Category Archives: Rocky Mountain National Park

Bears! Oh my!

Bear sightings are rare in Rocky Mountain National Park. I got lucky this day as I saw a bunch of cars pulled over and people looking at a small bluff about 75 yards away. At first I thought elk or maybe sheep but when we heard it was a bear I was all about it.

Olympus OM-1, 400mm, iso 2000, f8, 1/60

Lake Haiyaha

Olympus EM1-Mark III, ISO 800, 12mm. f7.1, 1/500

In June of 2022, there was a massive rockfall off Hallett Peak. The rocks grinding together made a fine mineral flour that does not settle quickly. It was this flour that gave Haiyaha this milky aquamarine color. This was taken in October and the lake still had much of that color.

Ride the Flare

Olympus E-M1 mark3- 12mm, 800, f9, 1/1250, +.3

Second time I’ve tried this. Learned to pick time of day and my place to shoot. Sun was so bright it was hard to use the view finder so I knew what I wanted but couldn’t tell if I got it until I came down off the mountain. Sometimes I get lucky.

Milky-way from Horseshoe

OMD E-M Mark 3, 7mm, f2.8, ISO 8000, 13 sec.

On my last trip to Estes I had one night to try to capture the Milky-way. It was the first night there. The other nights were too cloudy and the moon was waxing too. I dragged my buddy Tom with with me to experience the stars in the darkness.

Later I tried Live Composite in camera, stacking in Photoshop and just processing in Lightroom. This is from Lightroom. The others were no better.

It was a nice night- clear, comfortable temps, no wind. A pack of coyotes were howling in the meadow, they were having a good time too.

Ice Climbing

OMD-E M1.3

In the Wild Basin area of RMNP we took a horse trail I hadn’t been on before. Got a great opportunity to watch and photo my son making a few runs up the ice. Not gonna lie, there were a lot more chunks of ice flying around than I expected. Glad I brought my helmet.

February 10, 2021

Suprise Elk

I was snowshoeing the Cub Lake trail. It was not a great day because the wind was really strong, blowing stinging snow. I had my head down waiting for the wind to let up, just watching my feet. When I looked up a big elk was grazing just off the trail. I stopped and got a few shots off before the cold killed my battery.

I backed off around the corner of a big rock to get out of the wind to swap batteries and switch to a long lens, Panasonic 100-400. I thought I’d move off the trail into the meadow to get a better angle. When I got back the elk was joined by two others- even better!

It was tough shooting at 400 because the sun was in my eyes and I had to hold the camera one-handed and use the other hand to block the sun. But I had a blast shooting as best I could and watching these magnificent animals.