With the second clear day in a row, I really wanted to go somewhere and photograph Mt. Rainier. I did some quick research online and found a place called Suntop Lookout, a fire lookout approximately 5,270 feet above sea-level and about 15 miles north of Mt. Rainier. I wasn’t entirely sure on my directions, but between my GPS and common sense, and after driving on gravel roads for about 15 minutes, I finally made it to the trailhead. A short half-mile hike took me to the top.

As I discovered shortly after leaving the house, the mountain wasn’t going to be completely visible due to some clouds hovering around the summit. I had hoped they would start to break up, but instead only got worse. Had I known, I probably would have gotten up and out the door 2 hours earlier! Oh well. Here’s a collection of photos I took during the hour or so I spent up there. Would loved to have stayed longer, but I filled up my memory card doing interval timer shooting of the clouds to put together this short time-lapse video.

I’ll be the first to admit: this photo has some pretty heavy post-work in it. I merged 3 photographs, desaturated and then made some serious adjustments to the gamma, exposure, shadows, highlights and detail. While it’s not straight out of the camera, it is my favorite of the bunch as it is such a striking image.

Other photographs from the trip:

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