Roadtrip Images

We’ve wanted to visit Glacier National Park for some time. Saint Mary Lake on the east side of GNP is a must see.

Glacier National Park is in northern Montana and is called the Crown of the Continent. It’s on the Continental Divide and is the northernmost stretch of the US Rocky Mountains. From here, glacier melt waters flow to the Pacific Ocean, The Gulf of Mexico, and to Hudsons Bay. It spans over 1 million acres and has 762 lakes, many of them unnamed. This has been on our must see list for some time. It’s a very popular park in the summer months with one of the most scenic drives in the lower 48, The Going to the Sun road. It’s a 50 mile stretch of road that climbs through the higher reaches of the park and has some amazing views. It typically isn’t fully cleared of snow and open to the public until late June or early July.

Glacier NP is tucked right up along the border with Canada and actually joins with Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. Together they form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

You may remember that this was one of the wilderness areas that was hit by a major forest fire last summer. It consumed 16,982 acres and was first reported on August 10, 2017. It burned well into October and was not fully extinguished until the snows arrived. Fortunately we haven’t seen any fires yet this year although we are under a high fire danger currently. We are experiencing smoke from fires further west in Idaho and as a result the mountain views have been very hazy. There are days it seems were are in the Smoky Mountains rather than Glacier NP. It’s been difficult getting any of the grander vistas that we were hoping for.

Saint Mary Lake is a very scenic lake on the eastern edge of Glacier NP. It’s on the Going to the Sun road and has many spots to pull off and snap a picture. This particular spot is the Wild Goose Island overlook and is very nice at sunrise. The first week we were here we had tough sunrise shooting conditions. Either clear skies with no clouds at all or too many clouds to the east blocking any nice morning light. And sunrise here is early! We were up at 4:30am for each shoot. We made four attempts and this is the best one.

I liked this particular spot because it had a nice leading line through the vegetation out into the lake and Wild Goose Island. It in turn lined up with the distant mountain peak. Other photographers had the same idea so getting there early ensured our spot. On this morning we had some nice hanging mist along the mountains that caught the first warm light of the day. And you can see the distant mountains are a bit hazy from the smoke. They’ve gotten worse since.

Since the lake had a bit of wind on it even at this early hour, I added a 6 stop ND filter to create a long exposure. Five seconds in this case. I wanted to smooth out the lake as much as possible. Compositionally, the opening in the vegetation also created a framing element to add perspective to the image and give it some depth. Other than that, the shot is pretty straight forward. I made bracketed exposures to ensure I had a properly exposed sky in case I needed to blend later in Photoshop. Turns out it wasn’t necessary.

It feels good to be in the wild places again after such a long break. It was a necessary break to care for a number of things but now it’s behind us and we can get back to the lifestyle we worked so hard to create. One of the negatives to this time of year is the western forest fires. There are always some burning every summer and if you’re down wind the mountain views will be less than stellar. When that happens you have two choices as a photographer. Go somewhere else or shift to more intimate scenes. We’re doing a little of both.

Another challenge to creativity during the peak summer months is the crowds. People love the National Parks. A bit too much sometimes. The Parks are struggling with record attendance and are having to devise ways to manage the flow of cars and people. The Logan Pass parking lot for example, at the top of the Going to the Sun road, is typically full by 7:30am during July & August. By 6:00pm it’s very accessible however. So you adjust.

Still beats sitting behind a desk in the office any day.

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Nikon D810 with Nikkor 24-70mm at 35mm. f/11 at 5 seconds. ISO 64.