Mount Rainier

Workshop Details

Registration

This event has passed. Thanks for your interest!

The Mount Rainier Experience

With hundreds of miles of trails, Mount Rainier is a hiker's paradise. Missing from this park are the numerous viewpoints and pull-offs that often define the iconic imagery of most major national parks. Mount Rainier is about exploring. It’s about finding your vision of this majestic mountain.

We’ll spend our week exploring the subalpine meadows, and lush old growth forests that surround this incredible peak. As with hiking in general, it's not about the destination but rather the experience. We’ll spend most days and evenings hiking to discover our next photograph. During the days we’ll find time to create stunning landscape images as well as to focus on flower photography—both macro and full fields. During the night we’ll turn our attention from the flower-dotted meadows to the star-filled skies.

August is right in the middle of Milky Way season and we’ll arrive under a quarter moon, so we’ll be able to capture everything from the galactic core to star trails encircling the peak. Waterfalls, flowers and trees will provide ample subject matter to complement with light painting.

To capture the varying views of Mount Rainier, we’ll be staying at two different locations during our stay. This ensures we’ll spend less time driving and more time hiking. This workshop is perfect for the adventure-minded photographer who wants to get off the pavement and into the mountains.

The Add-On Experience

Mowich Lake Camp & Hike

Note: This is an optional, additional experience to be held immediately after the main workshop ends, intended for registered attendees interested in a backcountry adventure.

Set in a glacial basin surrounded by fragile wildflower meadows, Mowich Lake is the largest and deepest lake in Mount Rainier National Park and will be our basecamp for this add-on. This hidden gem is located in the northwest corner of the park. It’s accessed by a bumpy dirt road and for lodging contains a small tent-only campground. The camping area is a short walk from where you park your car, making the equipment schlep super easy.

There are no amenities. There are vault toilets, but no services and no potable water (just an entire lake from which to pump and treat). Consequently there are few people, compared to the rest of Rainier.

Working the backcountry is a lot of fun, but from a safety perspective, it’s not to be taken lightly. To that end, we’ve partnered with experienced backpacker and photographer Sherry Pincus. Sherry has been backpacking independently and organizing for small groups for over 35 years. She has backpacked and photographed extensively in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in the Olympics, Mount Rainier (including the Wonderland Trail) and North Cascades. In addition to her photography and backcountry acumen, Sherry is a certified Wilderness First Responder, and is ready to keep us safe.

We will be providing meals. Participants will need to supply their own tents, sleeping bags and limited gear. Gear lists will be provided prior to the trip and Sherry will consult with anyone who has questions in this regard. If you don’t own the required gear, it’s easy to rent from REI, based in Seattle.

Day 1 will allow for setting up our base camp, a “dinner” at midday and then a bag lunch (think grilled tallegio sandwiches on sourdough with onion and garlic jam, fresh fruit and cookies) to bring on the hike to Eunice Lake and Tolmie Peak. Eunice Lake, one of the prettiest lakes in the park, and Tolmie Peak, which rises directly above it, are reached by a 6.5-mile round-trip hike with an elevation gain of 1,010 feet. The view from the fire watch tower on top includes the lake-framed view of Rainier, as well as views of Mount Saint Helens, the Olympics and Mount Baker.

The highlight of Day 2 will be a hike up to Spray Park, arguably the supreme flower garden in Mount Rainier National Park. Pond-sprinkled meadows, easy-roaming ridges and endless exploring are all available. The alpine glow at sunset on this side of the mountain will take your breath away. The round-trip commitment for this excursion is 6 miles with 2,204-foot elevation gain. Along the way is a beautiful lookout and a small side trip to a waterfall.

Note: This optional add-on is available only to workshop attendees. You will receive a link to optionally purchase a ticket after registering for the main workshop.

What You Should Know

This is a hiking workshop. To get to the best photographic locations, we’ll be hiking several miles every day at high elevations over uneven terrain. Many of the hikes will have significant elevation gain.

This workshop caters to knowledgeable photographers with an intermediate or higher skill set. Participants should have a firm grasp of the basic principles of photography and of their cameras, and have a comfortable understanding of night photography fundamentals.

If you would like to attend this workshop but are unsure whether you have adequate fitness level or night photography skills, we can offer consultation or pre-workshop tutoring to get you ready for your adventure with us. Alternatively or additionally, a few of us have written books that may be productive pre-workshop reads.

What You Will Learn

As with all of our workshops, we hope to help you become a better photographer. Due to a lack of meeting space on the mountain and the surrounding areas, this workshop, unlike many of our workshops, will not include classroom time. This provides us the opportunity to spend more time out in the field with hands-on learning.

TOPICS COVERED WILL INCLUDE:

• shooting the milky way

• shooting blue hour exposures to blend with Milky Way exposures

• shooting star trails

• light painting

• daytime macro flower photography

• daytime landscape photography

• and more …

Participants can stay out shooting as long as they, or their camera’s batteries, hold out. While in the field, the instructors will demonstrate their own techniques and will work with participants one-on-one to make sure everyone gets the most out of the workshop.

Our locations have generous room to explore, so everyone will be able to spread out and not get in one another’s way. Each participant will have the opportunity to work one-on-one with Tim and Gabriel in the field.

Night Conditions

Logistics & General Info

A Giant Emerges ...

The word awesome is often overused. This is not the case with Mount Rainier.

I love the mountains. Photographing and hiking in them has been one of my greatest pleasures. But even living in the mountains most of my life did not prepare me for my first glimpse of Mount Rainier.

The first time I visited the park, the weather was fairly cloudy. Typically you can see the mountain from over 100 miles away. On this day, however, the mountain was hidden for our entire drive from Seattle. I had no idea what to expect. But once we entered the park, the weather started to clear. Fingers crossed.

Approaching the mountain through the southwest Nisqually entrance finds you driving through the dense old growth forest that covers most of the park. While beautiful in its own right, it was still obscuring my view. That changed when we crossed the Nisqually River and began gaining elevation.

At first it was just a feeling. Like something was looming over my head. Not off in the distance, but directly over me. The mists had started to clear and the bend in the road allowed me to catch my first glimpse of the lower ramparts of the mountain. I couldn’t even see the peak, but still had to look up to see the glaciers shimmering in late afternoon light. The sheer size of the mountain was overwhelming. Typically when you are that close to a mountain, it seems smaller, while viewing it at a distance allows you to appreciate its full height. Not so with Rainier.

The clouds finally cleared as we stopped at one of the more popular viewpoints. The mountain was awesome. Standing around 6,000 feet and looking up at the 14,410-foot mountain behemoth literally filled me with awe.

The mountain is huge. Its surrounding meadows filled with wildflowers. The waterfalls are majestic and the lakes placid. Mount Rainier and its surrounding landscape is a treasure. It’s a place that I look forward to returning to again and again.