Volcano of the Month Winner Announced

Having tabulated 4,302,200 votes*, the winner is...Mt. Rainier. Again.

With clear air throughout western Washington state, Mt. Rainier has been prominent and the details very visible. Known to the native Americans originally in this area as Tacoma, the mountain is impressive enough to have gotten more votes than Mt. Baker, Mt. Adams, and poor Mt. St. Helens, who blew her oh-so-fashionable top 30+ years ago.

Seen here from a marsh behind Orting High School, the mountain shows something of its broad base, which anchors it to the Cascade Mountain Range. Yes, that’s right: plate margin volcanoes typically sit like an eternal carbuncle on mountain ranges raised by the pressure of continental drift. Though we’re sure that the volcano intends no harm, we’re also sure that having all that rock sitting on your back is no cakewalk for a mountain range—the Cascades have our sympathy!!!

Here is the central portion of the view in color. The top image is a multi-shot panorama, combined in Capture One to show more context. A polarizing filter was used on all of these images to cut through remaining haze; there was already some light air pollution evident…

From front to back we have a typical Pacific Northwest marsh, a football field, a suburban development, shaved hills (clear-cut for lumber), some Cascade Range peaks (the three in the middle remind one of the small pyramids at Luxor**), and The Mountain, as we call it locally. Atmosphere provided courtesy of planet Earth.

* Population of Greater Seattle

** Thanks for that idea to a friend who knows who he is…