A Night on Mt. Rainier, A Day in Paradise

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Sunset view down Nisqually River Valley in Mt. Rainier National Park..

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Night photography beckoned this fall, so I decided to do an overnight trip to Mt. Rainier on what I hoped would be a relatively clear night.  Actually, my first choice had been an overnight backpack on the lower slopes of Mt. Baker, but then I saw a recent trip report for the Railroad Grade area that had a hiker postholing through the deep snow there.  Change in plans!

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I drove to Mt. Rainier just after noon on an early October weekday.  It was cloudy upon my arrival, but I had time to check out possible positions for night photography and to find some great spots for late autumn photography.

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After taking some evening photographs of a vivid sunset, I went to Cougar Rock Campground and was sawing logs (and not for a campfire!) by 8:00 p.m., with the alarm set for 3:00 a.m., when I expected the half-moon would be high in the sky and most of the clouds would have lifted.

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I awoke as planned and drove to Reflection Lakes, drinking the coffee I had wisely made before bed.  The mountain was revealed and everything went as planned, though I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more snow on The Mountain, given the stormy weather of late.  Later, I had hoped for dawn alpenglow on the peak, but just got the littlest bit of faint pink light.

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I spent the rest of the day photographing in the Paradise area, with a classic clear morning at Reflection Lakes, followed by a hike on the Skyline Trail in search of White-tailed Ptarmigans, which I failed to find.  It was a wonderful day with lots of older hikers on the trail.

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A strange cloud emanates from the mountain at night..

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Dawn glow, stars, and clouds..

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At first light, the cloud emanating from The Mountain began to dissipate..

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A touch of alpenglow on the rock and glaciers at dawnpp

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A classic view of Mount Rainier reflected in Reflection Lakes..

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A cedar puncheon boardwalk crosses a small stream..

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Blueberry bushes, scarlet with autumn, share a talus slope with subalpine trees..

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A grand staircase, with a quote from John Muir, leads to the high country..

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A stunning view of The Mountain on a crisp autumn morning in Paradise..

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The lovely colors of blueberry leaves..

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A Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel living above timberline..

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A tarn in the raw rock and gravel land above timberline..

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Glacier-gouged and polished rocks with the Tatoosh Range distant..

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A cloud quickly rises like a cresting wave or a geyser..

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Nootka Cypress trees (formerly Alaska Yellow Cedar) with blueberry leaves.’

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The enchanted Skyline Trail winds through a subalpine forest..

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Fuzzy white seed heads among blueberry leaves.

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Looking down the Nisqually River Valley at sunset…

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To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

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Golden Alpine Larches in the Cascade Mountains

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Alpine Larches in Headlight Basinss

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Vermont has its fiery autumn Sugar Maples that can take your breath away with a sudden shot of intensity, and walking through a Colorado Trembling Aspen forest at the shining peak of autumn is transcendent. Washington’s Cascade Mountains are cloaked in deep shades of green most of the year, but in late autumn, there is a spectacle that rivals the wondrous feeling of autumn in more easterly parts of America.

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At timberline, in the rugged and ragged jumble of rocks and scree slopes that mark the ridges and upper basins of the Cascades, Alpine Larches gather in their favorite haunts.  There, reaching like candle flames toward the deep blue sky, they briefly blaze brilliant gold, before being extinguished by frigid nights and heavy snows.

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Needles with the color of Burnished Goldss

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Hikers here consider it an autumn ritual to trudge ever upward along a steep trail to get into larch country.  There may be a place or two in Washington where people can drive up to see a few Alpine Larches, but the best displays are in the wildest country.

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The feathery needles of Alpine Larch turn golden for a brief autumn moment..

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Karen and I looked at the forthcoming weather, and decided that October 11 looked great, with clear blue skies and on-line reports that the Alpine Larches were reaching perfection.  The downside was that an arctic air mass was the reason for the beautiful October skies, so we expected cold.  Really cold.  As in, too cold to backpack all the necessary warm clothing and gear plus all my camera equipment.  So we decided to car camp on Saturday, then get an early start for hiking on Sunday morning.

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We looked at four possible destinations, including Hart’s Pass (which has a wonderfully scary, one-lane, rough gravel road around a blind curve, hugging a cliff with a 3,000 foot vertical drop), Blue Lake, Maple Pass, and Headlight Basin below Ingalls Pass.  All are great, but for various reasons we chose Headlight Basin this year.

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We arrived at dusk at a free timber company campground in the Teanaway Valley, just outside the boundary of the Okanogan – Wenatchee National Forest.  We had just finished an exquisite 37th anniversary dinner (yeah, we’re old!) at a favorite restaurant, Valley Cafe in Ellensburg, where we both had a rich seafood medley spiced with coconut and curry and based on heavy cream.  It was wonderful, and the afterglow kept us warm through a night that dipped to 12°F by dawn.

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Our old North Face Bigfoot sleeping bags still keep us warm, and it was enjoyable (despite what fervent multitasker Karen says) to luxuriously sleep for 11 hours.  Besides, it was too frigid to poke our heads out to do anything else.  We arose

shortly after 7 a.m., although the alarm decided it was too cold to make a sound.  Karen was out of the tent first, and nearly had breakfast ready by the time I joined her.  My toothbrush, wet from the night before, was frozen solid, and toothpaste barely squeezed from the tube.  After all our morning rituals, we finally hit the trail just before 10:00 a.m., after parking in the last available site (later cars parked up and down the road).  As usual in this region, the parking lot was filled with Subarus and Toyotas, with hardly an American brand (such as our Pontiac Aztek) in sight.

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The trail climbed immediately, at first following an old mining road, then contouring and switchbacking up a well-maintained trail that led up through the subalpine forest.  Three miles and some 2,400′ of vertical gain later, we arrived at Ingalls Pass.  At the pass, we encountered our first glorious Alpine Larches, which blazed at their absolute peak of autumn glory.

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From the pass, Mt. Stuart towered just across the valley.  Washington’s sixth-highest peak, Mt. Stuart is a granite tooth that rises dramatically over the Stuart Range and is memorably seen from I-90 west of Ellensburg.  The peak was named in 1853 by General George B. McClellan (who was later fired by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War) for a military colleague.  Today this area is part of the vast Alpine Lakes Wilderness, a stomping ground beloved by Seattle hikers and climbers.

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Alpine Larches with Mt. Stuart, a favorite climbers’ destination, in the distancess

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First, a bit of natural history about Alpine Larches (Larix lyallii).  These small trees are deciduous conifers, meaning they are more related to spruces than maples, but they do lose their needles each winter.  They are close relatives of Tamaracks, which inhabit bogs and boreal forests, and of Western Larches, which are big trees that thrive in the lower reaches of western mountains (I’ve seen a lot of them along I-90 through Idaho).  Alpine Larches grow right at timberline, sometimes with Whitebark Pines and Subalpine Firs, and sometimes as pure stands.  Their soft green needles are beautiful in spring and summer, but exquisite when they turn in the fall.  Daniel Mathews’ excellent Cascade–Olympic Natural History has a comprehensive discussion of the ecology and biology of this species.

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For the half mile beyond Ingalls Pass, the Alpine Larches were constant companions to hikers.  Most hikers on this day went on to Ingalls Lake, an alpine lake about a mile distant.  We chose to concentrate our limited time on the larches, and spent from 12:15 until 5:15 p.m. hiking and photographing among these beautiful trees.  Pikas, those small rabbit relatives who make haystacks under big boulders, squeaked in the background.  We also watched a vole get up the courage to run past us along Headlight Creek.  Chipmunks and Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels completed the mammals here, though shreds of Mountain Goat hair stuck to stiff branches along the trail.  Actually, when Karen was here this summer, backpacking with a friend, they saw eight Mountain Goats, several within a few yards of their camp in Headlight Basin.  These proud symbols of the high country were eating the soil where hikers had peed, just to get the salt.

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A Pika stops briefly atop a boulder to survey its talus field territory..

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While we explored Headlight Basin, the temperature was just over 20°F, so we wore down jackets, woolen hats, and mittens.  I became distracted by the ice covering parts of tiny Headlight Creek, and spent about an hour photographing the exquisite patterns of ice crystals.  There was also a wonderful lichen splattered over some of the big boulders, with an intense chartreuse color that seemed to glow in shade light.

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Fanciful shapes in the ice along Headlight Creek.

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A chartreuse lichen thrives on the north sides of boulders at timberline...

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At 4:30 p.m., wispy cirrus clouds threaded overhead, a reminder of the change in the weather coming tonight.  By 5:00, the sun was mostly behind the ridge, and the Alpine Larch flames were put out for the day, so we headed down shortly

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A grove of Alpine Larches at timberline above Headlight Basin..

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thereafter, trying to adjust our clothing to stay warm enough while hiking, but not sweating.  On the way down, we observed a pair of Clark’s Nutcrackers eating the seeds from treetop cones–something I had previously only seen once, on the same trail about ten years ago.

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We reached the parking lot at deep dusk after a wonderful day.

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A grove of Alpine Larches reach toward the deep blue mountain sky.

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Last light on the larches, as shadows descend on the basin..

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The highest pioneers in the cirque are many decades old, perhaps much older..

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I photographed Mt. Stuart while sitting on the Forest Service open-air toilet.  Really!.

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Above three photos:  Ice patterns along Headlight Creek.

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Alpine Larches live among rocks, often on relatively stable talus slopes..

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.For photographing larches, a clear blue sky is the perfect contrast..

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To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

Blueberry Autumn

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Karen’s fingers stained from picking blueberries in the high countryss

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Washington’s Cascade Range has had an extraordinary year for blueberries and huckleberries, with the delicious berries in abundance and rich with tangy sweet flavor. Even the Black Bears are unusually happy, wearing grins instead of their usual scowls and looking rolly-polly with fat for the coming winter.

Traditionalists in the Pacific Northwest call all the blue and black round berries “huckleberries,” and many families would take time each September to go huckleberry picking together. I am from the Midwest, and have a different folk taxonomy. I tend to call the really blue berries “blueberries,” and the dark, nearly black berries “huckleberries.” Whatever, they all taste good to me. Although, this year I had a decided preference for the subalpine species known as Cascades Blueberry, which has the scarlet leaves in autumn that light up vast stretches of the high country. Cascades Blueberry’s scientific name is “Vaccinium deliciosum,” which tells you what the long-ago scientist who named it thought of these “best of category” berries. These short shrubs seem to put all their energy into producing a few big and incredibly tasty berries, rather than the berry farm bushes that produce vast quantities of rather bland fruits.

Huckleberry fields near Mt. Adams historically occupied thousands of acres, and were a traditional and vitally important food for the Indian tribes of the region. They traditionally burned these meadows because they learned that burning kept the huckleberries dominant. When whites began harvesting huckleberries in the area many decades ago, the U.S. Forest Service negotiated the “Handshake Agreement,” in which Indians were granted the right to harvest berries on one side of the road through the huckleberry fields, and whites got the other side. The agreement still stands.

The photographs here were made during two September 2009 backpacking trips into the high country. Both were in the vicinity of Mt. Baker, a huge stratovolcano in the Mt. Baker – Snoqualmie National Forest, which towers over the North Cascade Mountains near the Canadian border. One trip took us to Yellow Aster Butte; the other to Watson Lakes. Both were saturated with blueberries.

One final observation: to get the closeup photographs of the low-to-the-ground Cascades Blueberry, I spend extented periods laying on the ground. During these times I crushed a lot of berries and my hiking shorts–and undershorts–were stained purple. And of course, I couldn’t resist photographing them!

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Karen Rentz picking blueberries near Watson Lakes in morning sunss

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Cascades Blueberry (Vaccinium deliciosum) is a small, subalpine speciesss

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Scarlet meadows of Cascades Blueberries near Yellow Aster Buttess

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Frosting on the berry leaves along the shore of Watson Lakesss

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Blueberry leaves with the sun behindss

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Reflections of a blueberry meadow on a mountain tarnss

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Ghost conifers surrounded by blueberry bushesss

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Morning frost on blueberry leaves near Watson Lakesss

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Betty Renkor picking blueberries near Watson Lakesss

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Not my favorite picture of me, but there you go ….ss

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I wear briefs, not boxers, and the berry stains on my shorts seeped throughss

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I laid on the ground to get photographs such as thisss

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An impressionistic view of blueberry leaves against the sunss

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Scarlet blueberries catch the morning light below Yellow Aster Buttess

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We picked a quart of berries to take home and serve on vanilla ice creamss

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An impressionistic view of autumn blueberry leavesss

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Dwarf Blueberry, a different species, produces more berries, but not as tastyss

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Another impressionistic view of autumn blueberry leavesss

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Cascades Blueberries don’t occur in clusters, but as single tasty treasuresss

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Bounty of the high country, stolen from the bearsss

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To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website

Backpacking at Yellow Aster Butte in the North Cascades

.Evening glow on Yellow Aster Butte, reflected in a tarnss

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Starry, starry night above Mountain Hemlocksss

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While watching the last bit of alpenglow fade from Mt. Shuksan, a Short-eared Owl pumped its wings overhead, sailing over the basin of Yellow Aster Lakes. It flew over the cirque, coming up to the ridge on the opposite side, then returning over us, a dark ghost against a deep twilight sky salted with the first stars. After a half-a-dozen silent passes over the basin, the owl disappeared like an apparition fading from view.

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A few minutes later, there was a bright streak of hot yellow light coursing across the sky to the west. Much bigger than the average meteor, it disappeared behind a rocky rise, then reappeared on the other side and split into two parts before disappearing behind a mountain. Was it a meteor entering the atmosphere nearby? Or was it a space probe from beyond our galaxy, randomly choosing the moment of our watching to enter earth’s atmosphere? We’ll never know. The rich color of the object and its tail must have come from the sun’s last light, though the sun was far below the horizon for us.  Within a few minutes, as we walked the quarter mile back to camp by starlight, we saw two more meteors.

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[Note:  Later, we checked the internet and found reports from British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon of the same fireball at 8:09 p.m. Pacific Time, with observers commenting that it lasted about 20 seconds and was extremely bright.  The consensus was that it passed east to west near the Canadian border and broke into two parts, perhaps as it hit the atmosphere.  There was one report of a related sonic boom over a community on Vancouver Island.]

Alpenglow on Yellow Aster Butte, reflected in a tarnss

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Later, at about 3:30 a.m., I arose from the sleeping bag to photograph the night sky and mountains with under a bit less than half moonlight. At first, I was photographing in just my underpants on this uncharacteristically warm September night, but Karen convinced me to put on some real clothes. Then I went wandering in the dark around the basin and saw two more meteors, as well as taking scores of photographs of the Big Dipper, Polaris, and Orion and other stars and constellations above Yellow Aster Butte, Tomyhoi Peak, and Mt. Shuksan. It was a glorious night, with the Milky Way enhancing the sky overhead. I finally returned to the tent at 5:00 a.m. and grabbed a bit more shuteye before rising before dawn for more photography.

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Mt. Baker viewed above a ridge from the Yellow Aster Meadowsss

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After a breakfast of dehydrated red beans and rice, with two tablets of Beano apiece (which didn’t seem to work in my case) and two cups of coffee (or in Karen’s case, tea and cocoa), we set out to pick some blueberries. We were successful, and I spent so much time sitting on the ground picking that the butt of my shorts is stained with a score of purple blotches.  Speaking of breakfast, yesterday we grabbed a quick McDonald’s breakfast, then stopped in the village of Glacier for an ice cream desert, justifying it on the basis that we needed calories for the trail.

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Cascades Blueberries catching the morning lightss

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The berry leaves were turning bright scarlet, and the lowbush blueberries (some might call them huckleberries, but whatever) were big and blue and bursting with flavor. I pronounced them the best blueberries ever, especially the ones still a bit chilled with the night air. Not only were they the best tasting, they were also plentiful. Berries everywhere, and not a bear sign in sight.

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Hold off on that last thought for a minute. While hiking out, Karen started to say “There’s a big black dog.” But instead called out an urgent “A bear cub crossed the trail ahead!” The Black Bear cub had scurried across the trail in a section of the trail with tall huckleberries bushes under the forest canopy. We stopped, backed up, and started loudly talking to warn off the mother bear, as in “Hey bear, we’re just some people passing through!” and “Hey bear, you do know it’s bear hunting season here!” We didn’t see or hear the mother or cub after that. The next people coming up the trail were a father with his two daughters, who grew wide-eyed as we told them about seeing the bear.

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Actually, we saw hundreds of hikers on this trail on Saturday, which was a wonderful warm, sunny day after a rainy Labor Day weekend that canceled many hikers’ plans. The trailhead parking lot was full, with more cars parked for hundreds of yards along the road in each direction from the trailhead. Most were day hikers, but enough were backpackers that we felt an urgent need to get to camp early enough to get a spot. We needn’t have worried; the Yellow Aster lake basin is vast enough to accommodate scores of camps.

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While hiking we met an older woman with a hiking stick taller than she was.  I stopped and asked her if she spoke softly, but she said “pardon me?,” not getting my silly reference to Theodore Roosevelt’s famous statement.

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Evening light on Yellow Aster Butte, reflected on tarnsss

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The next day there were no day hikers entering the basin until afternoon, and then there were only a handful. Why? Because the access highway was closed from the village of Glacier all the way to Artist Point for a tough bicycle race: Ride 542, the Mt. Baker Hill Climb. The closure happens once a year for this race, and lasts for the morning. People were thus unable to drive to the trailhead until Sunday afternoon. After all the people along the trail on Saturday, the quiet Sunday was a welcome respite.

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Cascades Blueberry on steep talus slopes at the base of Tomyhoi Peakss

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Sunday afternoon we ascended Yellow Aster Butte, which was vivid with blueberry leaves contrasting a bright blue sky. On the way up, we watched a Northern Harrier tangle with a Common Raven, then watched as the hawk proceeded to circle the butte several times, hunting as it arced over the alpine tundra meadows.

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.Snag of a fire-killed Mountain Hemlock on Yellow Aster Buttess

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Atop the butte, there were the twisted remains of Mountain Hemlocks that perished in a long-ago wildfire. There was also a loose swarm of tiny flying ants that tickled when they landed on us, but didn’t bite. We also observed some songbirds, Water Pipits, that may have been enjoying the ant swarm for a late lunch.

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A few late wildflowers remained; especially the yellow and magenta monkey-flowers, purple asters, yellow arnicas, and a few Indian paintbrushes. But for us, the ripe blueberries stole the show.

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We ended the hike tired; I had a blister and a backache, and Karen fought a few hot spots on her feet.  But those minor maladies meant nothing compared to the early autumn glories of the North Cascades.

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Yellow Aster Butte is located near the Canadian border, in the Mt. Baker Wilderness of Mt. Baker – Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington’s North Cascade Range (home to 75% of the glaciers in the lower 48 states).

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Mt. Shuksan (L) and Mt. Baker (R) with a magnificent morning sky abovess

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Yellow Aster Meadows is a basin filled with beautiful tarns and campsitesss

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Cascade Blueberries (Vaccinium deliciosum) were the best we have ever had!ss

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Mountain Hemlocks against a twilight skyss

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Reflections of blueberry bushes in a tarnss

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Mt. Shuksan with silhouetted Mountain Hemlocksss

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Delicate green shades of Partidgefoot, moss, and Mountain-heathss

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The Big Dipper and Polaris (the North Star) in the northern skysss

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Mt. Shuksan with subalpine forest in the foregroundss

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xxThe lower slopes of Tomyhoi Peak covered with blueberry bushes in autumn colorss

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Our tent with American Border Peak and Mt. Larrabee distantss

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To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website