Windy, dry and warm are the three words that describe the winter Rocky has been having this year. Still no change in the weather pattern so its been more of the same in the park most mornings. Partially frozen streams, lots of brown grasses and mountains with dabs of snow. Not exactly how one would envision winter in Rocky Mountain National Park but you have to take the bad with the good at this point.

The 10 day forecast still shows more of the same in regards to the weather, but somewhere deep down, we have to hope this thing whipsaws back the other way and we get a really snowy and wet end to winter and spring and get things back on track. This is certainly one of the strangest Colorado winters I’ve photographer but I’m hoping I’ll look back on this season and chuckle if the weather pattern does indeed turn soon.

Until then, I’ll keep getting out and enjoy the one benefit we’ve had with all this windy, warm weather in RMNP, the colorful sunrise and sunsets. If you can find some shelter from the wind, we have really had some amazing colors in the sky to photograph. Weather its fire red skies from Lenticular clouds or neon pink skies from high cirrus clouds, the mornings and evenings have been stunning. You can only photograph the hand your dealt, but I’m hoping that next hand will have a lot more moisture soon.

It’s always interesting starting off a new calendar year as a photographer. You reflect on all you past travels and images from 2025 and are eager to improve on and expand your portfolio into 2026. I always have a ton of plans and ideas for what I want to photograph in the new year so I’m always itching to get out.

The post holiday hangover, parties, events and of course attending to business needs and other family obligations can make it easier said then done hitting the ground running as the year turns over. On top of that, the weather this time of year may also not cooperate and frankly it can be a difficult time to photograph in Rocky Mountain National Park. High winds, peaks covered in clouds and swirling snow squalls and lots of long shadows can challenge any photographer.

So while I make a few failed attempts, keep my eye on the weather and hope for one of those electric neon sunrises, it usually means waiting or missing out longer than you want. It took me nine days into 2026 but I finally captured my first image of 2026 on Friday.

A little light snow over Rocky on Thursday, something we are desperately in need of coated the landscape Friday morning. Clouds over Colorado’s high plains blocked the early morning sunrise but some nice dappled light broke through about 15 minutes after sunrise. Ypsilon Mountain and the Mummy Range had clouds hugging their ridge lines and vertical faces but there was just enough light and clarity to make for an acceptable image.

With the high winds quickly picking up and about to strip the trees of the remaining snow, some beautiful warm sunlight broke through and illuminated the Mummy Range and Ypsilon Mountain. 2026 is now off and running and I cant wait to see what this year has in store.

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been able to get out and photograph sunrise Rocky on a Christmas morning. As anyone with young children can attest, Christmas morning usually starts around 4:00 am with the children’s sleepless anticipation of what Santa placed under the tree resulting in a pile on in Mom and Dad’s bedrooms with pleading to wakeup.

The high wire act of wrapping presents, setting them under the tree just after the kids go to bed and getting a little bit of sleep on Christmas Eve are all part of the fun of being a parent. While it can be a crazy time, it goes by much too quickly. Before you know it, you little angels turn into cranky teenagers who are happy to sleep in all morning. While you miss those precious early years, for the first time in fifteen years, I could head out in the morning and into RMNP for sunrise on Christmas morning.

So for the first time in years, I settled on a nice ’S’ curve along the Big Thompson River in Moraine Park to photograph a Christmas sunrise in Rocky Mountain National Park. With the Big Thompson flowing freely and nearly free from any ice, I setup my camera and watched a spectacular late December sunrise unfold on the east side of Rocky. It may be one of the last sunrises I photograph in 2025, but it will be one of most memorable. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!.

It’s been a little quiet up here in Rocky Mountain National Park the past few weeks. We’ve been at a loss for snow the past few weeks but there are two other forces of nature that have been prevalent during this back end of the shoulder season. Those two items are the wind and spectacular sunrises.

While the wind has been relentless the past few weeks in RMNP, It has also helped create the perfect conditions for some jaw dropping sunrises many mornings. With a nice gap in the clouds to the east of Rocky, the winds have been creating beautiful lenticular clouds or wave clouds on the leeward side of the Front Range. This makes for the perfect setup with the pre-dawn through sunrise catching the underside of the lenticular clouds. This particular setup results in some of the most breathtaking color at sunrise as the sky over a period of nearly an hour before sunrise, right through sunrise goes from beautiful pastels, to fiery reds and explosive oranges.

If you haven’t photographed along the Front Range of Colorado or Rocky Mountain National Park, you probably think we just crank the saturation tool up to 100 in photoshop. Luckily for the photographers who have braved the nuisance winds that almost always accompany these lenticular clouds and beautiful sunrises, thats not required.

Overall, its always a little more difficult to get motivated during the brown season, especially with 50-60 mph winds. So far, this season has had the annoyance of high winds, but the beauty of some of the best sunrises all year in Rocky. I guess we all just have to remember that sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Have fun out there and hopefully we start seeing some snow sooner rather than later.

Windy days and November skies seemed like a good title for this blog post as its reflective of what conditions photographers can expect to find right now in Rocky. Winter weather has been difficult to find so far this season but winter winds and the spectacular skies they create have remained consistent.

Trying to stay motivated during the shoulder or brown season in Rocky Mountain National Park is always a tad difficult. Frozen lakes and streams, brown grasses and really pesky high winds most mornings test even the most hardened photographers.

The saving grace this time of year and the thing that gets me out of bed early in the morning is the explosive and colorful skies we often see at sunrise. All those annoying high winds also create some of the coolest lenticular clouds in the skies over Rocky Mountain National Park. Trail Ridge Road might be closed, access to much of RMNP may be difficult but sunrises this time of year rarely disappoint.

So with a heaviness this holiday season can bring thinking of those who are no longer with us, getting out in the field and photographing these beautiful sunrises, wind be darned, is always healing. While I’ll always miss those friends and family members who are no longer able to join me to witness these spectacular November sunrises, they will always be on my mind when the skies explode with color and the November winds push hard on my back.

While we are waiting for winter to actually arrive in Rocky Mountain National Park, the mild and dry weather that has been prevalent most of the late fall has created some interesting opportunities and circumstances for photographers. Normally snow covered trails, still free of snow and great for hiking, lakes and streams flowing and open or mostly open, and even some subtle signs of fall remaining in a few sheltered nooks in Rocky.

It’s been fun and interesting to take advantage of what has been such a mild late fall in RMNP, but its also been a little strange. Late fall in Rocky is known for a couple of things. If we dont have snow, most everything is brown, we can have some of our most dramatic and brilliant sunrise and sunsets, and the wind really likes to turn it up a notch or two which is saying something in an already windy locale.

I was out at the end of last week hoping for a dramatic sunrise that didn’t materialize at Bear Lake. I was trying to take advantage of the combination of only a partially frozen Bear Lake and the possibility of a really fiery sunrise and dramatic sky. That didn’t materialize this one particular morning in the park, but it left me to wander around the shores of Bear Lake making images of the ice, grasses and changes all subtly and slowly taking place this year.

By the end of this week, major changes to the weather pattern appear on their way and our first really cold system of the year appears as if it will settle over RMNP. I would expect business as usual in the park shortly, so this late season walk around Bear Lake was an enjoyable change of pace. That being said, snow covered mountains and winter landscapes are going to be just as welcome to this photographer when they make their long due appearance shortly.

While the weather has been mild and dry, our typical late fall winds on the Front Range of Colorado have been fairly consistent. So while many of the lakes are ice free or still mostly free of ice on the surfaces, getting a windless morning has been difficult which of course makes catching a reflecting mountaintop in smooth water a challenge.

The rocky confines of Chaos Creek just west of Lake Haiyaha and Hallett Peak can be a good place to find some sheltered breaks and reflections if conditions warrant. The large boulders and rocks will keep the slowly moving stream and its many small pools and nooks calm enough to garner a reflection even on a breezy morning. So was the case on Monday morning when some high clouds caught the early morning glow over Hallett Peak as seen from Chaos Creek.

Who knows how much longer Rocky Mountain National Park will continue to defy late fall and old man winter, but until the weather pattern changes, I’m here for the Chaos and of course the reflections and memories of the summer season.

Fall color is now in the rear view window in Rocky Mountain National Park and Brown Season is settling into the meadows and high country. So the now the question becomes, what should a photographer do to keep themselves busy during this time of year. Well the good news is there is always something awesome to shoot in Rocky, especially if the clouds cooperate.

After a week of mostly blue skies, Friday looked promising as far as the prospects go for a colorful sunrise. When I arrived in Rocky early Friday morning, a lenticular wave cloud was setup on the east side of the park with a small gap in the eastern horizon where they sun would rise. To the west, it looked mostly clear and as far as I could tell there did not appear to be much promise photographing westward.

With that in mind, I headed up to Dream Lake. I figured I would have the option of photographing either direction if one direction looked more promising. As is so often the case with Lenticular clouds, it’s usually going to be quite breeze as high winds aloft are how wave clouds or lenticular clouds form. Sure enough it was quite breezy at Dream Lake with about 75% of the lake covered over in a think skim of ice.

With the clouds to the east really starting to glow, I headed to west side of Dream Lake to take advantage of the what would be a colorful sunrise. Sure it was windy, the lake was mostly clouded over but colorful sunrises like these in RMNP are always awesome to photograph, even during brown season. So after a great little hike and some great color in the sky, there wasn’t a better way to start a Friday morning. As I always say, theres always something great to photograph in Rocky!

Well it appears we’ve arrived. Where have we arrived you may be asking?. The end of the fall color season in Rocky Mountain National Park is what I’m alluding to this morning. The last tiny vestiges of autumn color has nearly passed and the brown season in RMNP is about to enter stage right.

As of this morning, a weak mountain system is sweeping over Rocky bringing in rain and snow showers, higher winds and some of the coolest temperatures we have seen since the spring. I expect these next days to put the coup de grâce on what remains of the remnants of both the whispers of whats left of the summer season as the whimpers of the remains of what was a spectacular autumn.

While Trail Ridge Road is closed at both the Colorado River Trailhead on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park and Many Parks Curve on the east side with what I would guess to be a zero chance of reopening for the season, Many of the mid level lakes and trails along the Bear Lake Corridor remain mostly snow and ice free. Thats going to change over the next couple of days and I would expect any of the lakes above 9000 ft. to be frozen over with a thin layer of ice moving forward. Its going to be difficult to capture your ‘summer’ like reflection images once the higher lakes freeze.

Moving waterways while gain some ice along the edges, but with temperatures moderating over the back end of the week I would expect them to continue to remain mostly free of ice for the near future. Are long dark nights now and long daytime shadows will make it difficult for the smaller and higher lakes to thaw and break free from ice even if the temperatures moderate at the back end of the week.

As for fall color, the few aspen trees and willows here and there that have a few patches of fall color and leaves will likely be stripped of what remains with the higher winds excpeted the next two days. With a little bit of luck, you may be able to find some smaller ground cover that has some remaining color on it or some leaves of the ground that may be able to be used to compose some small scale macro scenes but I would expect those to become difficult to find by the end of the week.

While we are about to enter the brown season, there will still be some opportunities going forward. For one, the brown season does have some of the most dramatic sunrise and sunsets when conditions allow. The low angle of the sun can really set the sky ablaze. I would expect most of the lakes to start to freeze over now but some of the larger and deeper ones may have some open water if temps remain moderate. Of course somewhere in here we should see our first significant snow of the season in Rocky which always lends itself to some amazing opportunities for landscape photography.

Autumn in 2025 was an amazing season in Rocky Mountain National Park. I started capturing some of my first fall color season shots in mid to late August of this year and have continued to do so almost until November. With a little bit of luck, I may be able to capture a few more images of the lingering fall color over the next week if conditions allow. So while I expect the transition over to the shoulder and or brown season in the next few days, I still expect there to be some good opportunities to document and capture the end of fall season in Rocky.