Category: Nature

In the summer, sunset seems to linger for a very long time in Seattle.   This is a shot I took from the ferry on the way home from the game.  It must have been about 9:30pm.  In this wide panorama you can still see the glow of the sun past the horizon on the left…the city lights including the space needle, the great wheel, and both century link and safeco stadium…and the rising supermoon on the right.

I’ve gotten tired of trying to guess which side of Mt Rainier we’ll fly by on my return flights to Austin.  So, I just kept the seat that I was assigned – window on the left side.   I got lucky this time and we flew north-to-south past the western face of this great mountain, turning to the southeast as we passed it.

The haze nestled amongst the surrounding foothills is smoke from the ongoing fires in Central Washington.  A couple of factoids:  Mt Rainier is a volcano;  elevation of 14,410′;  last recorded eruption was in the 1st half of the 1800’s;  home to 26 major glaciers and many ice fields; 6 rivers have glaciers on Mt Rainier as their source.  Read more here.

We flew very close to the summit.  In this shot of the western face, you can see Sunset Amphitheater on the left and Tahoma Glacier on the right.  The black ring on the top right of the dome is the volcanic crater.  The summit, Columbia Crest is along that black ring.

Breathtaking.