the Reflection Lakes, along with every other photographer in Washington state.  My jaw kind of dropped as I pulled up alongside the 10-15 cars already there in the morning darkness, and which continued to show up for the next hour.  I’m pretty unfamiliar with the Rainier area, but it looks like I must have found the place to be.  Sunrise was also pretty boring and after an hour of so of getting eaten by mosquitoes it was time to head south towards Portland.

Reflection lakes

Photo: Crescent moon in Reflection lake, Mt Rainier national park, Washington.

 

Mount Rainier

Photo: Mt Rainier from near Paradise, Mt Rainier national park, Washington.

1 reply
  1. Xingyuan Wang says:

    Cory… just refound your blog after some lengthy email exchanges about Norway and Lofoten. Glad to see you made it back — and then some — this year!

    If you make it to Rainier again, gimme a holler. There are plenty of places that you’d probably find more photogenic than Reflection Lakes, which is admittedly one of the easiest-access scenic spots in the park. I’m oddly in love with this mountain — after two pages of astounding photography, it is this that I’m commenting on after all!

    In all seriousness, a very big thumbs up. More comments to follow soon, especially regarding gear. 😀

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