Shadow On The Sky

Day 267: Several conditions have to align for the Mountain to throw a shadow against the sky, and I've been missing the event by minutes on these last few hazy mornings. Today, though, I threw back the curtains at exactly the right moment and, pausing only long enough to appreciate the bonus of fog in the foreground, ran across the road with camera in hand. As the sun crept nearer to the horizon, the shadow began to fade and was nearly gone by the time I'd snapped half a dozen photos. The haze is due to an inversion layer, not the Canadian wildfires. There is some smoke in it from local vegetation fires (Fourth of July fireworks delivered quite a few of those), but nothing like the conditions being experienced in the eastern part of the country. Still, it's been hot and dry with daytime temps in the 90s and no sign of precipitation in the forecast. Fire season is upon us. Please be careful.

Perfectly Notched

Day 285: For some weeks now, I have been hoping for the proper conditions which cause the Mountain to cast an atmospheric shadow just prior to sunrise. It all came together yesterday morning, with two unexpected bonuses. When I first observed the shadow forming, it was the typical wedge shape angling toward the south. I grabbed the camera and darted across the road where I could avoid having power lines in the image, but as I did so, a second dark wedge appeared off the left shoulder. The shadows were being thrown by Columbia Crest (the true summit, central from this vantage point) and Liberty Cap (the northern peak). This double shadow alone was a phenomenon I had not previously seen, but as I was snapping photos, the sun began rising, perfectly notched in the low point between the two summits. Old Sol will be in this position only for a few days each summer, and although weather has permitted me to see the notched sunrise occur a few times previously, it was never in conjunction with the atmospheric shadow (and certainly not with a pair of shadows).