Artist's Point Sunrise

Artist's Point is a viewing area and trailhead at the end of the Mount Baker Highway in the North Cascades. It takes visitors into the heart of the Cascades and affords fantastic views both of Mount Baker to the south and Mount Shuksan to the northeast. It also provides a popular staring point for hikes to some of the most beautiful alpine lakes in the North Cascades.

The road to the Mount Baker Ski Area is open year around, but the last part of the road to Artist's Point itself is only open briefly each year. Many summers the road is not clear of snow until August and it can be closed again because of snow in September. Even after the road is open, however, the area around the car park can be so full of snow as to make hiking out of the area nearly impossible.

Thursday, October 21, a rather late date for the road to be open, my wife and I decided to head up to Artist's Point to see the sunrise and to do some hiking. We headed off at about 6:00 am, arriving at Artist's Point before 7:30 am. We spent a wonderful autumn day up in the area but two days later the road was closed for snow.

This view looks to the southeast and was taken just prior to the sunrise. It is also my first attempt at HDR, a combination of three exposures tone mapped and reworked in Artizen. Perhaps it's my dislike of overworked photos or my fear of doing too much but this didn't turn out much different from the original photos. Other photos can be found here: ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2010/10/artists-poi...