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!