A Morning In Grand Lake

I headed over to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday morning. With fog over Grand Lake, I was off to Point Park for sunrise. While fog obscured sunrise, this image of these red Adirondack Chairs along a private dock in town set the autumn mood just perfect. With fog over Grand Lake and the fall color in town at peak, it was a picture perfect Colorado morning. Technical Details: Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor 100-400mm F4-5.6 S VR Lens

Howdy all!. Trying to keep the blog posts going this time is always a challenge. It’s not a challenge due to lack of material, its quite the opposite. With Autumn here in Rocky Mountain National Park and fall color season here, I’ve been very busy nearly everyday out in Rocky photographing, hiking and trying to keep up to date on where in RMNP things are looking their best.

The fall colors on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Kawuneeche Valley look amazing right now. This group of aspens right near the west enterance to Rocky is looking perfect right now. Technical Details: Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor 100-400mm F4-5.6 S VR lens

As of today, Rocky Mountain National Park is quickly rounding into shape and many locations are getting close to peak color. The west side of Rocky Mountain National Park is looking great right now and the area right around the town of Grand Lake is nearing peak fall color. The elk rut is is full swing as well so there is a ton to photograph right in Rocky.

After snow closed Trail Ridge Road down on a few occasions the past week, the road reopened on Wednesday afternoon. This time of year you dont know how many more trips you are going to be able to make over Trail Ridge Road and to the west side of Rocky. If Fall is mild and dry you may be able to drive Trail Ridge until the end of October, or even the first few days of November. One good autumn storm with a significant dump of snow and in the blink of an eye, no more Trail Ridge Road until next May.

So with that in mind, I headed over to Grand Lake yesterday to see how things looked on the west side of RMNP. The forecast showed a better chance of some cloud cover on the west side and frankly, the east side of the park is very busy this time of year.

The next best thing to fall color is fog. On my way back up the hill and over to the east side of Rocky, fog had moved in along the slopes of Jackstraw Mountain. Sifting through the pines, the fog made for a moody scene on Rocky’s west side. Technical Details: Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor 100-400mm F4-5.6 S VR Lens

I drove over Trail Ridge long before sunrise. I was surprised to find lots of snow still covering the ground near and around the Alpine Visitor Center. Just the day prior, I had photographed some amazing fall color around Forest Canyon Pass which now was covered in a few inches of snow. It was still clear when I got down into the Kawuneeche Valley but I could see low lying fog over Grand Lake. You can never lose when there is fog around so off to Point Park in Grand Lake to see how sunrise would break.

There was a pretty good frost that had formed and it was a chilly autumn morning along Grand Lake. Fog hung over Shadow Mountain as mist rose from the still mild waters of Grand Lake. The fog moved in thicker just as the sun rose, but I found a perfect fall composition with these two red Adirondack chairs jutting out into the still waters of the lake with beautiful aspen trees at peak on the flanks of Shadow Mountain. Overall and amazing morning and I’m hoping with have many more as fall really rounds into form now.