Photo of the Day

August 5, 2012 -- The view from Washington's Clark County Fair and "The World's Premier Canine Aquatics Competition."

The View from Rainier

August 1, 2012 -- Pictures from Camp Muir and the summit of Washington's Mount Rainier via Disappointment Cleaver. There's a 2005 essay on RBM and family's last attempt at Rainier over at this dispatch.

The View from Paradise

July 17, 2012 -- Pictures from Washington's lower Lewis River and Paradise Point. There's another look at the Lewis over at this dispatch.

The View from the Gorge

Above: Oregon's Mount Defiance (in fog) and Washington's Dog Mountain (in bloom), which form opposing sides of the Columbia River Gorge. Climbers training for higher ground often attempt the "double D" -- ascents of both peaks in a single day. But distractions abound: lilies, columbine, and endangered snails, among other wildlife.

Photo of the Day

July 3, 2012 -- The view from Washington's Lewis and Clark Highway and Oregon's Biglow Canyon Wind Farm.

The View from Highway 12

June 30, 2012 -- Pictures from western North Dakota and eastern Montana's particularly lonely stretch of U.S. Route 12, an east-west corridor whose railroading and homesteading history is masterfully chronicled in Jonathan Raban's Bad Land: An American Romance (1997).

Photo of the Day

June 29, 2012 -- An auto shop in Lemmon, South Dakota, echoes the prayers of residents across the fire-ravaged Mountain West, including the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, just over the Montana state line, where crews struggled against heavy winds and a blaze just 5 percent contained on Friday.