Sunset at Sunrise

Hi friends - my apologies for not writing for a while. I’ve been busy with projects, traveling, and chasing our kids around a lot! I also invested in a new wildlife-focused lens earlier this year and have been chasing animals a bit too and learning the lens. All of that is to say I haven’t been out shooting as much as I’ve wanted to, but that’s alright!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jon and I embarked on an evening trip to Mt. Rainier's Sunrise area that turned into a fun adventure that included a phenomenal wildlife encounter. Our primary aim for the day was to capture images of bears in the quieter meadows around Sunrise. We also planned to stick around for the Milky Way, as we were there during the new moon.

As we hiked, the bears remained elusive, but that’s not too surprising given that it’s a busy area. We did, however, stumble upon a very entertaining group of marmots. Marmots are always fun to photograph as they provide endless photo opportunities, and this group in particular had a smaller, darker marmot that I presume was a female. She wasn’t very far off the trail, and after we had stopped for a few minutes, she retreated to her hole in the ground, turned around, and showed off her teeth to us. We snapped a few photos but took that as a sign that it was time to move on - she didn’t look very happy!

However, the day's true highlight arrived during the golden hour before sunset. As the sun dipped below the horizon, we found ourselves at the five-way intersection right by Frozen Lake, where a group of mountain goats appeared. The sun was setting behind the goats, and they were bathed in a beautiful golden light that caused them to stick out against the surrounding vegetation. It was really amazing light, and it was a blast to watch the goat feed as the sun set. A couple of goats had babies and they were fun to watch too. I captured way too many frames of the goats, but they were just so much fun to shoot!

As the sun set, we left the intersection and headed up to First Burroughs for a quick Milky Way shoot. On the walk up, we encountered a funny chipmunk in beautiful light, but sadly he was eating a Dorito or something that somebody had dropped. Don’t feed the wildlife people! The Belts of Venus were also really beautiful on the top of Burroughs. Once on top, we found a good spot and set up to wait for the Milky Way. This is a location I’ve shot many times before, and this time around I decided to shoot an interesting boulder field in front of the mountain, and shoot for black and white. I don’t often do enough night sky images in black and white but I felt this was a chance to try given that I have a bunch of images from this location.

All in all, a great day out! Great company, lots of fun wildlife in great light, some Milky Way, and we got home at a reasonable hour too!