Repost + Pantheon of Dreams

I'm sleeping or at least doing my best imitation of it in a motel that brought live scenes from Alfred Hitchcock's movies. Brrrng! My alarm goes off at 2 am. How did I get here? Just yesterday I was at the Oregon coast looking at imposing sea stacks and figuring if the waves would wipe my camera gear out. The short answer is that I was on an epic adventure with Marc Adamus and his spontaneity and unending desire to catch the best light where ever it may be was nothing but infectious. My wife and I meet the rest of the group outside. A quick look at the Satellites and Marc tells us that we were going to get socked in. My dream of getting the Milky way lining up perfectly behind the great Tahoma was to be realized on another day. Two hours later, we got back up and drove in the silent darkness up the great mountain. The crisp mountain air woke our senses up and we were off hiking in darkness, our headlamps leading the way. The summer of 2015 was different from the past years. The flowers had decided to bloom much earlier, in June! As light gradually filtered in, all of us were in awe of the sight in front of us. Patches of wildflowers everywhere in the near foreground with a glacial river leading the eye to the beautiful mountain that we came to photograph. I wandered around aimlessly trying to find a cogent composition and at the same time, the sky began to erupt. It wasn't a simple pastel pink. This was the full monty with hues of red, pink, purple in front of us and an almost surreal alpenglow emerging on the top of Rainier. Eventually, one of the guys from the group and I shared a spot with some decent wildflowers and began firing off shots. The light kept getting better, and after what seemed an eternity it was gone. It is to this day by far the most insane sunrise I've ever witnessed in my life. I hope this image does some kind of justice to what I saw on that glorious morning. 

Appreciate any thoughts you have on this image.

~Sairam