While more often than not the wind will scuttle opportunities for photography by raking the surface of a smooth lake, shaking the leaves on a aspen tree or worse tipping over your camera and tripod. Wind also can create a few opportunities for photography as well. These opportunities come from the wind causing lenticular or wave clouds to form over the park.
I had just this opportunity occur last week over Horseshoe Park. Weather in Rocky Mountain National Park the past month has made photography difficult and challenging. Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park have seen their fair share of windy, cloudy and snowy days. Calm mornings with little in the way of wind and snow have been a rarity of late.
With the wind blowing at a pretty good clip out of the west and off the continental divide, a perfect wave cloud formed along the eastern edge of Rocky and extended east over the foothills. For photography wave clouds are great. The shape of the cloud is always different and because the tend to extend east from the foothills only a few dozen miles or so, the horizon often remains free of clouds allowing for sunrise to illuminate the underbelly of the lenticular cloud thus making for a brilliant and colorful sunrise.
It’s very rare to have a wave cloud form over Rocky Mountain National Park and not have it coincide with high winds in the park itself and this day was no different. It was quite breezy in the park but not to the point that makes standing in the open difficult. Finding a spot that was somewhat sheltered while giving me a good vantage point to the east would be ideal.
A short hike up Old Fall River road to one of the first switchbacks gives a nice view to the east looking back over Horseshoe Park towards Deer Mountain. This spot at the mouth of Hanging Valley would also offer some shelter from the wind. Frankly, I’m also not sure how possible it will be to access this location in the coming months. Because of the flooding damage, this location will likely be difficult to access once the spring runoff gains momentum as the Roaring Fork river has now run around the road bridge and nearby trail bridges have all been washed out. One will have to be somewhat creative to access this area once the water in the Roaring Fork river really starts moving to cross safely.
So with the wind blowing in my face, I hiked west along Old Fall River road until I reached the first switchback. The coloring of the sky to the east foretold of a spectacular sunrise yet to unfold. The wind was strong, but there was enough of a break between gusts to setup on the rocky outcrop overlooking Horseshoe Park. Within minutes the sky began its colorful procession towards sunrise. The wind continued while I photographed, but with a light show like this one unfolding before me it was easy to ignore the sways and gusts down the valley and instead revel in the sunrise.