Can you hear it? It's the soothing and mesmerizing sound of rain plinking off the motorhome roof as we eat our chicken parmesan by candle light. It was an appropriate end to a surprisingly good day. The weather forecast was for rain today, so we had mentally prepared for a day in camp. But as we finished breakfast, an interesting thing happened. The sun came out, and we had a very pleasant day.
I got up at 5:00 for sunrise, but as I carried my gear out to the car, I realized that we were totally socked in. I turned around and went back to bed. We got up at 9:00 and enjoyed the luxury of a pancake breakfast with no need to hurry. As we began to plan for what to do in camp all day, the sun came out. We decided to pack up and check out if The Mountain was visible from the lower elevations.
Sunbeam Falls
The Tatoosh Range was visible to the east with clouds flowing over the saddles and around each peak. We bypassed Reflection Lake
for a return to Sunbeam Creek
.
The bright sky with fog was perfect for shooting the waterfalls. The clouds that filled Stevens Canyon
tried valiantly to cross the saddle into Reflection Lake, but the winds continually rebuffed them as they approached Sunbeam Creek.
Since I had gotten the basic shots of the two waterfalls yesterday, I spent more time dissecting the falls and shooting small sections at-a-time.
The 70 - 200 zoom worked perfectly with the upper waterfall, as well as the tiers just below the bridge. It seemed like every new angle
provided a new section to photograph.
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We eventually decided that we had shot Sunbeam Creek from every possible angle, and we drove back to Reflection Lake. By now, Mt. Rainier was peaking in and out of the clouds that were streaming around the summit on the west. It was a constant show as new cloud formations popped over the ridge and crossed above the lake but below the summit. It was the perfect situation for a time-lapse video. I set up my camera, and we watched the show as my Canon snapped 400 images over a 90-minute period. Click the image below to see the time-lapse movie.
On our way back to camp,
we stopped at Inspiration Point
and Ricksecker Point to shoot Mt. Rainier and the ever-changing clouds.
Back at camp, we ate lunch and ran the generator to re-charge our batteries. The cloudy weather was doing nothing to charge our batteries, and we didn't want another repeat of last night in the dark. The rain started just before dinner and provided the evening's soothing background music. The inclement weather provided the perfect opportunity to have a special dinner. The chicken parmesan was a real treat.
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