Mount Stuart, which you can barely see in the center of this photo, just above the ridge, is the second highest non-volcanic mountain in the Cascades. This photo was taken from Sunrise Point on Mount Rainier, about 70 miles southwest of Mount Stuart. True, this is not a good photo, but the amazing thing is that you can see Mount Stuart at all from that distance on such a hazy day.

I'll drive up to Mount Stuart one of these days and shoot some better photos.

Two months later. Well, I did drive to that area, but I could not find Mt. Stuart. On the map, it looked like the road north from Roslyn would take me there, but it didn't. On highway US 2, at Peshastan and Leavenworth, I thought I would be able to see Stuart, but I could not find it. I'll try again next year (1998).

September 1999: I have founded it! At last. I had tried two times in 1998 and early 1999, but the weather was bad both times. But finally. . . there it was!

Mt. Stuart is 9,415 feet in elevation, and, as I said above, is the second highest non-volcanic peak in the Cascades. Here's how I got started doing this series: I had bought a good camera hoping to shoot the comet Hale-Bopp. That's another story, but anyway here I was with a good camera and needing a photo subject.

A local paper (Ashland, Oregon, Gazette) had an article about Mt. Stuart which said that Mt. Stuart was the second highest peak in the Cascades. "That can't be right," I mused. I knew Rainier was the highest and thought either Adams or Shasta were second. So I did some research and found the elevations of all the higher peaks. I wrote a letter to the editor telling him he was mistaken, and he wrote back saying oh, yeah, I meant non-volcanic.

As long as I had done the research, I thought, why don't I just photograph all the high peaks! What a concept! What a job. This is three or four years later, and I still don't have it done. It is cloudy most of the time in the Northwest, and the mountains are a long distance apart. And I'm not made of money. And when it isn't cloudy, it's hazy. And some of the mountains are not visible from roads, and I'm not a long distance hiker. Or if the mountain is visible, there is no place to pull over and shoot.

But perseverance! This photo adds one more to the series!

©D.L. Mark 1997