Fern Creek, The Little Matterhorn and Notchtop Mountain

After my severely botched attempt last week to shoot Fern Creek and The Little Matterhorn, I returned to Rocky Mountain National Park again the following morning to make a second attempt. The legs were a bit sore, but this time I made sure I followed the correct trail past Fern Lake and up to the Odessa Lake area. I’ve photographed this area many times before but I have yet to come away with an image that really captures the essence of this area. All of Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful for varying reasons. The Odessa Lake area is certainly one of the more dramatic and stunning areas of the park. Odessa Lake rests below Lake Helene and above Fern Lake in a stunning alpine valley. The hike takes you up past Fern Lake, then you follow Fern creek to the outlet of Odessa Lake. Not surprisingly, most of Fern Creek is still buried under snow. More surprisingly was sharing the shoreline with four other photographers. Odessa Lake takes some work to get to, so one typically only finds the campers who were lucky enough to secure a back country pass for the campground. I did not get a repeat performance of the dramatic sunrise I managed to miss the day before, but nonetheless it was another spectacular morning in Rocky Mountain, and I’ll be sure to return again to capture that illusive image.