rainier and the cascades, a fall album
october 2022 | mt. rainier national park & north cascades national park
MAMIYA C220 & CANON AE1P
Portra 160, 400, and 800, Ektar 100, and Cinestill 400d and 800t
This trip began as a desire to see larches for the first time. Social media can make you see places you didn’t know existed and instill a sense of longing - and yellow larches scattered throughout a few corners of the world made it high up the bucket list. So we spontaneously flew to the opposite corner of the continental United States the first week of October for a chance to walk among these beauties, and of course, added on Mt. Rainier, just because it also is a place not to be missed.
We began in Seattle and drove straight to Packwood from the airport, making it with just enough time to see the red meadows in Rainier before the sun set behind the behemoth that is that active volcano. After a few days here, we shipped up to the Cascades via Leavenworth, just in time for peak larches. From there, with the quick jaunt of larch magic behind us, drove back to Seattle, and flew back East. It was not nearly enough time to do both parks, but it was way better than nothing - this taste was sufficient to drive the insatiable longing for future trips to the area.
It truly was incredible to be able to pull this off. We had just visited Olympic earlier in the year and somehow knocked out all three of Washington state’s national parks in one calendar year. Needless to say, Washington became one of, if not my favorite states in the country. I wonder which place will top that feeling next since the bucket list still has some potential gems on it.