Waterfall Day
We woke up to completely overcast skies, but we had slim hopes that we could drive up through the fog and see Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lake. Last time we were here, we sat at Reflection Lake and photographed Mt. Rainier while fog rolled up from Stevens Canyon, covered Reflection Lake, and then receded back down the canyon about 30 minutes later. It was amazing...but we had no such luck today. In fact, we checked out three areas to photograph and came away with another O-for.
We drove back down to camp, made tacos for lunch, and relaxed until about 2:00. The sun peeked out through the clouds, and we drove back up the mountain to check out the waterfall shots for the day. The first stop was Christine Falls, which drops through a narrow ravine and under a classic, stone bridge. The lighting was good, the viewpoint wasn't crowded, and we had plenty of time to get some good shots.
As we continued up the mountain, we stopped at Narada Falls
. In contrast to Christine Falls, Narada Falls jumps off a cliff
in a wide open area and is about three times as tall as Christine Falls.
We continued up the mountain and drove past Reflection Lake (still without a view of Mt. Rainier) and then started down toward Stevens Canyon
until we reached Sunbeam Creek
. A series of steps creates a cascade that reaches back up the narrow gorge toward
the snowfield that feeds the creek. Sunbeam Creek is small in scale, but the delicate patterns created as the water
bounces from rock to pool to other streamlet is fascinating. Instead of one large waterfall, Sunbeam Creek has 60 smaller waterfalls;
each playing its only melody.
We returned to Reflection Lake to see if the clouds would thin enough that we could see Mt. Rainier, but that didn't happen. We drove up to the Visitor Center at Paradise where we could get WIFI access and tried to catch up with the latest news since we left Portland.
Today was a better day. We actually had an opportunity to take our cameras out and photograph.
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