Day 120 - Mount Rainier

My morning began at 7am with a music festival parking lot wake up followed by a long drive south through incredibly beatiful scenary to Mount Rainier. I stopped by popular Lake Chelan, but it was too touristy and crowded for my liking. The lake just outside of Chelan was just as pretty and this viewpoint serene.

After six hours of driving I arrived at Mount Rainier. The viewpoint from White Pass was awe-inspiring. Rainier glowed proudly in the perfectly clear sky.

Tired after a bit restless and short sleeping night, I found a quiet, shaded camping spot just outside the park, and napped until 530pm. Then I drove towards Paradise, the valley below the southern face of Rainier, known for its wildflowers. The road up to Paradise.

I hiked a few short trails, enjoying the dusk light views of Rainier and her many glaciers, meadows and streams.

The valley and Paradise Inn below. The famous wildflowers were almost all gone by this mid-July time due to the mountain receiving half of average snowfall.

There was a special astronomy program starting at 945pm tonight. They had a half dozen telescopes set up and promised great views of Saturn and the Milky Way and other star clusters. I found a lovey spot for a sunset and waited for the lights to go down.

The view of Saturn was awesome: you could clearly see the bright rings circling the bright star. But she looked like a child's drawing from so far away. It wasn't until one of the volunteer astronomers hooked his digital SLR camera to his top-notch telescope that things got sciencerific. He took four separate two-minute exposures of the Lagoon nebula, then stitched them together and adjusted the lighting and color right there.

After an hour, we had produced this image of the Lagoon Nebula, a baby star cluster being born!

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Day 161 - JMT Purple Lake and Tully Hole

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Day 41 - Escalante Coyote Gulch

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Day 31 - Carlsbad Caverns

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