Clouds

Mount Rainier Biathlon

My first connections to the Pacific Northwest began with a visit to the Carbon River valley portion of Mount Rainier National Park. My first visit to Green Lake as well as the hike to the snout of the Carbon Glacier left such an impression that I wanted to make this area my home. Through the years, I’ve made repeated visits to both. I had wondered about what lay beyond the glacier’s snout and one summer, I made my first hike up to Moraine Park.

Tucked away alongside the Carbon Glacier, Moraine Park starts about 5300 feet and is bordered to the south by Moraine Ridge at 6000 feet. The Wonderland Trail bisects the area and I’d hazard a guess that the majority of its visitors are Wonderland Trail hikers on their way to Mystic Lake and destinations beyond. I have made the hike to Moraine Park three times before. My first time, I was blown away by the display of Avalanche Lillies along the trail in lower Moraine Park. On another visit, I explored Moraine Ridge (the high point on the Wonderland Trail in this area) and eventually found myself perched above the sprawling Carbon Glacier and the formidable Willis Wall and north face of Mount Rainier.

My last visit was five years ago. Since then, the active nature of the Carbon River down in the lower valley damaged the Carbon River Road so severely that the National Park Service finally gave up on the road. These days, if you want to visit Moraine Park, you must hike or bike the 5 miles of the road AND THEN hike 8 miles. Through the years, this has been a pretty big deterrent but my fading memories of the views finally compelled me to return.

My last visit was with my point & shoot so I really wanted to capture the views with my latest SLR gear. Luckily, I was able to convince a friend to join me on this long outing which I’ve dubbed the Mount Rainier biathlon. I know we needed an early start so I met him in South Hill at about 7am. From there, we made our way to the Park’s Carbon River entrance. To my surprise, the small lot next to the ranger station was already full so we parked alongside the road just inside the gate. We geared up and set out on our bikes around 8:30.

Ipsut Creek and Ipsut Falls - Mount Rainier National Park
Carbon River and Mount Rainier - Mount Rainier National Park
I’ve hiked the road several times on my way to Green Lake and biking the road definitely made quick work of the distance! The road is steady (but gently) uphill so I knew the ride back would be low effort and a relaxing end to the whole outing. The road has about 3-4 major sections of damage but otherwise is a gravel road still in good condition. The damaged sections a little tricky to navigate due to large amounts of cobble and sand. As you reach the Ipsut Creek Campground (road end and trail head), you navigate through some of the most severe damage. After just over an hour, we reached the campground where we locked up our bikes to an eye hook at one of the camp sites.

Now it was time to travel on foot. The first quarter mile of trail has always struck me as some of the prettiest stretch of the Carbon Glacier Trail. The flood damage of recent years has changed that. Throughout the day, I found myself telling my friend “wow- that’s different” a number of times. Although I’ve hiked the trail a number of times, I never stopped at Ipsut Falls. We made the brief side trip and the dappled sunlight through the trees really made a beautiful scene.

Carbon Glacier snout - Mount Rainier National Park
North face of Mount Rainier and tarn from Moraine Ridge - Mount Rainier National Park
Pressing on another two miles we reached the junction with the trail that crosses the river valley and joins the Northern Loop Trail. At some point the “traditional” trail to the Carbon Glacier became damaged so, for now, hikers are rerouted across to the north side of the valley. I have to admit that the north side is prettier and more aesthetic. After about 1.5 miles, we reached the snout of the Carbon Glacier. The wildflowers alongside the trail here were about prime and putting on a nice show. We rested a bit in preparation for the climb up and into Moraine Park.

While the day had been pleasant and cool to start, the climb up away from the snout was in the sun and the sweat began to pour. After another mile, we reached the Dick Creek camp and the shade of the forest for the final switchback climb to Moraine Park. Your arrival in Moraine Park is the crossing of Moraine Creek. Suddenly the forest is a bit more open and parkland. The trail travels up a gully between what I guess are two older lateral moraines.

North face of Mount Rainier and the Carbon Glacier from Moraine Ridge - Mount Rainier National Park
Storm clouds and Mount Rainier from Moraine Ridge - Mount Rainier National Park
In this lower portion of Moraine Park, we finally hit some snow patches but nothing substantial. As a testament to our non-summer, I guess that we were perhaps a week shy of “prime” Avalanche Lilly conditions. Many were in bloom but still more were preparing to bloom. We enjoyed the pleasant stroll that leads you up to the large 13 acre meadow below Moraine Ridge. This meadow provides you with your first BIG view of the north face of the mountain. Suddenly, all the large old growth trees you hiked past seem small.

At the far side of the meadow, a short series of switchbacks take you up to the 6,000+ saddle (also part of the divide between the White River and Carbon River drainages). While the Wonderland Trail continues downhill another 0.6 mile to Mystic Lake, a way trail heads west past a couple tarns and steadily climbs up through the subalpine parkland. After cresting a knoll with a worthy view of its own, the path grows a bit more fainter and drops down into a small tundra-like basin. Climbing through stunted heathers and wildflowers, there’s just one final scramble up the lateral moraine to one of the best views in the park.

Mount Rainier and Carbon Glacier from Moraine Ridge (portrait version) - Mount Rainier National Park
Mount Rainier and Carbon Glacier from Moraine Ridge (landscape version) - Mount Rainier National Park
Throughout our push to this point, we saw clouds slowly creeping up from the lower Carbon River valley. As we dropped our packs and I broke out my camera gear, the clouds caught up with us. They lifted faster than I was able to set up for my first shot. Luckily, we had some time to spare before our turnaround time of 5pm. In a few minutes, the clouds parted like they tend to do in the mountains and we were treated to clear views of the mountain and glacier. We had the entire view to ourselves and the only sounds were the large waterfall across the valley from us and the ping-ponging of rocks within the Carbon Glacier below us.

We soaked in the sights as much as we could but eventually we had to turn back. After spending most of the day ascending nearly 4800 vertical feet, the descent went much faster. I had passed on taking a particular shot from the lower end of the Moraine Park meadow on our way up because I thought it would be better light on our way back. We were racing to beat the upwelling clouds and I thought we would just beat it. Turns out I was wrong. As I swung my tripod out of my backpack, the clouds drifted in. I was only able to rattle off just two shots before the clouds obscured the mountain permanently.

Mount Rainier and Carbon Glacier from Moraine Ridge - Mount Rainier National Park
Carbon Glacier detail - Mount Rainier National Park
My friend noticed this one tree in the area whose bark had been peeled away like a banana by a bear. It definitely made a curious sight. The time for photography was over and now it was time to hike out. We had a LONG way to go and not many more hours of daylight. The cumulative effects of the day were already wearing on me. After replentishing our water, we set out. One by one, we again passed milestones from earlier in the day.

Our last break was the final bridge across the Carbon River, 2 miles from the trailhead. I felt completely spent but light was fading like sand through an hourglass. I had given a time estimate to my girlfriend about when we would be done and I knew that we would be off- A LOT. One last time, we stood up and plowed onward. At this stage of fatigue, auto-pilot mentality clicks in. The scenery fades away and my only focus is on my footing to prevent a trip or stumble. The closer we got to the trailhead, the darker the forested sections of trail got.

Carbon Glacier detail - Mount Rainier National Park
Carbon Glacier detail - Mount Rainier National Park
We finally passed the turnoff for Ipsut Creek and I knew we were finally down with the hike. Of course, we still had 5 miles of road to navigate in the dark. Both of us came prepared with headlamps so we did the best we could. There is nothing like absolute pitch black darkness and pale LED light to make you unsure of how to ride a bike. I think I would have felt safer with training wheels! Within a short distance away from the campground, I stopped abruptly and promptly fell over. I heard a sickening sound which I assumed was a piece of camera gear breaking.

No time to check- have to keep moving. The undamaged portions of the road went by as smoothly as could be expected. The occasional section of sand and cobble would instill fear and several near misses were averted. The whole dark bicycle ride out was somewhat of a surreal experience. We rode wobbly side by side to combine the lighting of our headlamps. The huge old growth trees in the peripheral of my vision looked like fog and the whole road ahead seemed to be a featureless landscape.

Last glimpses of Mount Rainier from Moraine Park - Mount Rainier National Park
Moraine Park tree stripped of its bark by a bear - Mount Rainier National Park
After making our way through the last damaged section of road (first on the way in), we were able to comfortably coast our way back to the ranger station and my truck. Eventually, the reflectors on the access gate came into view and we were back at my truck. Time? 10pm on the nose. A very, very long day had finally come to an end without any severe injuries. Granted, I could barely walk and I was 3 hours over the time I said I would be done hiking but still a successful day.

Reaching Moraine Park has always been a serious effort and with the road’s demise it has become even more so. Three backcountry camps lie within 4 miles of Moraine Park so I would wholeheartedly recommend a visit to anyone.

In the Clouds..

While Razor Hone Creek thwarted me yet again (there’s a double waterfall drop I’ve been eyeing but it’s dangerous to access), I was fortunate enough to enjoy some of the beautiful weather around the Mount Baker Ski Area and photograph some of the wild cloud formations that where trailing all around Mount Shuksan. It was a glorious bluebird type of day with unusually light crowds within the ski area. Over the course of just a couple hours, the constantly changing clouds kept creating dramatic views of Mount Shuksan.

I took about 20 or so shots of the scene but after reviewing the shots I realized that the photos would be better suited for conversion to black & white. The photos are fairly monochromatic to begin with with shades of blue dominating. The sunshine was also casting some dramatic shadows across the steep slopes of Mount Shuksan. A black & white conversion would help accentuate these features and increase the overall “power” of the scene.

During my early days of processing my photos, I used Photoshop Elements to perform my black & white conversions. The Elements version I’m familiar with (Version 6) provided a few quick settings for certain styles/looks and then a couple sliders to tweak them as desired. All along I knew that Photoshop CS was supposed to be a more powerful tool for black & white conversion. Once I finally stepped up to the full version of CS5, I found the black & white conversion process a bit daunting. Gone were the presets that I could start with and, in their place, were a number of sliders which at times seemed to do nothing!

There had to be some better way to do this and so I decided to download the trial version of Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro. This program is really an add-on to Photoshop CS (or Elements) and it’s sole purpose is to convert photos to black & white while providing the most flexibility in an easy to use manner. It’s not cheap (currently $180 but there are a few discount codes you can get from the web) but it gets high praise for the job it does.

Once you fire up the filter, the Nik Software dialog loads your photo (AND respects the Smart Layer functionality of CS!) along with a few dozen presets that you can chose to start your conversion with. Now, truth be told, a number of the filters don’t seem terribly useful (there are several sepia type filters based on different color tints for example). After playing with the options, I kept gravitating towards the “High Structure” style preset.

I found that the High Structure preset did a great job and I didn’t feel the need to make any drastic changes. There were some additional options such as simulating a variety of black & white film grains (I tended to like the Kodak 100 TMAX Pro) but I ultimately decided NOT to use one of these filters because it added TOO much grain for these particular images. Turns out that the only adjustment I felt I needed to make was to reign in the highlights just a little bit for one particular photo to prevent them from washing out.

Despite the impressive power and ease at which you can convert your photos, I’ve had a few glitches that I have yet to explain while using Silver Efex Pro, namely a cryptic error message telling me that the product had failed. This would typically happen when the filter dialog was loading or when I was ready to apply the filter. There was also a time when the dialog wouldn’t open but it added the filter into the list of layers in CS5. I frankly don’t know what caused this but usually a restart of CS5 would suffice. I will be purchasing a copy of Silver Efex Pro (a new version is just about to ship) and I just hope that these little quirky issues don’t follow me with the full version.

Anyways, here are the photos I chose to convert to black & white:

Clouds swirl around the summit pyramid of Mount Shuksan. Converted to black & white using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro
Clouds swirl around the summit pyramid of Mount Shuksan. Converted to black & white using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro
Clouds swirl around the summit pyramid of Mount Shuksan. Converted to black & white using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro
Clouds swirl around the summit pyramid of Mount Shuksan. Converted to black & white using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro

5 Minutes in Spray Park

Weather in the mountains can change very quickly. On this day, we were treated to one of these transformations as fog gave way to a glorious sunset in less than 5 minutes.

Based on some internet reports about conditions, I decided to head down to Spray Park in Mount Rainier National Park to check out conditions and hopefully shoot sunset. I was able to convince a friend to join me on this endeavor (the forests here are bogeyman quality once it gets dark!) so we set out from the trailhead at Mowich Lake around 5pm. Earlier in the week, Mount Rainier was blessed with nice light around the time of sunset but on Saturday, the clouds were very stubborn around the mountain, offering a short glimpse of its glaciated slopes every now & then.

As we hiked in along the trail, we passed dozens of people who had spent the day at Spray Park. They described the flowers as good in spots but in between the earlier phase of lillies and the lupine / wildflower phase- and no mountain views. In a while we stopped at the Eagle Cliff viewpoint and saw a very thick cloud layer around 6,000 feet.

Creek along the trail to Spray Park
We pressed on and eventually arrived at the sidetrip to Spray Falls (my first visit to the falls). The red rock in the narrow canyon really provides a dramatic setting for the wide, fanning waterfall which originates from the subalpine parklands of Spray Park. We got our feet wet crossing the creek to explore a better view of the falls. Quickly snapping a photo, it was time to head to our primary destination: Spray Park.

False hellebore and Spray Falls
The first 2 miles to Spray Park has minor ups and downs but the last 0.5 mile push to Spray Park from Spray Falls switchbacks up 700 feet. Spray Park has several terraces to it and the trail works its way up through them before reaching the divide that separates Spray Park from Seattle and Mist Parks. Leading up to our visit, I spent some time studying the imagery in Google Earth looking for potentially interesting locations. I ended up identifying three locations to pursue and the first one was near the entrance to the Spray Park area.

It turned out that the features I saw in the aerials weren’t as photogenic from ground level as I had hoped. The meadow WAS beautiful with several nice areas of blooms. This meadow was an area that also was part of the headwaters for Spray Creek. The mosquitoes were aggressive in this area so I covered up before getting out my camera gear.

Avalanche Lillies - Spray Park
Spray Creek in Spray Park
I took a couple photos of Avalanche Lillies and Spray Creek and then noticed my friend saying something to me that I couldn’t make out. I walked closer to him and could finally make out what he was saying… “THERE’S A BEAR….20 YARDS OVER THERE…” …and he pointed towards a grove of trees across a small creek.

Oh oh. Apparently this meadow had a guardian and wasn’t that pleased to see visitors. The bear had snorted a couple times at my friend who had not seen it due to a well concealed rest area in the trees. We decided to make a slow but quick retreat and try our luck elsewhere. Before leaving, I tried to get a photo of Smokey the Bear:

This is my meadow!
Mount Rainier through a quick cloud window
We rejoined the trail and continued to climb into Spray Park. Each step brought us deeper into the cloud bank which was thick and stubborn. We had a brief window through the clouds of Mount Rainier at one point but it quickly closed. We had Spray Park all to our self and it was quite a feeling. It was dead calm and quiet, which was at times erie. Arriving in the heart of Spray Park, we made our way to the second location I had identified. We passed a large tarn which intrigued me due to the large rocks in the shallows and the reflection of the trees lining its edge.

Tarn reflections - Spray Park
We continued but the wildflower blooms weren’t there. The clouds above and around us continued to thicken. We retreated back to the main trail and suggested a rest stop so I could eat a bit. Conditions did not look like they would improve for viewing sunset. I was finishing up my sandwich when I thought I saw some pale blue sky above us. I thought it was an optical illusion but then I turned to look at the mountain.

There it was! I quickly stopped and gathered up my camera and tripod. I ran around in full panic mode looking for a composition. I settled on one location and began to fire off shots.

8:34pm and 12 seconds:

A mountain revealed- 8:34pm and 12 seconds
8:34pm and 40 seconds:

A mountain revealed- 8:34pm and 40 seconds
8:35pm and 5 seconds:

A mountain revealed- 8:35pm and 5 seconds
8:36pm & 17 seconds:

A mountain revealed- 8:36pm and 17 seconds
Wow. The transformation was nothing short of spectacular. As the mountain was revealed, the warm, pink light of sunset was in all its glory. You’ll notice that the photo compositions kept changing. I had to do this because of another photographer who appeared out of nowhere and planted himself right in my frame. A definite bummer but this was no time to pout.

Last light on Mount Rainer
If the light show on Mount Rainier wasn’t enough, beautiful scenes were happening all around us. To the west, we discovered that we were now above the clouds as an endless sea of clouds extended towards the horizon. Behind us, fiery clouds glowed above Hessong Rock *AND* clouds were leaking over the ridge from Mist Park. We ran around looking for different compositions but in short order, the glorious light on Rainier faded away.

Sunset's glow above Hessong Rock
Fog and fire
I turned my attention to the west and took a few shots of the sea of clouds before packing everything up for the hike out. It was 9:14pm and sadly time to go so, with my bear bell and headlamps on, we hiked out. The darkness of the forest is amazingly creepy and I was thankful to have a partner with me during the hike out. Ninety minutes later, we were back at my truck and on our way home.

Last memories - Spray Park
As photo trips go, this didn’t go as well as well as I had hoped. I do rank this sunset as one of the top five that I’ve had the pleasure of shooting. Five minutes can make a world of difference!

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