A medley of alpine wildflowers

coscorrosa

The latest in the "Danny and Ron visit Mt. Rainier" series...

I took yesterday off work to try and catch some of the last of the wildflowers up at Mt. Rainier before I'm oncall next week. There are some patches that are obviously past peak but there are still some really good spots too.

We were going to shoot sunrise on a trail that neither of us had been on before, and we actually missed seeing the trail junction when it was dark and ended up finding a few spots that would have been better than anything on our intended trail. It would have been a lot less hectic if we had gotten there about 20 minutes earlier.

Here are some of my favorites from dawn/sunrise. I haven't looked at the sunset photos yet.

#1:



#2:



#3:



#4:



#5: Not too many wildflowers above tree line, but we found a cool little tarn.

ront

All are very nice Ron, but #3 really does it for me. I just like this particular composition and all of the colors! Excellent!

Ron

thapamd

Exquisite, as always, my friend! Rainier, she never looked more beautiful as when seen through your eyes.

cmkultradome

Ron-
All of your pictures are so beautiful!! I love when I see your name on a thread because I know my eyes will be in for a real treat. #1 & #3 are my favorite in this series.

Stephanie

squirl033

all really nice, Ron... but i love that last one in B&W...

rwells

Very nice captures Ron.

I'll have to throw my favorite vote for #3 also. Great comp, and a very nice mixture of colors.

As always, thanks for posting.

coscorrosa

ront wrote:

All are very nice Ron, but #3 really does it for me. I just like this particular composition and all of the colors! Excellent!

Ron

Thanks Ron, the third is my favorite composition in this series too. Not too many spots where you could see three distinct flowers (lupine, paintbrush and daisy) all together along with a nice little rock to anchor the foreground. I just wish I had found that composition 10 minutes earlier when the light was at peak, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

coscorrosa

thapamd wrote:

Exquisite, as always, my friend! Rainier, she never looked more beautiful as when seen through your eyes.

Thanks Mahesh, I've tried to make an effort this year to shoot Rainier more than previous years. I was planning on taking a week off to do it, but work got in the way, so instead I've been doing a bunch of insane 20 hour day trips. Maybe next year I'll be able to do it AND get some sleep at the same time.

coscorrosa

cmkultradome wrote:

Ron-
All of your pictures are so beautiful!! I love when I see your name on a thread because I know my eyes will be in for a real treat. #1 & #3 are my favorite in this series.

Stephanie

Thanks Stephanie, I'm lucky to live so close to Rainier, it's awesome all year long, but this is my favorite time with the wildflowers. I might try and get it in autumn too as the colors are just as good then.

coscorrosa

squirl033 wrote:

all really nice, Ron... but i love that last one in B&W...

Thanks Rocky, that was taken after peak sunrise light, but the "moonscape" type landscape above tree line lends itself well to B&W I think, and B&W can often be done in high-shadow/contrasty light and still look OK.

coscorrosa

rwells wrote:

Very nice captures Ron.

I'll have to throw my favorite vote for #3 also. Great comp, and a very nice mixture of colors.

As always, thanks for posting.

Thanks Randy - I was pretty excited when I saw all those flowers in the same area, most of the spots now are just lupine and an occasional paintbrush or daisy, but this spot had good numbers of each.

dseidman

Nice series of scenes that I got to personally see. We got a great sunrise but I agree that it would have been nice to have an extra 20 minutes to find a good spot while those predawn clouds were still aglow.

I prefer the first three images of this set, especially the third. Those clouds sure got good but a little too late.

tisun

Beautiful flowers and sceneries. You are amazing!

Awais Yaqub

Very nice images Ron ! lovely

kdog

Awesome, awesome, series, Ron. Those flowers in those mountain settings are just unreal. Beautiful.

#3 is the winner by a nose.

Cheers,
-joel

coscorrosa

dseidman wrote:

Nice series of scenes that I got to personally see. We got a great sunrise but I agree that it would have been nice to have an extra 20 minutes to find a good spot while those predawn clouds were still aglow.

I prefer the first three images of this set, especially the third. Those clouds sure got good but a little too late.

Yeah, it was still a good sunrise all things considered, we were very lucky to find a few patches of wildflowers when it was dark.

coscorrosa

tisun wrote:

Beautiful flowers and sceneries. You are amazing!

Thanks The only thing I had to worry about was taking the lens cap off and not bumping the tripod. The scenery is just as if not more spectacular in person.

coscorrosa

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Very nice images Ron ! lovely

Thanks Awais!

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

Awesome, awesome, series, Ron. Those flowers in those mountain settings are just unreal. Beautiful.

#3 is the winner by a nose.

Cheers,
-joel

Thanks Joel. The Paradise area on Mt. Rainier has some of the best wildflower displays anywhere. It's amazing how dense some of the patches are. I'm lucky I can get there in 2.5 hours whenever the forecast looks promising.