Drought at Mount Rainier

by Connie Fox

Title

Drought at Mount Rainier

Artist

Connie Fox

Medium

Photograph - Outdoor Color Photo

Description

The active volcano Mount Rainier (elevation 14,410 feet) appears nearly hidden in the clouds above a tranquil meadow west of Mount Rainier National Park. Photographed in late August 2012 on a day-trip on the Mount Rainier Scenic Railway, which departs from the tiny town of Elbe, Washington, U.S.A.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but I thought I was taking a picture of the meadow. Worse, I was disappointed that I never even got to see Mount Rainier on the entire train trip. But when I returned home and processed the pictures, I saw that the mountain was in my viewfinder after all. It just did not look as I expected, for I had never seen a picture of Mount Rainier from the west.

As Ron Warfield explains in his beautiful book, Mount Rainier National Park, on the western side the classic cone shape is truncated into three separate peaks: Liberty Cap, Columbia Crest, and Point Success. The broad Puyallup Glacier, he writes, occupies a cirque beneath Sunset Ampitheater, a huge bow-shaped scar left by the Round Pass and Electron debris flows.

If you study this image, you will find at least two of those three peaks, as well as the glacier. And perhaps you will be reminded, as I was, that just beyond a lovely meadow can be THE mountain (as it is known throughout the region) and some important life-lessons. A similar view, "Mount Rainier as Viewed From the West," can be found in this and other of my galleries. It includes more sky and less foreground. This places more emphasis on the drought. You would do well to compare the two. I find both scenes wall-worthy, and they lend themselves to the products too.

Copyright 2012–23 Connie Steitz Fox
All Rights Reserved
Nikon D80

FEATURED on the homepages of The Meandering Photographer, Nikon Full Frame Cameras, and The Art Workshop and USA Photographers Only, August 2023; Seasons of the Trees, September 2023.

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October 12th, 2019

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