Mount Washington, New Hamphire

For years, I've been trying to get a keeper photo of Mt Washington. I've done winter climbs, summer climbs, I've gotten to famous view spots at 5:30 am.

Even this morning, I awoke at 5:30, drove 30 minutes from North Conway to Pinkham Notch visitor center, parked the car, put on my climbing gear, and ascended to Square Ledge to photograph the sunrise on the eastern side of the mountain. All this effort and the mountain was fogged in. So fogged in that I captured three frames of fog. Not posted here.

I went back to the condo dejected and about the time I got home, it cleared up. Cold and clear. Ideal photographic conditions. I wasn't done getting the photo, so I planned on shooting the western flank at sunset. Drove about an hour to get to the Mt Washington Hotel. Upon arriving the Mt Washington was socked in. However, It was crystal clear when we drove past the other side. I wanted sunset colors, so I waited and watched all the rookies come out, take a photo of Mt Washington in the clouds, shrug and depart. I waited about 45 minutes. The clouds looked like they were drifting in my favor, so I continued to wait.

Finally, the skies turned orange/pink, and I got my legendary photo. Photography is really a hurry up and wait activity, which is why it goes so well with mountain climbing.

It's taken me about a dozen trips to the Mt Washington area to capture this photo. You can view photos of me and Amanda's 2007 Winter Climb of mt Washington over here.

BTW, this photo is a stitched pano of about 12 photos. With the ideal conditions, I made a lot of frames because it could be years before I see Mt Washington like this again. I made a multi-row pano of about 22 photos that's over 20,000 pixels wide. What am I going to do with all those pixels? Eventually, I'm going to make a 40x60 print, hopefully on metal, that's what.

I should add, that the peak to the left is Mt Jefferson. Don't wanna leave him out of this.