Tipsoo Lake

Mt. Rainier National Park is a spectacular place that, as you might expect, features a variety of different viewpoints of the mountain. Most visitors only see one or two, but whenever you look at the mountain from a new direction, it looks different. One of these more popular viewpoints is Tipsoo Lake, on the extreme eastern part of the park. Actually, it should be Tipsoo Lakes because there are two, but for whatever reason most people just refer to it as the singular lake.

Regardless, Tipsoo is a place I’ve tried to shoot probably a dozen times in the last many years. Timed right, the view is spectacular, especially at sunset. But the problem is that the lake’s location, humidity in the air, and the local geography means that it is often foggy or cloudy here when it is clear in other parts of the park. You have to get reasonably lucky to get a good view at sunset or sunrise, which I most assuredly have not. Each time I’ve tried in the past, I’ve gotten fogged in, and left with little more than a view of the trees in the fog. Nice, but not what you come here for.

Anyway, back in early July I found myself meeting up with a friend of mine and his daughter at Tipsoo. Our intent was to shoot Milky Way, but we got there early enough for sunset. And what a sunset it was! Finally, years of trying paid off with a beautiful and subtle color display on the mountain and reflected in Upper Tipsoo Lake.

We were supremely lucky in that the clouds moved through right at sunset and with enough variety that we got changing color and light on the mountain. Even though we were shooting the same scene, we were able to get several different looks.

One of my favorites was the alpenglow at the top of the mountain. You can see a little bit of it in the image at left, but I also shot it on a longer lens to make sure to capture the full effect.

With the great sunset and the clouds hanging around, we were a little worried that our planned Milky Way shoot wouldn’t materialize, but were then pleasantly surprised when the clouds blew away, just in time for the Milky Way to make an appearance. Tipsoo is actually not a great place to shoot Milky Way, especially in July, as the Milky Way is a little too far to the east to line up well with the mountain, unless you stay until right before dawn. We had commitments in the morning, so instead we shot some foreground images above Lower Tipsoo Lake, then drove down the road for a clear view of the Milky Way and took some tracked shots. At home, I was able to composite these images together to make the final image below. This is a great technique for a circumstance like this, and is one I discuss in my book pretty extensively.

One other thing I did with this image was a subtle cloud blend at the right to bring in some of the high clouds that were around right at the tail end of blue hour. It isn’t something I’ve done before but I liked how it turned out. I hope you do too.

Before I wrap up, I wanted to make a quick note about the absence of posts on this journal and on social media lately. The pandemic has been hard on all of us in different ways. For me, I have found it to be a necessary break from writing, social media, and even some screen time. I’ve been out shooting a lot in the last 18 months, but have been shooting mainly for me, taking my time to process images, and mostly keeping them to myself. I’ll share many of them in due time, but I think it’s been a healthy break and an opportunity to reframe. Thanks for being patient and for your support, as always.