Back in April, some buddies of mine and I began to plan a September trip to Glacier National Park. We were hoping against hope that we would have decent weather and that the Going To The Sun Road would remain open until it's official closing date of September 22. We were also hoping that it would be cold enough for the leaves to change before we left.

After four months of waiting, we arrived in Great Falls and drove into the park last Thursday (Sept 18). The air was very hazy and the light was horrible as we left the airport. Our spirits began to sink a bit as we had to pass on shooting Two Medicine Lake as it was far too hazy to photograph. We also passed hundreds of acres of trees that had died, apparently due to some horrible disease.

But as we entered the park and drove around to St Mary Lake, everything changed. For four days we shot in some of the most epic conditions I have ever seen. As we traveled throughout the park, we discovered that we had timed the Fall colors perfectly as virtually all the deciduous trees had changed at once due to the recent cold snap the week before where parts of the park were covered in 8 inches of September snow. And best of all, Going To The Sun Highway remained opened all the way through the weekend. Our rented Yukon was one of the last vehicles down the Western side of the park on Sunday night as we left for McDonald Lodge after a long night of shooting the Milky Way in Logan Pass.

The shot above was taken after waking at 4:15 AM on Friday morning for a quick scramble up the mountainside for one of the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen, followed by an ginormous breakfast at Many Glacier Lodge. After "brunch" we set off for a hike of roughly 12 miles (round trip) up the Grinnell Glacier Trail. The entire trail was lit up by yellow and red/orange leaves as we worked our way up past Lake Josephine and finally past Grinnell. By the time we were on our way back down, we met up with our second bear of the day and had a lively discussion to decide whether to stay for possible sunset color over the lake or to leave early to avoid being eaten. This bracketed shot was taken shortly after we decided to stick it out and after the afore mentioned bear moved on in his search for berries. It was handheld in low light as we were wasting no time getting back down with the last third of our hike predicted to be in complete darkness.

Glacier National Park is beautiful during any time of year, but I was completely unprepared for how stunning it looked in late September. As the sun came out on Saturday, the colors exploded around us between the bright yellow leaves, brilliant blue skies, deep green firs and pines, and the stately red on the vintage buses that moved the guests through the park.

I have so much more to write about regarding our time there, but in the mean time, please feel free to check out some incredible shots by my photo compadres, namely Todd Hurley , Tom Bricker , Don Sullivan and Jeff Krause .

Tags:   Glacier National Park Autumn Fall Grinnell Glacier Trail Grinnell Lake Zenitar Fisheye

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So the suggestion was that we would all meet up with Tom at the Many Glacier Hotel and then we might grab some dinner before heading out to do some night photography after our arrival on Thursday night. I believe my response was something along the lines of….

"If we drop by St Mary Lake and it's EPIC with sun streaming through broken clouds over Wild Goose Island and it looks like God himself is telling us to run and get the tripods, maaaaybe we should stop and take some shots."

So….that's pretty much what happened. We turned the corner coming around from the parking lot and five jaws hit the ground in unison. Tom met us at the lake and we elected him to go first into the bear infested woods to blaze a trail down to the shoreline. Over the next two hours, we were treated to some of most fantastic crepuscular rays I've ever seen. Just before we lost the sun for the night, it burst through from the West and lit up the entire range on our left. I have to admit that shooting conditions were a bit of a challenge as I lost the lens cap to my Nikon 14-24 down a rocky crevasse (putting a BIG dent in my photography plans for the weekend) and the darn wind kept trying to blow us off our feet. But all five us soldiered on and barely spoke as we quickly began filling up our cards trying to capture each epic scene as it unfolded before us.

As for the title, St. Mary Lake is just plain stunning no matter where you stand on that shoreline. But Wild Goose Island simply puts it in a class by itself. There's just something about that solitary little patch of trees in that vast expanse of greenish-blue water that takes your breath away. As if God wasn't satisfied with this stunning lake and just had to add that one final touch.


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Tags:   Clacier National Park St Mary Lake Wild Goose Island Couds Crepuscular God rays Glacier National Park

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The original plan on this particular morning was to head off into the woods on the North side of the Swift Current Lake to get to Fishercap in time to grab some early morning light on the peaks for a nice reflection. We had started up the trail when two things happened at once. First of all, a moose and her calf completely blocked the trail and Tom and the rest of our group suddenly stopped short and stared out at the gleaming eyes looking back at them. Secondly, I looked back toward the east and saw high clouds and knew that there was going to be some serious sunrise action back at the lake we had just left. So we piled back into the Yukon and headed back to the boat dock on the opposite side of Swift Current. We were only there for a few minutes before the sky began to light up.

If you can only pick one spot to visit while you are in Glacier National Park, the Many Glacier Hotel and the surrounding area is pretty hard to beat. Glacier carved peaks rise up literally on all sides of the hotel and the surrounding woods are teeming with wildlife. The hotel was built by the railroad back in 1914 with a Swiss alpine architectural theme. To this day, some of staff still wear lederhosen. You won't find a cell signal in the hotel and the rooms are rather small. But the views….holy cow.

The hotel is also close to several trailheads which head off in all directions into some of the most epic mountain scenery you'll ever see. We checked in three days before the hotel closed for the season. There was an air of anticipation among the staff as they looked forward to winding down after their season ended, but there was also a slight foreboding that I felt, especially after watching "The Shining" just a couple of months before this trip. There's actually a caretaker that stays in that hotel during the winter months. I couldn't help but think how eery it would be to be the only one left in that grand old hotel after everyone else drove down the road. Beautiful….but eery.

But for 7 months of views like the one above…I could deal with a little eeriness. :)

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Tags:   Many Glacier Many Glacier Hotel Sunrise Swiftcurrent Lake

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On September 22, 2014, Going To The Sun Highway was due to shut down at 7 AM for the season, with a very good chance that it might not open again until late June or early July. This was one of the reasons that all five of us were up there shooting the Milky Way until all hours of the night. We were definitely one of the last cars to come down from Logan Pass that night as we started shooting behind the Logan Pass Visitor's Center and then worked our way slowly back out of the park, stopping for views of the Southern Sky as we headed back to lake McDonald.

We weren't quite sure what we would find in terms of the Milky Way other than one or two shots that we found online over Hidden Lake. As another long hike out to Hidden Lake was out of the question (some of us could barely move after 4 days of waking up at 4:30 AM, scree scrams, and long hikes) we opted to shoot over Reynolds Mountain, which would still give us a decent view of the Southern sky. When the Milky Way finally showed up, it was truly spectacular. We hadn't realized how strong the air glow effect was that night until we started zooming in on our LCD screens which showed streaks of green and red along the horizon behind Reynolds.

After shooting with the group for a while, I began to wonder if I could find a different foreground. I finally headed back to the parking lot where I noticed that the Milky Way was now halfway between Reynolds and the Visitor's Center. I quickly set up my tripod and took a few more shots before the group came back. (The light on the visitor's center is from cars passing on the road.) When everyone was back, we headed slowly back down, pulling over for more shots of the Milky Way as we drove back to Lake McDonald.

By 7 AM the next morning, the pass was officially closed and work had begun on resurfacing the road before the big Winter storms were due to arrive. (It usually takes until mid June to finally clear out the massive amount of snow and avalanche debris that comes down around the pass each year.)

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Tags:   Glacier National Park Logan Pass Milky Way Air Glow

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I didn't need the alarm on our first full day shooting in Glacier National Park. The wind was howling all night long and as my room faced West toward the lake and Mountains, the wind blasted against my windows and door continuously, causing me to peer at the clock at least twice an hour throughout the night.

So at 4:15 AM, I gave up, got my stuff together and headed out. As I walked tentatively (bears?) through the darkness down toward the lake and looked up, one clear thought made its way through my very foggy brain: This morning is going to be epic. The broken moonlit clouds were perfect for a potential sunrise.

When we first arrived at the Many Glacier Hotel the night before, we had a general idea of where we wanted to set up for the sunrise. We knew it would be a couple hundred yards up a steep hillside, but we were hoping there would be a trail to get us to our spot. After checking with the liederhosen-clad bell hop, we found that there was no trail, but that we could make it to our spot if we found a bit of clearing and scrambled up the scree. He assured us it would be a piece of cake. "An easy scree scram" he called it.

So by 5:30 AM, all five of us were staring up at this very steep hillside in the dark, with the wind howling and rain spritzing down on us, and there was nothing for it but to charge straight up the hill. On top of the weather, we were also concerned about bears. We had our cans of bear spray, but we were trying to work out how effective they were going to be in gale force winds after running into a bear in the dark. (We found a mother and her cubs later that morning less than a 1/2 a mile from where we were shooting.) But up the hill we went with our bear spray, backpacks, and tripods and after a few minutes of scrambling around in the dark, we finally found our spot.

We had only been there a short time when the sky began to light up and we were treated to one of the most spectacular sunrises that any of us had ever seen. I started shooting with my Nikkor 14-24, but after 5 minutes, I switched to my Zenitar fisheye as I wanted to pull more of the valley and clouds into the frame. No sooner had I switched to the fisheye than it began to rain, and my chances of switching back to the 14-24 were gone. While most of the epic-ness lay to the East, I eventually swung back around to catch the view behind us as the sun finally hit Grinnell Peak.

It was truly one of the most spectacular mornings I have ever witnessed. After shooting at least 1000 frames and most of the good light was gone, I was ready to call it a morning. We all looked at each other with huge grins on our faces, and headed back to the Many Glacier for breakfast.

As for this particular shot, you can see the Many Glacier Hotel in the distance with the light from Mt Grinnell reflecting off of Swiftcurrent Lake. I rolled the ISO up a bit higher here as the light was fleeting and I knew I wouldn't have my tripod reset on that steep hillside in time to catch it before it was gone. I had to dash across the mountainside to get a clear shot and just barely managed to get a handheld bracket off before the light on the clouds was gone.

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Tags:   Glacier National Park Many Glacier Hotel Swiftcurrent Lake Sunrise Mount Grinnell

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