This vista, photographed from the top of Misery Ridge in Smith Rock State Park, Central Oregon, USA, holds so much variety and intrigue, and presented itself beautifully to me on a cold morning in early February 2025. Perched high above the Crooked River below, I had strapped on my mini-spikes and climbed the 1,000-foot trail in the dark, hoping to capture the alpenglow descending on the Cascades with Phoenix Buttress in the foreground. The air was crisp and clear, with just a slight breeze adding to the chill of the sub-freezing temperatures.
The sound of the river below was faint but steady. The peaks of the Three Sisters, Broken Top, and Mt. Bachelor were perfectly visible in the distance, their white, snow-covered slopes sharply contrasting with the dark blue backdrop of the twilight sky.
I have been to this spot a number of times, so I had a clear idea of how I wanted to frame and compose the image. I was pleased to see small patches of ice that had formed in depressions in the hardened volcanic tuff at my feet.
I set my tripod in position, took a few test shots to fine-tune focus and composition, and then waited for the Earth to rotate and for the show to begin. As all landscape photographers know from experience, you rarely get exactly what you have imagined; sometimes less, sometimes more. In this case, I was blessed with the latter, as the alpenglow was absolutely perfect.
I took several exposures, adjusting shutter settings and white balance as the light increased, illuminating the snow and rock formations with a soft glow while filling the sky with pinks, magentas, violets, and blues. This is the image I chose, as it seemed to best capture both the scene and my experience of it.
