Mt. Rainier: Winter Views
The clouds parted, and there it was. Pictures followed.
It’s not often that we get great views of Mt. Rainier in the winter. There have been years where the mountain stays hidden by rain and clouds for months at a time. Getting a whole week of partly sunny weather is a real treat.
The photo above was taken about an hour before sunset (which is about 4:45PM here at this time of year). There were a lot of clouds to the east (the photo is looking east from Graham, WA), but partial clearing to the west. So there was weak but definite sunlight on the mountain.
This area, on a small local rise near an old dairy farm, is one of my favorite places to visit for photos of the mountain. It’s high enough (about 1000 feet above sea level) to allow one to look over the tops of the mountains around Rainier, and see a bit of the volcano’s foundations.
Overall, the colors are typical winter when we have no snow at lower elevations: no leaves on the trees, lots of green and gold grasses.
I recently found a slightly lower viewpoint, near a local winery and about a mile from the spot where I took the photo above. The elevation is just enough to show the overall shape of Mt. Rainier.
The birds at the top of the frame are probably ducks; too soon for geese, and these guys have shorter necks than geese anyway. I can’t tell for sure, but the impression I get of their ‘body plan’ is duck-like.
I almost always use a long, even telephoto lens when I photograph Rainier, but this location showed me that smaller, shorter lenses can also make good photographs of the mountain.
