Tag: Rocky Mountain National Park

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.

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.