Every summer Ken and I take a couple of serious, multi-day pack trips into the mountains, usually with the llamas hauling most of our gear. This year we are striving to add on a number of super short, one night trips to a few special locations with the goal of capturing some "magic hour" shots. For these mini adventures we are carrying the absolute minimum amount of gear, not including camera equipment.
Our first excursion took place earlier this week with a drive up to the top of Bald Ridge and a short hike into a place where we could set up camp for the night.
In my opinion the results of this effort were well worth it. I was hoping to come away with one or two shots to add to my growing collection of one-a-days of Heart Mountain which I have been snapping since January first of this year. I feel as though I achieved my goal and then some. The wildflowers were in perfect form and the sudden rainstorm that passed quickly through the area left a sky that begged to be photographed!
These images are not in chronological order as the first few are from the next morning and the ones from the evening before are further down the page. We pulled ourselves out of the tent just a few minutes after 5 am to capture some color in the morning sky.
Not far from the tent I was scolded by a squirrel. When I turned around to take her photograph I discovered why she was upset - she was protecting two babies that she had stashed away in an old woodpecker hole.
The trees in the area have a hard life with lots of wind and snow at high elevation.
The larkspur and wall flowers were at their peak.
Just after dinner we huddled in the tent to wait out a passing rain storm. As soon as it was over we grabbed the camera gear and ran for a perch at higher elevation in the hopes of capturing the aftermath in the magical light of the evening. I ended up with two shots that really made the trip for me. The first one is special because of the double rainbow as well as the view of the tent in the lower right corner. It definitely gives you a sense of scale!
The photo below was shared on Facebook and has received a lot of nice comments for which I am extremely grateful. It was actually snapped on the way back to camp after most of the storm had passed by.
I learned something the next morning when we again climbed up the ridge to try and photograph the land to the west. In reality I should have been taking those shots the night before as well. The canyon is so deep that the shadows from the ridge I was on were not allowing any of the images I thought I would be getting. Oh well…that just gives me an excuse to go back and try again!
On the way out to the highway we came to a field at lower elevation where the prairie smoke were abundant and perfect. Even though the rain had once again started to fall we stopped long enough to take a few shots of this colorful flower.
