This is a continuation of my series - The Story Behind the Images - the stories about my favorite photographs as I remember them. I hope you enjoy and please share.

This image was taken late in the day on the way back to the Bear Lake Trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. I am fairly certain my graduate school roommates, Tim and Trista, were with me as we were making our way down from Lake Haiyaha - I think. I can vividly remember pulling my tripod and camera out of my pack and setting up on the side of the trail trying to beat the disappearing light as the sun set over the Front Range. The scene was cast in blue light from the sky and glowing white snow that was lit by the setting sun. The rocks and trees added contrast and were almost black against the snow.

Glacier gorge is a glacially carved valley situated between Long’s Peak (14,259 ft) to the east and McHenry’s Peak to the west. The mountains in Rocky Mountain Park are tall enough to disrupt the jet stream and can create some amazing cloud formations in the the right conditions. In this case, a lenticular cloud formed on the west side of Longs Peak, which is unusual for lenticular clouds, and provided a nice feature that mimicked the walls of Glacier Gorge. The combination of the lenticular cloud with the reflected blue light and white snow glowing from the setting sun created a nice composition with great light.

I photographed this image with a Nikon N90s and a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens on Fuji Velvia 50 transparency film. It was scanned by West Coast Imaging using a Heidelberg Tango Drum Scanner. If you enjoyed this post please share and visit me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Flickr (links on the left).

Thanks again. Jason C. Ruf

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Posts tagged with rocky-mountain-national-park

The Story Behind the Images: Bierstadt Lake (2002)

The Story Behind the Images - Lenticular Cloud over Glacier Gorge (1999)