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Mount Rainier, circa 1910A team and wagon pose with four bonnets at Ricksecker Point on the road to Paradise. The point was named for Eugene Ricksecker, the engineer who surveyed the road in 1903. At an elevation of 4,214 feet, this prospect on the south side of Mount Rainier is 10,197 feet below the summit, which gained a foot in 1988 when the mountain was measured by satellite at 14,411 feet. Scenic Mount Rainier has always been a popular photographic backdrop. At left, dancers from the Mary Ann Well School in Tacoma prance around a new sedan in 1931. Mount Rainier is grand enough to create its own weather. To repeat Will Hudson’s Ricksecker Point tableau, Jean waited a full afternoon for the mysterious mountain to reveal its southern face. Traffic was light at the point; since the construction of a shortcut, this portion of the road to Paradise has become an isolated, though spectacular, side trip. On his visit late in the 2005 season, Jean also photographed Paradise Lodge (right), a national landmark built in 1916 from glacial boulders and charred Alaskan cedar cut from the nearby Silver Forest. At that point, the lodge was preparing to close for two years for restoration. —PD Book Samples |