My Favorite Pictures, Part 1: Sunrises and Sunsets

As I mentioned yesterday, I have spent a lot of time over the last several months organizing, sorting, and cataloging the thousands of photos that I have had the opportunity to take on the mountain over the years that I have worked here. A lot of those photos have ended up being posted on this blog at one point or another, and I know that a lot of people have enjoyed seeing them. So, as I prepare to leave Mount Washington and the Observatory, I figured it would be a good time to review my personal favorites. Before moving on, I should probably mention that calling myself an amateur photographer might be pushing it; I've just been lucky enough to have a setting surrounding me that makes it so easy to take great pictures.

As I'm sure you can imagine, with thousands of photos to choose from, it was somewhat difficult to narrow it down to a reasonable amount. Once that task was done, I decided to break the final choices up into several categories. So, each post that you will see will be its own category. Today's category: my favorite sunrise and sunset shots.

Being able to actually see the sun rise or set is something that is easy to take for granted. Once you live on Mount Washington though, that changes. I say this because more often than not, sunrise and/or sunset aren’t even visible because the mountain is covered in clouds 60 percent of the year, making visibility very poor. In fact, I’ve gone entire week-long shifts on the mountain without seeing a single sunrise or sunset. Because of that, a viewable sunrise or sunset becomes a notable event.

At the same time, after a person spends a certain amount of time on the mountain, their definition of how good a sunrise or sunset is starts to change. Some would call it becoming jaded, but I disagree. It doesn’t matter what it is you’re talking about, when a person is exposed to something that most people would consider unusual or extraordinary on a regular basis, it becomes normal to that person and no longer unusual nor extraordinary. I’ll be the first to admit that this has happened to me over the years working on the mountain. It’s probably a good thing though, because it made me realize that I don’t nee to take a picture of EVERY sunrise and sunset.

Luckily, every so often, a sunrise or sunset would come along that would remind me of how lucky I was to be able to be there to see it. Those are the pictures I will be posting today.

First up: sunrises, naturally.

I’ll start things off with the oldest picture that I chose, from Oct. 13, 2007 of some early season rime ice that had formed on the observation deck railing, and was being lit up nicely by the sunrise that morning. Rime ice can create some truly beautiful formations, and this is definitely an example of that:

Here are a few shots from the morning of Oct. 27, 2009, when low stratus clouds below the summit were being pushed in from the seacoast, and then spilling over the Wildcat Range, just to the east of Mount Washington:

In those sorts of situations, watching the clouds is just like watching water spill over the mountains. Not only were these clouds below the mountain quite a sight, but the clouds above were also very impressive:

Next up: Jan. 17, 2010. Again, low stratus clouds were being pushed up against the Wildcats below the summit, but this time some very interesting altostratus above added to the scene:

The hole you can see in the alto clouds was particularly intriguing. It could definitely be classified as a hole punch cloud:

Although it’s naturally very easy to become fixated on what’s going on in the direction of the rising sun, sometimes things can get just as interesting in the opposite direction. That was certainly the case on Feb. 8, 2012:

What you’re seeing is literally the shadow of the mountain being projected on the atmosphere, and on this particular morning, some nice red color and the setting moon joined that shadow:

It only seems appropriate to end the sunrise segment of this post with a couple photos from my last shift. A beautifully calm, clear, and crisp night was capped off with a spectacular sunrise on the morning of Sept. 28, 2012:

Moving on to sunsets, first up is a couple shots taken during my internship with the Observatory in 2006. To this day, these remain a couple of my favorites, partially because they feature one of my favorite sites on Mount Washington: an undercast. This shot was taken on March 7, 2006:

And this one on March 22, 2006.

Next up is Feb. 15, 2010, when some very interesting alto clouds were lit up nicely by the setting sun:

On Nov. 25, 2011, the sunset had just about everything one could ask for from a Mount Washington sunset: clouds below, just enough clouds above, and some snow and ice:

To round out this post, I have a recent sunset from April 17, 2012 that happens to be one of the best that I ever saw on the mountain. This is also another example of how sometimes the most interesting part of a sunrise or sunset can often be in the opposite direction of the sun:

So that’s it for this post. Check back tomorrow when the next category of pictures will be Clouds and Optical Phenomena!

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