The Best Hiking Views and a Surprise at the Top

 

As I sit down to write this post about our recent family vacation, I’m feeling slightly overwhelmed. How can I possibly put into words the mountain top (pardon the pun) experiences? We had, as I put it in an earlier FB post, a “nearly perfect time”, which is to say I can think of only a few very minor things I might have changed, if any. 

We flew into Denver, got our rental jeep, and drove to pick up our son who lives in CO, eventually making our way to Estes Park, a small town at the foot of Rocky Mountain National Park. We came to adore this little town. Although the downtown area is filled with tourist type shops, they did not feel overwhelming or overly commercialized, and we enjoyed poking around one day when steady light rain kept us from hiking and other outdoor excursions. 

The highlight of our time came midweek when we left the house early in order to make it to the park by our allowed entrance time of 7 a.m. (This year the park required advance purchase of entry slots. I believe this was to prevent over-crowding in the park.) As we drove into the park, the sky was still a bit dark and this elk was feeding leisurely by the side of the road.

We made our way to the Bear Lake trail parking lot where we started our hike up to Mill’s Lake. Of course, I had my new camera ready to go. Unfortunately, by this time I realized that I still had some work to do with getting the lighting right. I was pleased with this photo of Bear Lake that I took just before we started out on the trail.

The hike was over 6 miles round trip. It was truly a magical experience as the trail wound through (at first) lush, almost tropical like fauna and flora. We passed an older couple who mentioned they read that there were orchids somewhere in the vicinity. (I kept my eyes peeled, but if there were any, the time was not right.) The trail passed alongside a fairly raging stream whose bed had been filled to the brim by recent rains. 

As we made our way up the mountain, the views called out for our attention. Of course, I had my camera ready and aimed—adjusting settings like crazy in my attempt to capture the breath taking views. I learned that it is no easy feat to capture the colors and majesty of the mountains, especially with the dramatic light differences between foreground and background. Heh…the phone cameras seemed to be the best at it, darn it…

Notice how the amount of sunlight in these pictures varies dramatically. Yep, that’s just what it was like. I prefer the sunlit photos as I think sun hitting the mountains really highlights their majesty. 

We eventually made our way to Mill’s Lake, where the clouds held sway. At this point, I realized that the most effective way to figure out the best lighting was to adjust settings, take a photo to see how things looked, and repeat. I was over to the side away from my family taking multiple shots of this scene. 

You can see how the foreground looks better in the first photo, but the sky is washed out. The opposite was true for the second photo. Sigh….learning to photograph will take time. As I was engrossed in understanding which was causing what, I heard my name being called. Bill was calling me over, I assumed to take a family photo with the mountains as a backdrop. So off I went, wondering what the rush was. About 2 seconds before I got there, I realized what was happening…

There, in front of me was my future son-in-law down on his knee asking our daughter to marry him. Ahhh….

In hindsight, I’m so glad I got the settings just where they needed to be for the correct lighting to capture the moment. Whew! Although Bill and I knew this was coming at some point on the trip (thoughtful young man had asked for our blessing prior) it still took me by surprise….a happy surprise!

Well, I set out to write a post that covered our trip, but I see now that at least one or two more posts are in order. Thanks for reading. :-)