One evening, I think as I was going to eat dinner out on the front porch at the Rocky cabin, I see this amazing scene across the Moraine Park meadow. I mentioned before the atmosphere is constantly changing so it’s possible to see amazing things everyday. But this was really amazing, the scene appearing like an Albert Bierstadt painting with dramatic lighting and everything! The real spectacular clouds/light only lasted a few minutes before the scene became just an ordinary amazing sight. It’s interesting to click on the photo to see the enlarged version and see the different cloud formations and the streams of light.
Coming back at 6:00 am from shooting the moon rising at the Tundra area I saw this scene of Longs Peak lit by the rising sun and a bank of fog lurking in the meadow below. Individual clouds of fog dotted the meadow, this one looking like the wash from a watercolor brush. It was incredible to see the peak, at 14,259 feet, catching the first rays of the rising sun, well before the lower mountains and the surrounding valley.
For a few days there was smoke from fires north and west of the park that created an orange haze on the horizon. It was especially heavy one evening, before I gave the artists evening program talk at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center. I got out of my car and saw this orange sun low in the sky surrounded by the smoke.