It may be mid April, trees are starting to leaf out, grasses are turning green and early season flowers like Pasque Flowers and Mountain Ball cactus are starting to flower. Even so, April is typically one of the best months to photograph wintry landscape scenes in Rocky Mountain National Park. After a very dry and practically snow-less winter and even drier and warmer spring, snow returned to Rocky Mountain National Park early this week with some more on the way tomorrow.
It’s a welcome sight to see snow return to Rocky after what has been a historically warm and dry winter. Snowpack levels are abysmal to date and the little amounts of snowmelt we have are melting at a more rapid pace than previous years due to a very mild and warm spring. At this point in the season, there is no chance we makeup for the moisture we didn’t receive over the winter but we can hope for a wet spring to triage what can only be described as a critically serious moisture deficit.
So with most of the lakes and streams thawed out about a month early this year in RMNP, and seasonal conditions that I would liken more to late May or early June in Rocky, it’s was great to have a heavy wet spring snow fall on the park on Tuesday and hopefully again tomorrow morning. For landscape photographers, the current oddity of having waterfalls, lakes and streams free of ice and snow so early in the season is bound to offer opportunities for photographers when the changing of the seasons inevitability clash.
Thats just what happened on Monday when I hiked up to Alberta Falls from the Storm Pass trailhead. I knew Glacier Creek and Alberta Falls would be free flowing and free of ice, so the snow covered waterfall combined with fresh snow made for a somewhat unique composition. While heavy wet snow fell on RMNP on Tuesday, Alberta Falls, Prospect Pond and the beautiful landscape along Glacier Creek offered endless unique compositions of flowing and open water and heavy wet spring snow all while helping to add moisture to our severely parched forests.
With another system incoming early tomorrow over Rocky Mountain National Park, lets hope we get some more of the heavy, wet snow that typifies spring time in Rocky. I’ll be out tomorrow morning just as this latest system runs into the park. It may not be snowing at sunrise tomorrow morning in Rocky Mountain National Park, but as long as it starts falling soon after we can all breath a slight sigh of relief.