While both Mount Meeker is shorter in stature than Longs Peak, it is in fact a more technical mountain than the already difficult and challenging routes up Longs Peak. For us photographers it’s also easy to overlook Mount Meeker with the siren of Longs Peak towering just to the north.
I’d like to tell you that the morning I decided to hike half way up the Twin Sisters was to indeed photography Mount Meeker in all her majesty. I’d by lying of course if I wrote that. My intent in fact was to capture sunrise unfolding over Longs Peak and the Diamond instead. The Twin Sisters reward hikers and photographers with some of the best views of Longs Peak and Mount Meeker anywhere in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Sunrise this particular morning had more or less fizzled out. The clouds that had circled above Longs Peak prior to sunrise had for the most part dissipated. The northern area of Rocky had a nice set of clouds over it, but I was committed at this point to photographing from the Twin Sisters.
A small set of clouds started to form along the flanks of Mount Meeker just as I was about to pack up my gear and hike out. The inversion along the flanks of Meeker were just enough to get me to reframe my shot and train my lens and camera on Meeker instead of Longs Peak. In my many previous images from this location, I had never thought to concentrate on Mount Meeker’s impressive lines and ridges alone. Longs Peak was always to much of a distraction.
It was because of a busted sunrise and a set of small clouds rolling up the flanks of Meeker that allowed me to train my camera on the red headed stepchild of Longs Peak known as Mount Meeker.