Smith Rock Sunrise

Misery Ridge Hike, Smith Rock State Park

Oregon’s beautiful Smith Rock State Park is only 30 minutes from home in Bend, Oregon, which allows me wonderful access to Smith Rock’s hiking trails and landscape photography locations. I often track weather patterns for many locations in Oregon and Smith Rock, located close to Terrebonne, Oregon is one of those locations. I recently noticed favorable weather patterns developing and decided to climb the Misery Ridge Trail at Smith Rock and shoot sunrise photos. I had a location in mind as I had hiked the Misery Ridge Trail a few days earlier for scouting purposes.

Sunrise at Central Oregon’s beautiful Smith Rock State Park as seen from the Misery Ridge Trail with the distant Three Sisters Mountains

I’ve had the good fortune of capturing a few landscape photos of Beautiful Smith Rock Sunrises in the past but never from this location, high atop Smith’s rocky towers.  I climbed by headlamp for 30 minutes before reaching the top of the Misery Ridge Trail when the eastern horizon began to glow with the first hint of sunrise. With clouds looming high over the Central Oregon Cascades, conditions were very promising.

I found a composition I really liked which you see in this new Smith Rock fine art landscape photograph. I love the gentle curvature of the Crooked River at the base of the Smith Rock Group in the mid ground of the image but I love the light conditions even more! These images were captured as the suns’s first rays were illuminating The Three Sisters, leaving a soft warm glow of indirect light on Smith Rock’s vertical spires.  Having incoming cloud formations high above the Oregon Cascades helped hold light and color making for an amazing sunrise sky. In the landscape version of this image, Mt Bachelor is located above the dark “V”  shape in the face of the Smith Rock Group. Scanning to the right you can see Broken Top, the Three Sisters, Black Crater, Mt Washington and Black Butte on the right side of the image. Purchasing information for this new fine art print can be found to the right of this text.  I should also note that the vertically oriented image on the left side of this text is also available for purchase!