A couple thousand feet of elevation gain and some challenging but beautiful miles lead me to this incredible overlook just below a glacier in the North Cascades. Our afternoon was gorgeous but quickly turned smoky due to a nearby fire, so as night fell no one in the group was optimistic about sunrise. However we woke up to some beautifully textured clouds rolling in with gentle streaks of rain that had cleared the smoke. As these clouds caught the light of the rising sun they turned shades of deep purple, pink and eventually a soft but stunning orange. A group of local mountain goats was the cherry on top, this one wandered into my frame for maybe 20 seconds before moving along and that was just enough time to snap this photo, one of the most surreal I've been able to capture in the mountains.
