It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for photography in Rocky Mountain National Park. After a record warm and dry winter season, wildfire season has arrived in Colorado and across the Intermountain west. With multiple large wildfires burning in both Colorado and Utah, wildfire smoke across the Front Range of Colorado had been a heavy presence the past few weeks.
The wildfire smoke was thick enough that it was often difficult to see the mountains from the Denver metro area. Depending on the day, there were times in Rocky Mountain National Park where it was difficult to see more than just outlines of iconic peaks such as Longs or Hallett’s from even a few miles away. For the most part, the wildfire smoke that enveloped Rocky Mountain National Park turned the landscape flat, dull, and a grayish green that made it almost appear lifeless. Obviously for landscape photographers, shooting in these conditions is near impossible with a few exceptions.
Because the smoke wasn’t going anywhere at the onset of wildfire season, one can attempt to make due with the conditions and have them work for them. That can be difficult as some days the smoke was just to thick to make almost anything work other than waterfalls and features. A few mornings however, the opacity of the smoke, combined with some clouds in the sky allow for fairly colorful and moody images of the backlit mountain ridges.
Blue smoke fills the shaded valley between the mountains and ridges and warm pastels fill the sky where the sunrise occurred east of Rocky. While i prefer smoke free skies anytime, one can make some unique photographs and embrace the unique colors and composition that all these particulates in the air cause.
After what felt like nearly a good two weeks of smoke filled skies over RMNP, we finally caught a break by Wednesday of this week when the wind pattern shifted and the smoke was mostly cleared from the skies, at least temporarily. Finally, one could actually see for miles and miles and those iconic Rocky Mountain National Park peaks and summits became visible again. Even better, we had some nice mornings with beautiful clouds overhead to add color and depth to the landscape.
It seems as almost every year we lose a week or two to wildfire smoke in the park. Some years its less and some years its more. July is one of the best months in Rocky for photography. Wildflowers abound, the alpine tundra is green, stream are flowing but are not roaring torrents and there is still some snow on the peaks. It would have to be a toss up for me between July and September as to which is my favorite month to photograph RMNP but I would lean towards July.
One thing I’ve learned photographing Rocky for the past 28 years, is summer is way shorter than one assumes in Rocky Mountain National Park. The alpine beauty, green grasses, waterfalls and wildflowers quickly dry out, turn burn and start moving towards Autumn at the high elevations in what seems like a flash. So losing any days to wildfire smoke hurts.
At least for now it appears the wildfire smoke should remain outside of the park. Of course there is always the threat of new wildfires so one cant take for granted any of the clear conditions we get over the next month. My advice for photographers is to bring their A game and get out as much as they can because you never know when mother nature is going to decide to bring the smoke again.