Mount Washburn (Reprise)

Moonset, #1. Mount Washburn, Yellowstone NP, Wyoming, 2014

This was my second time up to the top of this buxomous bump on the caldera in the northern area of Yellowstone National Park. First, some trail info, then some photography lessons learned…

There are two easy ways (that is, without bushwhacking) to get up to the lookout tower and the 10,243′ summit of Mount Washburn. Both options involve reasonably easy walks along old roads with steady grades. If you start your hike from the Chittenden Parking Area, your hike will be about 4 1/2 miles round trip. If you start from Dunraven Pass, expect closer to 6 miles round trip. The latter has, perhaps, a slightly easier gradient.

This trip, I chose the longer route from the Pass since I hadn’t done it before.

And, just how good is the trail? Well, this former “road” is still in good enough condition that I could have driven my 1967 VW Karmann Ghia up about 90% of it. With a Jeep and two strong lads with shovel and crowbar you could bypass even the occasional obstacle that pinches the road a bit here and there. In places, you can still see stretches of old asphalt from a previous era.

Once you gain the summit ridge, the views are spectacular–all the way to the Tetons on a clear day…and you won’t believe they actually thought to build a road along this narrow skyway.

So, IMHO, the Dunraven Pass route is the most interesting of the two. Try it, you’ll like it.

On this particular trip, I started up at 4:10a.m. and arrived at the lookout tower just after the first light of twilight. I expected the cozy, enclosed, visitor view room and restrooms to be closed (the sign says it opens at 8a.m.), but was surprised and pleased to find everything open–it is a great place to get out of the cold wind, pee, blow your schnoz, and sort camera gear. Just above the enclosed viewing room there is an open air viewing platform once you are warmed up and ready to work that shutter button.

And…above the open-to-the-public viewing areas, on the third floor, the lonely lookout person stands vigil. So don’t go up there.

Your time commitment for the hike from Dunraven Pass? Maybe two hours up and 1 1/2 hours down–plus an hour doing the photography thing on the summit, of course. So, allow yourself 4-5 hours. Expect crowds of homo sapiens and afternoon thunderstorms in the summer.

Now, on to the photography lessons learned.

I hiked Mount Washburn in the pre-dawn hours of October 8 for good reason. The weather was unusually excellent and the Universe had scheduled a mystical lunar eclipse. I figured it would be a good opportunity to do some star, Moon, eclipse, and sunrise photography all at once.

Some issues I had, along with suggestions:

–During the eclipse, the contrast between the bright portion of the Moon and the shadow-obscured portion is too much for the camera sensor to handle in one image. You could tediously combine two images, or you could simply expose for the largest portion and let the exposure fall where it may on the smaller area. In this case, I exposed for the bright Moon and thus lost all detail in the eclipsed part:

Final Act, Lunar Eclipse. Mount Washburn, Wyoming, 2014

Final Act, Lunar Eclipse. Mount Washburn, Wyoming, October 8, 2014

–You can’t really make a picture of stars and the full Moon (without combining images), due to contrast issues. If you want the stars, you’ll have to let the Moon blow out. In this case, I used f/16 to get some semblance of a star effect with the Moon. I overdid the exposure, so the stars really aren’t as visible as they could be (crappy example):

Moon at f16. Mount Washburn, Wyoming, 2014

–Your camera can see better than you can at night. Don’t be afraid to take some long exposures to see what might be revealed. Here is an image made when the Moon was almost out from under the Earth’s shadow (thus nearly full again) and dawn was just starting to seep onto the eastern horizon:

Mt. Washburn Lookout by Moonlight. Wyoming, 2014

–Perhaps the most fun I had was playing with the reflections on the visitor view room windows. Here, I am looking directly at the Moon to the west, but the sunrise from the east is being reflected onto the same window:

Reflections. Mount Washburn, Wyoming, 2014

–When I look up the moonset and sunrise times, I am after something very specific: I like to have the Moon setting just a bit after sunrise. That way, I can get pictures of the nearly full Moon when the Sun has just started to illuminate the world. This means less contrast between the face of the Moon and the surrounding sky and landscape–the sensor can handle this situation well. The photograph that opened this blog post is an example of this.

In the end, I wasn’t very successful getting images of the eclipse in action–or the stars (when the Moon was in shadow). The star photography and light painting, especially, I need to practice a bit more before my results begin to match my expectations. There is always something new to learn!

A couple more bonus images…

The view to the south. The Tetons are on the farthest horizon. The valley mist is a normal phenomenon, only changing its extension and form from morning to morning depending on conditions. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is visible just in front of the mist. Note the old auto/wagon road on the summit ridge just below–that is now the trail from Dunraven Pass: