Early Summer Summary

Ground fog rolls across the east end of Moraine Park on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday morning. It was a clear morning but the ground fog allowed me to get out and capture this image of Moraine Park with Deer Mountain in the background soaking up the early morning light. The start to summer in RMNP has been mostly clear and windy but here to hoping that will change soon. Regardless, you have to photograph with the hand your dealt and this worked out better than I originally hoped for. Technical Details: Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 S lens
Warm and windy is how the summer has started off so far in 2024 in Rocky Mountain National Park. After an active spring, summer has been pretty much summer like. It’s not been dry in the mountains as we have had rain showers many afternoons, but mornings and sunrises have tended to be mostly free of clouds but more importantly, very windy.

Rocky Mountain National Park is known as a windy location. Wind is something we deal with often in Rocky. The wind while a feature all year long, tends to abate or at least give photographers a few breaks here and there in the early mornings and late afternoon to take advantage of calm waters for reflections or long exposures on a group of wildflowers in a meadow or hillside.

Since about the middle of June this pattern has stuck and now it looks like we are going to trend towards much warmer weather at the end of this week. As of this writing, it appears that next week the weather will be more active again with instability and afternoon thunderstorms making a comeback to Rocky. Both the moisture and return of unstable weather will be welcome for photographers such as myself and anybody looking for some respite from the warmer weather at the end of this week.

Bad weather makes good photographs and as much as one might try, clear skies and breezy conditions are challenging no matter who is behind the viewfinder trying to create art and capture the beauty of Rocky Mountain National Park.

On Monday morning I headed into the park with mixed expectations. I had avoided the park over the 4th of July weekend as I had other commitments and frankly when RMNP is that busy, it’s a holiday and a weekend and the skies are clear, I’ll probably opt to sit out a sunrise or two. The skies were clear when I headed in and there was pretty much a 0% chance that there would be any cloud cover at sunrise.

While not all that recent, this image was shot in late June at Lake Irene on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. Simmilar morning as it was clear on the east side but socked in with fog on the west side of Rocky. Dramatic sunrises are great but again, photographing fog is harder to do in RMNP than one would think. Anytime I get the chance to photograph fog, I will. Technical Details: Nikon Z7 II, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 S lens
It had rained pretty hard the night before and as I drove over the causeway over Lake Estes, there were hints of fog coming from the surface of the lake. I figured I would check out Moraine Park to see if there any ground fog present along the Big Thompson as there often can be after a night of rain. With little chance of a colorful sunrise, I headed down into Moraine Park where there was a thin layer of ground fog collecting on the middle to east end of Moraine Park.

I parked at the Cub Lake trail head and hiked around the meadow along the South Lateral Moraine until I could find a comp that would work with the current conditions. As is typical with these kind of mornings the fog was rising and falling by the minute all the while slowly evaporating and moving farther to the east.

Shortly after sunrise, along the Big Thompson River, I was able to capture this image of the fog in Moraine Park with Deer Mountain catching the early morning light. Obviously not the most dramatic sunrise I’ve capture here but one I was pleased with considering the difficult conditions for photography in Rocky as of late. In Baseball terms, sometimes you have to hit a bunch of singles before a home run. This was one of those types of mornings.

Shaping Up To Be A Banner Year For RMNP!

It’s shaping up to be a banner year for wildflowers in Rocky Mountain National Park. After a very snowy winter and a wet spring, we are being rewarded with some awesome wildflower displays early in the season. Moraine Park looks amazing right now with Golden Banner growing all through the meadow as seen here during yesterdays sunrise. Now is a great time to get out and photograph RMNP. Technical Details: Nikon Z7, Nikkor 17-28mm F2.8 lens

Sure I’ll be a little cliche here and say it. It’s a banner year for Golden Banner in Rocky Mountain National Park. These beautiful yellow wildflowers that grow in clumps and appear in the early part of the spring through mid summer depending on your elevation and now budding up all over Rocky’s middle elevations.

While the arrival of wildflowers in Colorado and RMNP is always a welcome sign that summer and warmer weather is approaching, this years bloom on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park has been the best that I have witnessed in my 26 years photographing the park.

Right now, Moraine Park, Horseshoe Park, along with the hillsides of Upper Beaver Meadow have beautiful patches of Golden Banner proliferating in a manner I have not witnessed. It’s a photographers delight as one can take their pick of vantage points and work in the beautiful yellow wildflowers.

To date, the best area right now is Moraine Park. Huge groups of Golden Banner can be found just about anywhere in the lush green meadows. Rocky’s snowy winter and wet spring are really paying dividends for us photographers as the weather is now quickly warming.

While Moraine Park looks great for landscapes, its also teeming with wildlife right now as the elk take advantage of the greening grasses. While photogrpahing sunrise, this group of elk watched me with curiosity as I setup in front of this huge clump of Golden Banner growing in the meadow. Technical Details: Nikon Z8, Nikkor 500mm F5.6 PF lens
While the Golden Banner are the main attractions, lots of other wildflowers are revealing themselves in the same areas. Wild Iris, often growing in or near the patches of Golden Banner look great on the east side of the park as do a handful of other wildflowers such as White Evening Primrose and Marsh Marigolds. Calypso Orchids should be out now as well though I have not seen or photographed any as of yet.

These are the early season wildflowers in Rocky Mountain National Park but we should start to see the summer blooms gaining traction over the next few weeks as the remaining snow melts and the days continue to be long and warm. Columbine, Paintbrush and Alpine Sunflowers will all be covering the hillsides shortly.

This is my favorite time of year. Summer is short in Rocky and it’s fleeting nature and beauty or both exhilarating to explore and photograph each year but also a little solemn knowing that it will be short lived and one can only be present for so many sunrise and or sunsets in the park before the weather begins to turn cooler.

So now is the time to get out in RMNP and explore, enjoy summers warm embrace and all the rebirth and beauty that comes with it. Don’t waste a minute but make sure to enjoy every aspect of this awesome time of year before looking back and wondering where all the time went. Hope to see you out enjoying and photographing my favorite time in the park.

Rolling Over To The West Side Of Rocky

With Trail Ridge Road open for the season again, I’m going to end up spending a decent amount of time photographing on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. This morning, I headed over to the Kawuneeche Valley to photography this locations. It’s only a few weeks before the water recedes and the grasses grow so high as to block out the reflection of Baker Mountain so this morning seemed like as good a morning as any to photograph this location. Technical Details: Nikon Z7II, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 S lens

Once Trail Ride Road opens for the season, it feels like you get access to an entirely new national park. The west side of Rocky Mountain National Park feels a lot different than the east side. It’s significantly colder, wetter and to me at least always feels a little more primal than the east side. Wildlife abounds, lakes, streams and forest are teeming on this side of the park.

While I try to visit and photograph a variety of locations in Rocky, year after year one will often find themselves in the same or similar locations. Often, many of these locations are best photographed at certain times of year and thus, you tend to take advantage of the conditions and end up in certain areas more often than not.

This location in the Kawuneeche Valley is just one of those locations. With the Colorado River overflowing with snowmelt, this meadow floods and this small pond acts as a perfect spot to photograph Baker Mountain reflecting above the valley. This spot also almost always has a handful or more of Moose milling around. A month from now, much of this water will have receded and the grasses grown so high that a reflection is no longer possible or mostly obscured.

So it has become a tradition of sorts to spend more than a few mornings in the Kawuneeche Valley on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park photographing the overflowing Colorado River before it quickly recedes. It’s also a nice break from the east side of the park where I easily spend 70% of my time, especially during the winter months once Trail Ridge closes for the seasons.

After photographing the Kawuneeche Valley, I headed into Grand Lake to see whats going on in town this season. I was walking along the beach and wandered over to the town dock where I took this photo of the sun hitting the dock and lighting the lime green aspen trees in the background that had just leafed out. Baldly looking as regal as ever in the background with a mostly calm Grand Lake looking as beautiful as ever. Technical Details: Nikon Z7II, Nikkor 24-120mm F4 S lens

After hanging out on the west side, I took a ride into Grand Lake just to see how things look. Grand Lake is my favorite town in all of Colorado, and spending a little time along the shore drinking a coffee on a cool morning is one of life’s joys. Just as I arrived at the beach, the sun rose above the ridge and over the North Inlet and illuminated the town dock. The aspens in background have just leafed out and are a brilliant green, especially when side lit like this morning.

So I’ll be spending a decent amount of time the next few weeks exploring and photographing the west side of RMNP. Of course this time of year I alway joke that I wish I could be in about ten locations at any given time and more often than not I’m going to try to be where I think the best light is. Hopefully, a few mornings that light is over on the west side!.

First Run Over Trail Ridge Road

I finally was able to make my first run of the seaons over Trail Ridge Road yesterday. As always, it never dissapoints. While it was both windy, cold and snow, I was able to capture some drop under light hitting Specimen Mountain and the Never Summers Range at sunrise from Medicine Bow Curve. The Poudre River below while flowing well, still has lots more snow to melt. Technical Details: Nikon Z7II-Nikkor 24-120mm F4 S lens

It’s that time of year already in Rocky Mountain National Park. Trail Ridge Road finally opened for the season on the afternoon of May 31st. One of the later opening dates from my recollection in recent memory. With Trail Ridge Road finally open for the season (The Alpine Visitor Center and Store are still closed as of this writing), it’s unofficially the start to the summer season in RMNP which means access and opportunities for photography greatly improve.

When Trail Ridge reopens for the season its like seeing an old friend after a long absence. Over the course of the long, snowy, windy and cold winter the landscape, mountains and wildlife that live in these high alpine zones continue on with very little human interaction. But with the opening of Trail Ridge Road, its like a window or door to the park has been opened, welcoming visitors to Rocky Mountain National park with open arms and the feeling or renewal or rebirth.

While there is still a lot of snow to be found in both the high country of Rocky Mountain National Park and pretty much any location over 10,000 ft after what was a healthy winter of snow and precipitation, this harsh and unforgiving environment will move quickly now to melt away the snow, turn the alpine tundra from brown to a vibrant green and cover the ridges with wildflowers of all varieties. In as little as a month or so from now, most of the snow will be gone, the grasses green, the alpine tarns unthawed and free of ice and snow and alpine sunflowers will be budding up on the tundra.

I’ve been busy photographing many of the lime green aspen trees that just look beautiful right now between 9000 and 9500 ft. There is a short window with the aspens before they turn a darker green so I’ve been taking advantage of this short window which has prevented me for heading up and over Trail Ridge Road since in opened for the season.

Yesterday was my first of what will be many runs up and over Trail Ridge Road until it’s closed for the season sometime in late September or October or in the even of a really warm and dry fall possibly November.

In typically Trail Ridge and Rocky Mountain National Park fashion, the early season weather over Trail Ridge did not disappoint. The wind was howling at 25-30 mph, rain and snow were falling periodically and lots of low hanging clouds hugged the hillsides and mountaintops. ‘What could be more perfect than this?’ I thought as I headed over Milner Pass with the idea of heading down the Kawuneeche Valley or possibly even up the East Inlet.

Rain and snow altered my plans and I looked for a location where I might get some drop under light and sun once the sunrise occurred around 5:30 AM. I settled on Medicine Bow Curve as waited in the cold and spitting snow as Specimen Mountain and the Never Summer Range were covered in both dappled sunlight and snow showers at daybreak. The headwaters of the Poudre River below me still covered with lots of snow and the tundra brown from a long winter still had the making of a landscape that couldn’t be more representative of the high country of Rocky Mountain National Park in late spring.

While it was cold, windy and snowy, as I triggered the shutter on my camera, I couldn’t feel more excited and thankful for it to be the summer season, one that always starts with great excitement, anticipation and hope for a few months of great adventures, experiences and photography.