"I saw the worst weather in ten years of Rocky Mountain workshops produce the best pictures".
You can read these, to a landscape photographer, heartening words at http://mountainlight.com/articles.html. I can`t give you the direct link because this part of Galen Rowell`s web-site is built in frames. But scroll down to his "Persistence" article, January/February 1997, and you`ll be able to read the background story - a workshop he conducted, which saw some of his students sleeping in on a, weather-wise, atrocious morning, and the others making a brave bid to capture something, anything, on celluloid, despite the driving rain, as much motivated, one might surmise, by not wishing to appear low on commitment in front of their highly revered teacher, Galen himself.
The article highlights the role that sticking at it plays in taking superior photographs, especially when the weather is bad. Not that my met-the-day-before Californian friend, Daniel and I, were out to take great pictures when we set off for the Camp Muir Hut in September 1988, but simply to climb the stupendous Mount Rainier. The following day saw us barely two hours into the grind to the summit when the clouds beneath us began to rise rather more rapidly than hoped. An hour after this picture was taken, we were back down at the lamentable excuse for a hut, realising that a sharpish "let`s get out of here before the snow covers our tracks" ploy was called for.
So it was only seven years later that, with the lovely Lesley-Ann Barkes, I made it back to have another go, instead by the Emmons Glacier Route. And this time, in much better weather which, Galen would have guessed it, produced some much less memorable photography.

Landing at Seattle Airport

Downtown Seattle from
the Space Needle

Seattle skyline behind The Viaduct

Mount Rainier after sundown
from Seattle

Disappointment Cleaver route, Mount
Rainier, Little Tahoma Peak behind

Twilight, looking north from
The Space Needle, Seattle

Mount Rainier, with Willis Wall to the left

Disappointment Cleaver route, Mount
Rainier, Little Tahoma Peak behind

Emmons Glacier, Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier form the north

Little Tahoma Peak from
near Emmons Glacier Camp

Mount Rainier from Puget Sound

Camp Schurman on Emmons
Glacier, Mount Rainier

Emmons Glacier Route
on Mount Rainier

On Mount Baker, Mount Rainier
in the distance

Mount Rainier from the south-east

Mount Baker from Hurricane Ridge,
Olympic National Park

Crevasse on Coleman Glacier,
Mount Baker

Mount Baker`s Coleman Glacier
seen from Tent City

Sherman Crater seen from near
summit of Mount Baker

Sitkum Glacier in summer drought
conditions, Glacier Peak

Stellar jay near Mount Rainier

Stellar jay near Mount Rainier

Blue heron, Washington Coast

Orca whale near Lime Kiln Point ,
San Juan Island

Whale-watching at
Lime Kiln Point State Park

Orca whale near Lime Kiln Point,
San Juan Island

Red fox in Lime Kiln Point State Park

Mount Adams from near Camp Muir,
Mount Rainier

Red fox in Lime Kiln Point State Park

Orca whale near Lime Kiln Point

Brown bear at Woodland
Park Zoo, Seattle

Red fox in Lime Kiln Point State Park

At a Mount St Helens Visitor`s Centre

Dalles Dam, Columbia River

Small pond on San Juan Island

Bonneville Dam, Columbia River

Damp conditons and wet rot,
Washington Coast

Small pond on San Juan Island

   
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