Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain holds many magical memories for me. From my time living in Denver right out of college, I must have visited this park at least a dozen times throughout all four seasons. From camping here the night before moving into my new apartment, freezing my ass off overnight in early September as the high elevation temps dipped below freezing. To snowshoeing through the many feet of snow in winter, watching the ice thaw on the frozen lakes in spring, and trail running and hiking the extensive network of trails. I remember sitting in my car watching elk or moose passing through or grazing in the Kawuneeche Valley. This was way before I got into photography, but I’d give anything to have those experiences again to capture the beauty of wildlife doing their thing undisturbed.

I visited this park as part of my national parks project in March of 2019 and July of 2020. The March trip was peak winter, where I snowshoed over 8’ of snow in single digit temperatures in the early morning hours, looking up at the clear skies and seeing every single star that could possibly be seen. All in solitude, as it was several hours before most people would wake up, and the cold kept the majority of people away anyway. I also learned the value of a backup body on this trip, which coincidentally was my first trip I had a backup body. Within two minutes of parking my car at my motel, I accidentally dropped my Fuji X-T1 and 50-140 lens, totaling both of them. So the whole of my winter trip was shot on my X-T3 and either 10-24 or 16-55 lens.

My summer trip was part of the month I spent out west with Sally during the pandemic, getting out here for one nice summer day. We squeezed in a few short hikes, momentarily saw a black bear from a distance, and got to experience a classic Colorado sunset that burns the sky with practically every color in the world. When you see “Colorful Colorado”, you might be confused by the brown grass that covers the ground from May to November, but I like to think the phrase actually alludes to the sky.