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Tatoosh (and telescopic views of Muir)

11/29/20
WA Cascades West Slopes South (Mt Rainier)
1033
9
Posted by frankfrank on 11/30/20 12:30am

Went up to the usual Castle Saddle and then over to the summit of Foss Peak, then back the same way, more or less. Sunny slopes had soft snow over highly variable crusts, shaded slopes had a variety of firm/chunky/crusty surfaces. Moderately warm and supremely clear weather.

I took the opportunity to shoot, from that 6200ft saddle, a series of close photos looking over toward Paradise and Muir, right at about 3pm. Fun to zoom in to this unnaturally-detailed result and see all the tiny vertical human specks* and their many paths etched (temporarily) into the snows. 

18MB image (9204 x 5550): https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50664116482_f60d977106_o_d.jpg

9 right below camp muir, 16 spread across the snowfield, 10 along pebble creek, (at least) 44 on the route below pan face, and so on and so on.

Thank you for the great photo.  I enlarged and could "see" many of the "lines". It provides a look of areas you have skied or some have mentioned in a ski report.😃


And some normal photos.

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Really enjoyed the telescopic view. Thank for posting. 


Stellar, photo Frank. I reckon there's some substantial work behind the scenes, thanks.

Photography on TAY has always been so strong.

Franks-rainier-photo-pano_

That's a great photo. It's no wonder people get lost on the Muir Snowfield when the clouds roll in. The photo shows how complex the terrain actually is. 


Complex on the whiteout navigation scale, simple/challenging on the avalanche terrain exposure scale.


Nice photo, Frank!  The large shadows on the right beneath Little T closely coincide with the most active slab avalanche zones each winter.


Thanks for the comments, all. These shots were almost just a toss-off at the time of shooting, so I have been thinking all week about how I could go back to get an even better photo. (This one was 6 or 7 exposures with an old 135mm lens on a Pentax K5iis, quickly shot handheld, then stitched together on the computer with Hugin.) But I'm also realizing I was lucky to get the combination of good visibility and good light with all that interesting human activity on the beautiful snowcover. We'll have to see how it goes. And it definitely makes me appreciate all the terrain, as mentioned. Skiing Muir is not boring, no matter how many times you have done it (though it certainly helps to have coverage on all the other features beyond the snowfield).


That is one amazing panorama, Frank! Thanks for posting.


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2020-11-30 08:30:34