Rattlesnake Ledge

Author's Comments

The ledge itself is the photograph everyone makes, and I understand the instinct. You stand on that exposed shelf of rock with the lake a thousand feet below and the Snoqualmie Valley unfurling north toward Si, and the composition almost arranges itself. A figure on the edge. The lake going pewter in early light. The far ridges stacking into haze. But this trail rewards the photographer who arrives at six in the morning on a Tuesday in late September, when the valley still holds fog and the parking lot is half empty. By nine on a weekend it is something else entirely - a procession - and the photograph you came for becomes a photograph of other people making the same photograph. What I look for is the moment before the sun crests the eastern ridge and the fog in the valley begins to lift but has not yet burned off. Chester Morse appears and disappears. Mount Si shows its shoulders above the cloud layer. The light is cold and blue and then suddenly warm, and the window between those two states is maybe twenty minutes long. A wide lens is the obvious choice. I would also bring something longer than feels reasonable - the layered ridges to the north compress beautifully, and the abstraction of distant fog against bare rock is a different photograph than the panoramic one. Both are worth making. The ledge has no railing. I have watched people do things at the edge that I would not do with a camera in my hand, and I will say only this: the photograph is not worth the fall. Sit down. Work slowly. Let the light come to you.

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