Combined Post--Photo Hunt Water and ABC Wednesday W

Photo Hunters is sponsored each Saturday by TnChick.
ABC Wednesday is hosted by Mrs. Nesbitt.
Visit them both to see what wonders await.




Photo Hunt's June 21 theme of Water and ABC Wednesday reaching the letter W on June 25 have arrived within days of each other, so, since I will be traveling this week, I will post a joint offering today. Hmmm, maybe I should have included something Odd for Odd Shots Monday. Apologies for not doing much visiting during either of these memes because of travel. I'll get around some when I return.
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So we will look at water at Mt. Rainier National Park in various forms and scales.
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Here it is in droplets of rain on a just budding Anenome or Pasqueflower...
...and here is is in the form of fog--or a cloud (depending on where you stand) over the White River Valley.

I couldn't pass up the wonderful reflection in the still water of this pond near the Stevens Canyon Entrance Station.

Water can show up as ice if you hike in the late fall.

Ice takes on grand proportions as a glacier--in this case, the Nisqually Glacier in winter. When I say grand proportions, notice the scale of the snout of the glacier in comparison to the snowboarders on the snow below it.


Water can sculpt the terrain, can stress the infrastructure, and also, among many other things, can make possible scenes like this, near a stream in Berkeley Park north of Sunrise.

If I tracked down all the waterfall pictures that I have, this post would go on and on and on. Indeed, how many photos does blogspot allow? But here is a small sampling.

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Silver Falls, on the Ohanapecosh River--a lovely loop hike from the campground or a shorter hike from the Grove of the Patriarchs parking lot.

Falls Creek. No need to question the creek's name. There is plenty of water in the form of creeks in the Park.

A glance at the map and a memory of where we were hiking on this day tells me that if this waterfall has a name, it is Affi Falls.

But some waterfalls, fleeting visitors during snowmelt, remain nameless.


Water has had an impact everywhere in the Mt. Rainier region for millennia. Five thousand years ago, the Oseola mudflow (mud being water and earth) traveled far into the Puget Sound, creating the land upon which now sit many of Seattle's neighboring cities. Its abundance or lack is the basis of the park's varying ecosystems. In the form of snow, it closes portions of the Park for the winter, and slows travel in others--and extended even into June this year. Snow and ice can be a life threatening encounter when weather shifts for climbers or high elevation hikers. Water, in the form of 18 inches of rain in 36 hours on November 6, 2006, set off flooding and slides which severely impacted the ecology, the infrastructure, and visitors on the mountain for more than a year.

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Photo Hunt Theme for June 21--Water

ABC Wednesday for June 25 -- W