I was socked in by the fog. I could see nothing but my own feet and the dirt brown trail disappearing into the snow. The freezing wind was picking up, and my fingers started to numb.

Barely a half-hour earlier, I was enjoying my lunch beside a glistening glacial tarn under warm sunny skies, enjoying grand vistas of Mt Rainier. I had looked up at the Panhandle, eerily calling out to me through the clouds, and decided it would be a worthwhile post-lunch trek. No sooner had I reached within a finger's grasp of the summit when the fog rolled in. The warming sunlight faded awa, replaced by an ghostly fog that blew up from the other side.

Through the fog, visions of the surround landscape, an alien terrain at the edge of a glacial moraine, appeared like windows of light in the darkness. I could sense that, under better conditions, this would have been one memorable vista, but today was not meant to be.

One such vision I had from atop the Panhandle was this peak peering through the thinning fog, and the trail winding its way through the light snow.

Mt Rainier National Park

WA USA