Mt. Rainier's top

Tue 22 June 2010
The clouds cleared away and we got to see and photograph the top of Mt. Rainier today. It is tall, white with snow, a bit rounded looking, and beautiful. We have our noses pointed home now and made it to Baker City, Oregon. Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/2939372409/

There is a dividing transition line that runs through the big volcanoes of the Northwest. Rainier, St. Helens, Hood, Adams and Lassen are all peaks that separate the moist, cloudy, fern covered, spruce-hemlock forests on the west from the much drier sagebrush and pine forests on the east. The farther we drove from Mt. Rainier the drier it got and the clearer the sky became.