Aspen Sunset Over Bear Lake
Aspen leaves and fourteen thousand foot Longs Peak dominate the scene in this commanding view captured above Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

Sure, I had a great plan on the location and a lot of patience in waiting close to a year to go… but the weather’s always a big roll of the dice. And with my standards high on peaking aspen leaves, glowing clouds, and calm winds for a cool reflection, the odds were stacked against me. In fact it’s so rare to get everything to line up just right (for me, anyways), that I couldn’t really believe it was happening until I saw it on my camera’s lcd screen. This was easily one of the best views I’d ever seen in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The aspen leaves looked awesome, we still had view of a bit of new snow that remained on the north face of Longs and other peaks, relatively calm winds allowed some color to reflect off of Bear Lake, and best of all, clouds came out of hiding to line up just right for the last light of the day…. Sure, I had to wait close to a year for the leaves to show their color, but it definitely helped that luck was on my side. When the beautiful last light appeared, it was clear that the 7 other photographers that had hiked to this unmarked spot sure seemed to appreciate it as well!!

By the way, if you like this image, it’s available for sale as a print in my online store. Please take a look at this print and the rest of my store at Colorado Captures Print Store – Aspen Sunset Over Bear Lake.

Sunflowers Forever Print – Colorado Captures Online Store
We had a stunning location for sure, but even better, Mother Nature chimed in with calm winds and some really pretty rays of light. Even with the beautiful conditions, I blended two exposures in photoshop to get this final composition. This image was taken near Denver International Airport in Colorado.

Having searched for the beautiful fields of sunflowers before and not being so successful, I was happy to have some friends show me the way. And sure enough, they led me to an area that had some endless fields of sunflowers. It was just as stunning as I’d hoped. And with calm winds, I finally had a chance to shoot the sunflowers when they weren’t dancing around like crazy! And then, the sun ducked behind the clouds to create the best sight of the evening. The sunbeams showed through to create a light that I knew was worth all the effort in the repeated attempts and then some. Thank you Terri & Arina!

By the way, if you like this image, it’s available for sale as a print in my recently expanded online store. Please take a look at it and the rest of my store at Colorado Captures Print Store – Sunflowers Forever.

Shoshoni Peak Sunrise
This image was captured from the summit of Shoshoni Peak in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado. I used both of my GND filters, but I still couldn’t capture the wide dynamic range of a sunrise. So in the end, I did some gentle HDR processing as well. With our timing, we got a bit lucky with a layer of low clouds over the eastern plains – adding even more to the beauty. And while we couldn’t capture it with wide angle lenses, later on we saw three little hot air balloons floating above the clouds somewhere north of Boulder. Very cool!

I’m sure glad I had friends, Wayne, Craig, and Greg join me on this trip because that ridge between the top of Pawnee Pass and Shoshoni Peak was a challenge on its own. I knew that route had no trail, but much of the way was riddled with big giant boulders. In fact, with 2 peaks to go before Shoshoni and all the boulders in the way, I considered not continuing on to the peak.

But then, two things happened. The cold started to chill me to the bone. And with enough time to go for it, I saw Wayne making his way to the peak. Figuring I had to move to stay warm anyway, I pulled energy out of somewhere and made my way to Shoshoni Peak as fast as I possibly could. Close to the peak, I pretty much ran past a Ptarmigan (the first I’d ever seen up close). He was posing in front of the sunrise glow and squalking really loud. It seemed he knew I couldn’t stop and take his picture. I raced on up to the peak just before sunrise. And with that, I got the prize for beating mother nature’s first light to the peak. Good thing I wasn’t racing Wayne!!

In the end, we climbed around 2,400 vertical feet over 10.5 miles.

Apache Moon
One nice thing about hiking to an incredible spot at just the right time is that sometimes I get a great view behind me too!

Apache Peak and Isabelle Glacier appear together with a full moon and pink glowing clouds in this amazingly colorful scene taken just before sunrise. I really liked how the lighting changed so quickly with each passing moment. These images were taken with GND filters from the summit of Shoshoni Peak (elevation 12,967 feet) after a night-time hike in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado.

Blind Date With Dorothy
This image was taken from a downstream extension of Lake Dorothy (elevation 12,100 feet). Using GND filters, I was able to capture first light on Mount Neva in the Indian Peaks Wilderness west of Nederland, Colorado.

Ready for a new place to hike, I decided to give an unexplored part of the Indian Peaks Wilderness a try. Arapaho Pass has long been a temptation of mine as it crosses over the Continental Divide via a hiking trail. I’ve crossed lots of high-mountain passes in a vehicle, but I couldn’t think of any I’d crossed on foot – until now. Besides, Lake Dorothy (the highest named lake in the Indian Peaks) sits perched right next to the divide at 12,100 feet – making it even more tempting.

So early Saturday morning (2:30 am), I started hiking from the Fourth Of July trailhead past the Fourth Of July Mine and on up the gulch under the cover of darkness. At about 11,000 feet, I passed timberline where the flowers seemed to get smaller and a breeze prompted me to whip out a jacket. Near the top of Arapaho Pass, I turned west onto Caribou Pass toward Lake Dorothy as the stars began to fade and sunrise grew closer.

In a way, the experience reminded me of a blind date in that I wasn’t able to see Dorothy for myself before having fully committed. Heck, I hiked in the dark so I could get my first look at her beauty under the first light with my own eyes. Now, if that’s not commitment… Looking back, I’m sure glad I went for it, ’cause Dorothy put on her best dress for the occasion!

Helene’s Mirror
I hiked back up to Lake Helene for sunrise found a really pretty scene with lots more snow than I saw last September. One factor that worked in my favor was the breeze that welcomed me to Lake Helene all but disappeared at sunrise giving me a reflection that mirrored the snowy mountainous scene above. I really liked how the shadows from the tree tops seemed to reach up the snowy wall on the other side of the lake right up into the warm alpenglow.

Like others had reported, there was still lots of snow (and a high lake level) which made navigation and good foregrounds a challenge. Of course, the big elk had an easy time walking around in the shallow water along the shoreline. I didn’t bring my telephoto lens for the hike up so I can only show him as a little elk speck on the other side. Oh well, it was an incredibly peaceful little trek with calm winds and just me, Helene, and a big elk to enjoy it!

This image was taken with GND filters at sunrise from Lake Helene after a dark (3 mile) hike up from the Bear Lake trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, near Estes Park, Colorado.

Alpine Reflection
I couldn’t resist capturing this view north before leaving Lake Helene – what with the gorgeous glassy reflection and mountainous backcountry terrain. Little Matterhorn appears even better than I’d hoped, so I’m really glad I caught it before heading out.

This image was taken with GND filters just after sunrise from Lake Helene – after a hike up from the Bear Lake trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. On the post-processing side, I used Silver Efex Pro to help bring out all the b/w tones. Sure, the original had plenty of color… but this approach caught my eye like nobody’s business!

Crested Butte In Bloom

As this area was one of the reasons for my return to the Butte, it sure was great to see everything come together. Cloudless western skies with a few clouds floating over Mount Crested Butte was just perfect. It sure made up for the dud of a sunset the night before anyway… And with Lupines looking gorgeous (and relatively light winds), the scene was incredible!

This image was taken with the last light of the day hitting Mount Crested Butte from Washington Gulch near the town of Crested Butte, Colorado.

Having been to Crested Butte for a wildflower festival before, I learned that the flowers look their best for a relatively short period of time. In general though, they peak in the lower valleys first and then work their way up to the alpine tundra above timberline – making the season feel a little longer. So in early July, I headed back to see if the lower valleys were really filled with wildflowers… besides, Crested Butte is the wildflower capital, isn’t it?

In some areas, it was still clearly early. But in others, I could tell my timing was perfect. Columbine and Lupine looked perfectly healthy with more of them than I’d ever seen. And with knowledge of a few key locations and some patience, I scored some great conditions in Washington Gulch. The combination of purple Lupines and warm alpenglow on Mount Crested Butte with glowing clouds above felt like ideal components for a painting, a picture, or even a mental image. Either way, it was sure a wonderful scene!

And to make it even better, I was on a quest to make the most of my gradient neutral density filters. And let me tell you, they rocked!! I never would have been able to get results like this (with flowers in the foreground that sharp) with HDR processing. And to me, the color looks really natural straight-out-of-the-camera. So far, I’m really liking this filtered approach. I hope you like the results as well.

Wildflower Watercolor
I picked up a cool post-processing tool called Topaz Simplify a while back. I hadn’t used it yet because I was waiting for just the right image to come along. Well, with the incredible conditions and wonderful colors that came out of a recent sunset in Crested Butte, I thought this might be a good chance to give it a whirl…

Sure enough, I was very impressed!

By the way, no HDR here. I was able to balance out the exposure by using both of my gradient neutral density filters. This image was taken with the last light of the day hitting Mount Crested Butte from Washington Gulch near the town of Crested Butte, Colorado.

Electric Purple Crayons

I’d been looking for my chance to capture some really cool lightning and this night of storm chasing on the eastern plains finally paid off. I didn’t just find lightning, I found crazy lightning! And I was really impressed with how much purple came straight out of the camera. This big cell was moving east into Nebraska (away from me) as I got this 30 second long exposure from a little farm near Holyoke, Colorado.

Knowing I had some interest in storm chasing, I joined my buddies at ChaserCon a while ago which is a convention of trained storm chasers – some seen on the Discovery Channel. I got some weather spotter training that really opened my eyes to the activity we often see in the summer months on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. And I’m sure glad I spent the time getting trained because it really helps to know how to do it safely.

Shortly after the training, I lined up my smartphone with some good weather applications that really helped to identify where the storms were most intense and to give a clue as to what they might do next. Of course, the predicting part is the real challenge. Even still, applications that show radar and lightning strikes in real-time (or close to it) were very helpful.

I also picked up something called a lightning trigger that uses a light sensor to detect a flash of light. It then tells the camera to fire a shot. I thought it would be helpful, but in this case, there was such an incredible quantity of lightning flashes coming from this giant cell, it really wasn’t needed.

In the end, I found an approach to shooting the lightning where I stayed away from the leading edge of a storm and all the intense parts like the hail and extreme wind. Instead, I found myself following a cell. As a result, life was much more peaceful. Instead of ending my photo session with nearby lightning strikes, wind, and hail, I just drove up behind it until it looked good and then shot this image while it slowly move farther away. I was thrilled to be able to get such a cool shot of all the lightning, but I really liked that I wasn’t setting myself up to get lit up too!

Mountain Cabin With A View

Stars rotate around the north star in this long-exposure taken from high up on a trail in the Rocky Mountains. The thin sliver of a moon provided just the right amount of light to illuminate the snow-capped peaks without drowning out the stars. And with a little light painting, the cabin appears to provide an old-west style foreground.

With sunset at 8, I got to the trailhead and started snowshoeing up at about 9 under a thin moon (19% full) in the western skies. And with 2 miles to go and only a couple hours of moonlight to work with, I knew I didn’t have much time to waste. I figured I’d only get one shot at a star trail stacking effort because when the moon went down, my show was over. So after shoeing up to the cabin remains, I decided on a composition and started my timer with 15 – 3 minute exposures.

When the 15 exposures were done, I’d lost my moonlight on the cabin and would soon lose it on the peaks. So I shot a couple more times just to try light painting the cabin with a flashlight. This was my first effort light painting that I actually liked and I think it’s subtle use really helped to balance out the exposure overall.

In the end, I was pretty happy with my having captured good light on the foreground, peaks, and stars!

Feeding The Passion

Gradually, I’ve been shooting with a thinner moon each time out with this night’s moon being just 21% full – the thinnest I’ve gone after so far.

In the end, I still find it amazing how the long exposures pick up so much light. The mountains appeared great and the light pollution from Denver (50 some miles away) added a significant sunrise-like glow. And up top, the stars appear in force. All this and 14,000 foot Torreys Peak and other mountains dominating the scene… This image was shot after a cold, super windy snowshoe trek to a peak called Cupid (elevation 13,117 feet) above Loveland Pass, Colorado.

A year ago, I didn’t really consider the moon as a good thing when shooting stars. I figured moonlight would make most of the stars disappear. But then, I wasn’t really taking advantage of the mountains because they weren’t getting enough light to even appear in my pictures – they were just silhouettes. After reading a night photography book over the summer, I changed my strategy and figured a partial moon might help illuminate the peaks without losing the stars.

So with that technique in mind, I started looking for great places to go. I was looking for a fantastic mountainous foreground that would really speak Colorado and Rocky Mountains in a starry night shot. So I came up with a crazy idea to hike up to a peak above Loveland Pass. I’d explored at night on Loveland Pass numerous times but hadn’t ventured very far because it’s so exposed above timberline. So with friends willing to join, I made plans for a night-time snowshoe trek to a peak named Cupid (elevation 13,117 feet). I figured any starry picture that had fourteen thousand foot peaks and a big giant cornice in the foreground had some serious potential for looking cool.

Little did I know that the wind above Loveland Pass rips at a fierce 60+mph in winter!! In fact, I’ll admit that dealing with the bitter cold wind was the biggest challenge. In what felt like a pretty severe environment, I was sure glad I’d brought friends!

And while it was a challenge, I found it to be such a thrill that I actually did this same trek twice. I shot the picture above in March and then returned, under identical lunar conditions a month later to shoot two images below. In the end, both treks are now stamped in my memory forever as having big challenge and reward.

Colors Of A Colorado Overnight
Denver’s city lights may be some 50 miles away, but they shine strong as can be in the dark of the night. And from this vantage point, the light pollution took on some gorgeous colors against the star-filled night sky. This 15 second exposure was taken at the top of a peak named Cupid (13,117 feet) after a hike from Loveland Pass, Colorado.

Cupid’s Celestial View
I’m really glad I got this last shot looking down valley at the ski areas of Summit County. In fact, this was one of the reasons I decided to return to the spot high up on the Continental Divide. I’d come to Cupid under a quarter moon in March and hoped to get one more opportunity with another quarter moon in April before the alpine snow started to melt.

I really wanted to capture a wintry scene with the rugged peaks and cornice on the left transitioning over the Continental Divide to the ski resorts of Summit County on the right – of course, with a starry night sky up top. Besides that, the left side faces east toward Denver meaning we’d see some glow from Denver’s city lights some 50 miles away. I think that little bit of extra glow on the horizon (left side) makes the scene even more unique.

Big thanks to Zach Dischner, Pierce Martin, and Wayne Boland for joining me!

Wintry Logs At Lake Odessa
Lazy logs settle in for a cold winter at the downstream end of Lake Odessa in Rocky Mountain National Park. Little Matterhorn appears in the distance just before cloud covered Notchtop Mountain and other peaks. You wouldn’t know it, but this image was taken at sunrise – although the clouds blocked any of the beautiful morning light. Oh well, next time…

At the beginning of each winter season, the cold seems to chill me to the bone. But this time, things were different. I had snowshoes and motivation to use them. And beyond that, I had some good friends who were heading up for an early morning snowshoe trip to Lake Odessa in Rocky Mountain National Park. So this winter season, I decided to grab the bull by the horns.

The route to Lake Odessa from Bear Lake included a climb up to a ridge and then a descent down to the lake – about 2,800 feet of vertical climbing over 8.8 miles round trip. So with all the climbing, we had no problem keeping warm – even with the stormy conditions. After about 2 miles, all the tracks from people who’d climbed in days earlier had disappeared thanks to all the new and blowing snow. And with the deep snowpack already covering up all the markings for the trails, I quickly gained an appreciation for the fact that Wayne was prepared with gps. Even with gps though, finding our route was still a challenge. I’d been in that same area just 2 months earlier in September, but it looked completely different in November!

After making it to the top of the ridge, we proceeded down the shelf route to Lake Odessa in deep untracked snow and minimal visibility. We made it to our target before sunrise as planned, but with all the stormy clouds, we didn’t get to see any of the beautiful early morning light we’d hoped for. Fortunately as we got to the lake, the storm clouds raised up just a bit letting us get a glimpse of the rugged peaks up the valley above Lake Odessa and the capture shown above before closing back in. And while it doesn’t show any alpenglow, the image above seems to have some really cool winter mountain character on its own.

Once we finished our little photo session, we headed back up to the ridgeline on the return to Bear Lake. And while I don’t usually have to climb on my return trips to the parking lot, at least I was mentally prepared for it. As it turned out, this part of the climb was probably the toughest leg of the trip. Conditions got even more stormy so even our tracks from the route down to the lake had disappeared. This meant that Erik & Wayne had to break trail the whole way up through the deep untracked snow. Being the slower one in the group, I tended not to lead. Even as challenging as it was though, I’ll admit that this stretch was probably the prettiest part! It was actually in this spot where I decided that for me, snowshoeing in the backcountry is an awesome escape that I really enjoy – as much as any other I’ve tried. I’m really glad I’ve been able to try it.

Anyway, after getting a little lost near Lake Helene, we got back on track for the traverse around Flattop Mountain and the descent to Bear Lake. Thanks to Wayne Boland and Erik Page for having me join them and for showing so much patience. We saw some awesome terrain and even with all the challenges (or maybe because of them), it was a whole lot of fun!

Rocky Mountain Sunrise Dream
For the longest time, this image was nothing more than just a vision of a dream. What if I could get an awesome sunrise reflecting from my favorite spot on Bear Lake, I thought. Back in May of 2010, it sure didn’t seem like it would be that difficult…

Well, some 6 months and 17 early morning trips to Bear Lake later I finally hit paydirt. Finally, my dream of the Ultimate Bear Lake Sunrise has become a reality!! And yes, now I’m wearing a huge smile.

In all my failed attempts (before the success shown above), I had a chance to think about all the reasons I wasn’t happy and insisted on going back again and again and again. So in fun, here are the top 10 reasons I claimed I had to go back:

10. No clouds
9. Too many clouds
8. No clouds over Longs Peak
7. Raining
6. Amazing clouds, but they never lit up
5. Wicked windy
4. Snowing
3. Clouds to the east blocked the early morning sun
2. A couple of people beat me to my spot and blocked both spots I’d scouted
1. The darn lake was still frozen!

In the end, I caved on one of the things I was hoping for in my dream shot. I’d originally hoped for a super calm morning where I could get a detailed reflection of Longs Peak and the glowing clouds. And while I suppose that may be possible someday, I found few calm mornings and besides cool clouds don’t tend to hang around on the calm mornings. So with a Neutral Density filter in-hand, I decided I’d smooth out the ripples and go for the glowing color instead of reflected details. This approach seemed to help open the door to finding the more interesting weather. This is a good thing to me ’cause the water on Bear Lake froze solid for the winter just a week after this shot was taken.

I wanted to add that along the way, I learned a few things. I learned not to ask my wife things like “Would you think I was crazy if I said I wanted to go to Bear Lake again in the morning?”. Seriously, I know I couldn’t have done it if she weren’t so supportive along the way.

Somewhere Between Committed And Obsessed
So I had one more unexpected challenge worth mentioning – the level of the lake had risen about a foot in just the previous week. My plan had been to get to a little rock that meant I had to step on two rocks just above the surface to get there. As these rocks weren’t above the surface any more, I had to laugh when I saw them submerged… I had my tripod in hand with camera ready to go. The skies were lighting up and I just had to get to my spot – only the route was now underwater!!

I didn’t come all that way (17 times, I might add) to have that stop me! If anyone had seen me, I’m sure they’d have laughed at me stepping across the water onto rocks under the surface and then (this is the best part) trying to get back onto an ice covered rock above the surface all while carrying a tripod with camera. I’m happy I got my shot but I’m also happy I did it without going swimming! I know I wasn’t graceful, but who cares!