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Meet the man who answers the most pressing question in all of Seattle: 'Is the mountain out?'

David Lindahl is now selling merchandise associated with his popular Twitter account. #k5evening

WOODINVILLE, Wash. — "It's just such a unique landmark," David Lindahl said. "I mean just the prominence ratio of Mount Rainier or Mount Tahoma, where it goes from zero to 14-thousand feet is pretty unique and the way it dominates the skyline across the area is so cool I can't really describe it."

Lindahl is the guy who runs the "Rainier Watch" Twitter account and he's every bit The Mountain fan you'd hope he'd be.

"Sometimes I scare my wife and shout with glee," he said. "But every time it still gets me with its stunning beauty."

Lindahl says he got the idea for the account, which he founded in 2013, on a metro bus ride.

"It was pretty random," he admitted. "I basically was commuting to downtown Seattle from the Green Lake area and those days when the mountain was out it was just the coolest thing ever. So I asked myself, 'Is there a way that people can know? There has to be a system out there, some notification kind of thing?' There wasn't, so I started a Twitter account and just started tweeting when the mountain was out and it has grown since then."

Credit: KING TV
Mount Rainier dwarfs the Tacoma skyline on a sunny day.

Lindahl says the mountain prefers to hide behind the clouds, showing itself only one out of every six days. But that's what makes the days it reveals itself so special.

"If it was out every day we would take it for granted," he said. "And then those days it was out just wouldn't be the same."

Credit: KING TV
David Lindahl runs an online shop from his backyard office.

With fifty-thousand mountain lovers following him, Lindahl launched an online shop in his backyard office.

"This is RainierWatch HQ as I call it. Rainier Basecamp," he said. "It's quite the space. It's pretty awesome to have shelves and shelves of apparel."

He began by selling stickers and expanded to include hats, shirts, beanies, cups, enamel pins, neck gators, and more. Five percent of all sales go to national parks. Lindahl runs pop-up shops at street fairs and farmer's markets on weekends.

Credit: KING TV
Hats for sale by Rainier Watch, David Lindahl's online store.

"It's really nice to be able to connect to folks in person and share about the mission of Rainier Watch and kind of just share that love, the shared love for the mountain," he said.

Love not for a mountain. But The Mountain.

"It's pretty unreal," added Lindahl.

Lindahl has a full-time job and a new baby at home, so he's asking fans of the mountain to help him get the word out about its visibility with a new interactive mountain reporting app.

KING 5's Evening celebrates the Northwest. Contact us: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Email.

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