Morning Jaunt to Glacier National Park

The older you get, fewer places blow your mind when you see them. What used to amaze you when you first saw the world might not make an impact anymore.

Glacier is not one of those places.

Though most people may spend weeks planning a trip to this awesome place, I found myself there almost inadvertently. I was contracted to shoot a wedding in nearby Whitefish, MT, with a couple other people from the same studio. Two days before our flight touched down in Montana, my second shooter Corey suggested we take the morning of the wedding to check out Glacier.

It was an obvious choice.

Corey wanted to catch the sunrise at Lake McDonald, so we woke up extra early to drive in the dark to the Park entrance.

When we got to the lake, there were some pretty serious clouds covering the eastern horizon; no fiery sunrise for us this morning.

Even so, the smoke in the air from the western wildfires gave everything a yellow hue, making for some very unique pictures.

The rocks in Lake McDonald aren’t quite as colorful as the pictures let on; they are still unique though!

One of my new desktop background images!

loons

looooooon

Once we decided the ‘Sunrise’ was done, we had a little bit of time to make our way up Going to the Sun Road.

I had rented a 70-200 f/4 for the wedding, and it really came in handy here. The longest lens I had owned up to that point was probably 140mm, so the extra zoom really allowed me to try some new things.

Handheld smooooth water

These were from a secret, off-trail spot

200mm power!

We drove up the road a few more miles and stopped at a bend in the river, where there was a nice surprise:

Do you see him?

I’ll zoom in a bit:

I actually saw two black bears just down the road from me! Successful trip!

At this point, we knew we had to head back to get ready for the wedding. We stopped one last time at the point we had shot the sunrise.

Look at those blue skies

If you were SUPing and kayaking in late August 2020 in Glacier, let me know

Thanks for reading, let me know if you enjoyed the pictures!

Weeknight backpacking

Green leaves were emerging from the cornfields zipping past. It was June, after all, and everything was excited to be alive again. I was lost in thought and I almost missed my turn back home. Tuesday nights were one of our open nights, and I was thinking about what I was going to do after work.

My phone started buzzing: Kadi was calling. She was home, and wanted to figure out what to do for dinner. We conferred for a bit before agreeing I could grab some squash and mushrooms to saute and put over rice. I love mushrooms, Kadi doesn’t. I was excited.

I got home after going to the store and put the things away in the fridge until we were ready. I’ll probably put garlic and paprika on. Kadi was running around grabbing some things.

She suggested we go for a drive. This was a bit unusual, but we were pretty well mired in our after-work routine at this point in the year, and we wanted to change that.

Kadi got into the driver seat and started driving. She didn’t mention any plan, and I was happy to enjoy the mystery. We headed west. Out of Longmont, into the foothills. Out of the foothills, into the mountains. I wish I had brought my camera!

She drove us up a dirt road, parked at the end, and got out of the car. She sauntered over to the wooden sign, took a look at it, and said “Yep!”. She walked back to her car, opened the hatchback, and revealed our backpacking bags, fully packed and ready to go.

My mind raced: “But…what about the mushrooms…?”

sneaky Kadi!

I think my brain just sort of short-circuited, and the next step it had in the chamber dry-fired. I was so excited! Kadi had planned a whole trip, gotten our bags packed (very impressive for only a one-time backpacker), and gotten us out the door before dark…on a Tuesday!

The weather called for a slight chance of rain, but we had our rain gear. The sun was about to set, but we had our head lamps. Weeknight backpacking is all about being flexible.

Kadi diverged that she didn’t have a plan for distance, and we could just camp whenever we find a suitable camp site. We hiked down through the lush June mountains as it slowly darkened around us. A rain cloud looked at us from above the west ridge.

Everything came together in one moment–an opening in the trees, an opening on the horizon to let the sun through, an opening in the clouds to release the rain. A rainbow greeted us as I threw my bag down to get the wide lens out.

The rain cloud passed, and the sun set. A large field presented itself in front of us, and we figured it was time to relax.

ol’ tried and true

We found a nice site beside the burbling brook we had been following for these two miles. Though we didn’t have mushrooms, our instant mashed potatoes with cup-o-soup mixed in hit the spot.

It was very dark by the time we had finished dinner. We got the bear bag hung, brushed our teeth, used the little boy’s bush one last time, and got in the tent (after taking a couple night photos, of course!)

Looking back, it was a pretty poor choice of campsite. Though the creek added some nice white noise to get your mind off the eerie silence of the night, it also meant we were down in a valley, where cold air congregates. It had rained the day before, and that moisture didn’t have any chance to evaporate in the damp next to the water. Kadi and I were both cold.

Sunrise was a welcome view. We had a few tasks: Boil some water for oatmeal, pack up the tent and sleeping bags, get the bear bag. Oh, one more thing: hike 2 miles back uphill to the car. Though it made for easy downhill walking yesterday, hiking back uphill was a daunting task.

Cute old cabin

The hike out wasn’t actually bad. There was some beautiful dew on the grass, and the morning sun shining through the trees could reinvigorate even the coldest of campers.

fashion

We finally made it to the car. Kadi was working from home that day, but I still had an hour commute after the hour drive back home. I was a bit groggy through the day, but anytime I found myself daydreaming, I was dreaming about finding another hidden adventure in the mountains.

the trail back to reality