The Long Shadow of Mount Rainier
Here in Boulder we get magnificent sunsets, especially in the summer
when the clouds interplay with the mountains to the west. But I have
never seen anything like this, the shadow of Washington state’s Mt.
Rainier cast along the clouds at sunrise.
That’s amazing. Mt. Rainier is a volcano, climbing to a height of over
14,411 feet or 4392 meters. There are no other mountains anywhere near
that height nearby, so it’s really prominent in the landscape (by
comparison, there are several fourteeners, as they’re called, in the
Rockies, so they don’t stick out as much though they’re still
breathtaking). The rising Sun catches the peak, and the shadow is cast
on the underside of the cloud layer. The dramatic sunrise colors really
make this an incredibly beautiful shot.
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It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous
United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc. Mt. Rainier is considered
one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the
Decade Volcano list. Because of its large amount of glacial ice, Mt. Rainier could potentially produce massive lahars that would threaten the whole Puyallup River valley.
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