With the warm temperatures and early spring continuing, there are lots of current photographic opportunities in Rocky Mountain National Park that are occurring much earlier in the year than is typical. I realize this abstract of Glacier Creek just Loch Vale may be a bit too abstract for some, but I spent a good deal of time photographing this portion of Glacier Creek a few weeks ago and came away with some different views.

Typically, this portion of Glacier Creek would be buried under heavy winter snows through most of April. Stopping to photograph this spot a few weeks ago, the green moss on the rocks of the creek bed stood out in great contrast to the white winter snow that surrounded the small opening that had formed on Glacier Creek revealing the early spring runoff.

I setup my tripod precariously along the banks of Glacier Creek. It was difficult to setup in a location that provided a clean vantage point of the opening on the creek, while not sliding down a large bank and ending up in the creek itself. I attached a polarizer to my 70-200mm lens to cut down on the glare and emphasize the green moss on the rock, contrasted against the white snow. All in all it was an image I had not visualized photographing on my hike up to The Loch for sunrise, but I’m quite pleased with the images I walked away with this morning.

Take this weekends leap of faith venture up to The Loch in Rocky Mountain National Park. Colorado’s abnormally warm, dry Spring weather pattern has remained the norm. I was hoping there would be some open water to photograph when I arrived at my destination but I had no way of knowing until I had put 3 snow packed miles behind me. I had not hiked up to The Loch since August, so I could only take a guess with the amount of open water at Dream Lake, there might be some at The Loch.

Hiking up the crusty snow packed trail from the Glacier Gorge parking kept me on my toes. Typically in the Winter and early Spring months you hike up a frozen Glacier Creek to get up to the Loch Vale area. This spring morning was no different and hiking up a still mostly frozen Glacier Creek was still possible. Other than the annoyance of an occasional slip on the ice, or a leg post holing in soft snow it was an enjoyable hike up to The Loch.

Trolling around the near shore of The Loch revealed lots of snowpack and no signs of open water. There were some high cirrus clouds and little wind, so overall conditions were great. I was finally able to find a small area of open water. Quickly setting up my camera and tripod revealed that I was going to have a hard time photographing the Cathedral Wall reflecting in the Loch.

My camera had to be a few inches from the surface of The Loch in order to capture a full reflection of Mt. Taylor and the Cathedral Wall without the icy mass on the surface of the lake hindering the view. Because of the three mile hike up to the lake, I brought my lightweight tripod with a center column, not my heavier tripod without a center column. For the layperson, the center column hinders one from extending their tripod legs outward in such a fashion that you can set it up level with the ground.

My only hope for getting the reflection in the shot was to ditch the tripod and setup my camera on the exposed granite along the shoreline. One of the rocks was flat enough to allow me to rest my camera setup on top of it in a somewhat stable fashion. The problem was I needed to level my camera so that the scene before me was level.

I was surrounded by only snow. I could find no small rocks or other items to help prop and level my camera. Luckily, there was a small stick submerged in the lake along the shoreline. Reaching into the icy cold lake, I retrieved the stick and used it to prop and level the left side of my camera. Combining that with the use of rise on 24mm TS-E lens I was able to stabilize and level the camera so that I could photograph the reflection. I’m not the first to rig up my camera to get the shot, but I was not leaving The Loch without capturing this beautiful spring scene. Anybody else out there have any good tales on unique circumstances when out photographing?.

I can only suspect my good fortune this morning can be attributed to the luck of the Irish. How else can I explain what appeared to be a completely cloudless and breezy morning transforming into a beautiful and epic sunrise?. Even more surprising was the fact that the wind instead of intensifying at Dream Lake at sunrise as is typical, actually subsided. All of those lucky breaks are not enough to explain the unusually mild and warm weather we’ve been having that has thawed the eastern outlet of Dream Lake and allowed just enough open water to squeeze in Hallet and Flattop mountain reflecting on the lake’s surface. I’ll just have to be content with this spectacular St. Patrick’s day morning knowing I stumbled upon my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I’m certainly blessed living so close to these beautiful area’s which give me plenty of content to update my blog and photography portfolio. A quick thanks to all of you who follow the blog, and especially those who comment on the blog. I appreciate all of you taking the time to follow and contribute to the blog and I’ll do my best to post and update the blog as often as I can.

On another note, it’s certainly starting to feel like spring around here on the Front Range of Colorado. We’ve had a spate of nice weather with temperatures in the 60’s the last week. The persistent and seemingly never ending winds that we have been having all winter have also subsided somewhat. Nice weather does not typically translate into dynamic photography however. Regardless, it was looked like to nice of a day not to check out the conditions around Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday.

I was not expecting much in the way of clouds on Saturday morning when I headed up to Rocky. The IR satellite imagery did not have a cloud with 400 miles of Rocky Mountain National Park the night before. A hike up to Dream Lake to see if any of the lake’s outlet had thawed and what the condition of the ice was seemed like a semi-productive way to spend a cloudless morning in Rocky. To my surprise, portions of the east outlet of Dream Lake had some open water, but also to my surprise, there was still plenty of clean ice on Dream Lake to photograph.

In full disclosure, the Ice on the Dream Lake has been photographed many times by other photographers and has become as much of an iconic image of Dream Lake as the view from the east outlet of Dream Lake has become during the warmer months. In fact, until Saturday, I had intentionally avoided photographing the ice because it has been done so often and so well by other photographers. After shooting a cloudless sunrise at Dream Lake on a warm and windless morning, I could not avoid the temptation to photograph the ice I was standing on. I’d be happy to share a few quick tips on how and when to photograph the ice on Dream Lake.

It should go without saying, but wandering onto the surface of a frozen alpine lake in Winter can be a very dangerous and potentially deadly activity. Always check the conditions of the ice before walking out onto the lake. If possible have another person with you as a spotter and somebody who can assist and help in the event you fall through the ice. Backcountry winter protocol should be followed when hiking to Dream Lake this time of year.

Typically the best time of year to photograph Dream Lake are the months of January and February. Intuitively, it would seem that the lake’s surface would be buried under 6 ft of snow that time of year, but in fact the high winds that scrape the surface of the lake help to keep much of the surface of the ice free of snow. Furthermore, some of the cleanest and flattest ice will be located on leeward side of the boulders found at Dream Lake. Secondly, you wont require a macro lens to photograph the ice but it may be helpful. Focal lengths from wide angles to telephoto’s can all help at capturing the patterns in the ice. I find that I often am using a focal length of around 100-105mm to isolate patterns on the ice. Lastly, the best time of day to photograph the ice is the period after sunrise but prior to the sun hitting the surface of the lake. The diffused Colorado cobalt blue sky reflecting in the surface of the shaded lake that causes the ice to take on a deep blue hue. Once the Sun is high enough in the sky to illuminate the surface of the lake you will lose that affect and the lighting will become to harsh.

I was expecting there to be some fresh snow on Saturday morning as I drove up to Rocky early in the morning. As I headed through Pinewood Springs, I encountered a light dusting of snow on the roads as well as coating the trees. Things were looking favorable for some nice winter conditions, with one exception. The sky was clear and the stars where bright and shining in the calico sky. When I left Erie, there was fog and clouds, but by the time I gained some elevation west of Pinewood Springs, the clouds and fogged cleared.

Dropping down into the Estes Valley all looked clear. Longs Peak was cloud free as was the Mummy Range. Entering Rocky Mountain National Park and heading over Bear Lake road through Moraine Park, I saw what looked like a hint of clouds over Hallet Peak and Otis Peak. Just enough of the cloud cover from the previous nights storm wrapped over Hallet Peak and the Glacier Gorge area. The wind was picking up so I opted not to head up to Dream Lake to be blown across it’s icy surface and toyed with by the wind. Instead I hightailed it over to the Bierstadt Lake trail, slapped on my Yak Trax and hiked up to the top of the Bierstadt Moraine for the view of Otis and Hallet Peak. The first rays of the morning illuminated Hallet and Otis in a beautiful pink hue. Wind’s wrapped the clouds over and around Hallet and Otis making the trek to the top of Moraine the place to be to view the show.

Many times it seems like you are either dealing with clear blue skies at sunrise in Rocky, or beautiful lenticular wave clouds combined with constant 60 mph winds. This particular morning in Rocky Mountain was neither. It was a manageable 16 degrees with almost no wind. Even better, there were lots of clouds swirling over the peaks. So many clouds, that many of the prominent peaks such as Longs Peak, Mt. Meeker and Hallet Peak were engulfed by the clouds. The Twin Sister’s however, were still in view.

Below Estes Park, Ft. Collings, Loveland and Boulder were experiencing snow and single digit temperatures. The upslope storm created enough of an inversion this morning that it was not snowing in Estes Park and it was in fact warmer in Estes Park, then the Front Range towns at lower elevations. Cold foggy air filtered up through the Estes Valley as sunrise rose up out of the fog and snow below creating a short but colorful sunrise over the Twin Sisters formation.