Unicorns And Rainbows At St Mary Lake
So this year's trip to the Tetons and Glacier National Park was radically different than last year's. Last year I drove for 3000 miles and couldn't out from under a cloud of smoke that was literally the size of a continent. I came home after 8 days of shooting completely defeated, but determined that I might make a return trip this year...if the conditions were right.
The start of my new semester was quickly approaching and I didn't really have time or extra finances to make a trip out to Glacier this year. But then I saw a post from Joshua Snow saying something about thunderstorms moving in. I checked the weather, and sure enough, it looked like 4 days of rain over the park. I finally caved and decided to go for it.
As I headed out from SoCal to Vegas to Salt Lake and then over to the Tetons, the weather couldn't have been more different than last year...or more gorgeous. Huge puffy low hanging clouds followed me up to the Tetons and next day they continued to billow up toward Glacier. I arrived too late to grab anything on Friday, but I shot like a maniac from Saturday through Monday morning, spending the nights sleeping in my Prius to save cash.
When I woke up at 3:45 AM on Monday, I had a tough choice to make. If we got any light, I knew Swiftcurrent could light up nicely, and I was just out at Two Medicine the day before and really wanted a sunrise from there as well. But I kept staring out at the horizon to the East and it looked open. And those clouds behind me weren't going anywhere. I looked at PTE and it showed sunlight streaming right up the canyon over the lake...if it showed up at all.
I rolled the dice and bet that we would get some early morning light on the peaks surrounding St Mary Lake. I was just beginning to give up hope when the first bit of light landed on a cloud over the lake. And then suddenly both sides of the canyon lit up and this rainbow appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
All in all, it was a truly magical morning, You have to understand...this kind of thing almost never happens for me. Other photographers generally get the unicorns and rainbows. I usually get smoke, haze and no clouds. On my trip to the alps in 2017 I got 8 days of haze... and no clouds. At some point, you just begin to feel cursed. After a long string of bad luck between striking out in Bisti and in San Josef Bay on Vancouver Island and Death Valley and the Alabama Hills...you just kind of begin to wonder WHY you keep getting up at 2 or 3 AM to get a shot.
And the answer, of course, is hope. And hope can be a fragile thing. So when a guy like me is standing in the freezing wind with three hours of sleep and rain pelting down and it looks like a 100 percent chance of getting skunked...and the sun suddenly comes out and you get a rainbow....man. It warms you all the way down to your soul.
And it's just enough to keep you going for another year. :)
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Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions or need to get in touch with me, please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following:
Unicorns And Rainbows At St Mary Lake
So this year's trip to the Tetons and Glacier National Park was radically different than last year's. Last year I drove for 3000 miles and couldn't out from under a cloud of smoke that was literally the size of a continent. I came home after 8 days of shooting completely defeated, but determined that I might make a return trip this year...if the conditions were right.
The start of my new semester was quickly approaching and I didn't really have time or extra finances to make a trip out to Glacier this year. But then I saw a post from Joshua Snow saying something about thunderstorms moving in. I checked the weather, and sure enough, it looked like 4 days of rain over the park. I finally caved and decided to go for it.
As I headed out from SoCal to Vegas to Salt Lake and then over to the Tetons, the weather couldn't have been more different than last year...or more gorgeous. Huge puffy low hanging clouds followed me up to the Tetons and next day they continued to billow up toward Glacier. I arrived too late to grab anything on Friday, but I shot like a maniac from Saturday through Monday morning, spending the nights sleeping in my Prius to save cash.
When I woke up at 3:45 AM on Monday, I had a tough choice to make. If we got any light, I knew Swiftcurrent could light up nicely, and I was just out at Two Medicine the day before and really wanted a sunrise from there as well. But I kept staring out at the horizon to the East and it looked open. And those clouds behind me weren't going anywhere. I looked at PTE and it showed sunlight streaming right up the canyon over the lake...if it showed up at all.
I rolled the dice and bet that we would get some early morning light on the peaks surrounding St Mary Lake. I was just beginning to give up hope when the first bit of light landed on a cloud over the lake. And then suddenly both sides of the canyon lit up and this rainbow appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
All in all, it was a truly magical morning, You have to understand...this kind of thing almost never happens for me. Other photographers generally get the unicorns and rainbows. I usually get smoke, haze and no clouds. On my trip to the alps in 2017 I got 8 days of haze... and no clouds. At some point, you just begin to feel cursed. After a long string of bad luck between striking out in Bisti and in San Josef Bay on Vancouver Island and Death Valley and the Alabama Hills...you just kind of begin to wonder WHY you keep getting up at 2 or 3 AM to get a shot.
And the answer, of course, is hope. And hope can be a fragile thing. So when a guy like me is standing in the freezing wind with three hours of sleep and rain pelting down and it looks like a 100 percent chance of getting skunked...and the sun suddenly comes out and you get a rainbow....man. It warms you all the way down to your soul.
And it's just enough to keep you going for another year. :)
--------------
Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions or need to get in touch with me, please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following: