loch vale hike

date of hike: saturday, 11/1/08

“The land here is like a great book or a great symphony; it invites approaches toward comprehension on many levels, from all directions.” –Edward Abbey

For those who enjoy being outdoors and also love photography, there’s no better place to be than Colorado. At least that’s my humble opinion, after moving here late in 2007. And my favorite place in Colorado to fuel my twin passions for hiking & photography is Rocky Mountain National Park.

My first visit to RMNP was this past June, and since then I’ve made fifteen return visits. (The annual pass I purchased on that first visit was a wise investment!) In those sixteen trips to the park, I’ve hiked over 100 miles & shot many hundreds of photos. No matter how many trips I make to RMNP, I hope I never forget the genuine thrill I felt on my first visit, as I thought “Wow! I’m in Rocky Mountain National Park!!”— and I hope that, despite a growing familiarity, I’ll never become blasé about paying a visit to one of America’s premier national parks.

On this particular visit, my destination was Loch Vale. I had been on hikes up Glacier Gorge on several occasions (as far as Black Lake), but I had never before been up Loch Vale. I lost count of how many times I’d be hiking & photographing in other parts of the park, and someone would ask me, “Say, have you been up to The Loch?” I got really tired of always having to answer, “No.” So before the weather got too bad this year, I decided to go ahead and get this hike under my belt. And now when someone asks me, “Say, have you been up to The Loch?” I can smile and answer, “Yep!”

When I pulled into the Glacier Gorge parking lot about twenty after six on this first Saturday morning in November, there was only one other car in the parking lot. It took me just a few minutes to gather my gear, shoulder my pack, and head up the trail. On most hikes, I’ll have my pack with both cameras, assorted filters & lenses, 32 oz. of water (this varies, depending on the weather & length of the hike), some kind of snack (most often trail mix & an apple), and also my tripod. All told, this adds up to about twenty pounds of stuff I’m lugging along with me! I have a Tamrac Adventure 9 backpack & I’d recommend it without hesitation. It has certainly performed yeoman duty on all my hiking adventures, and even went to the top of Longs Peak with me.

I passed Alberta Falls about twenty minutes into the hike, and ten minutes later (about 7am) it was light enough that I didn’t need my headlamp any longer. At the major trail junction between the Loch Vale & Glacier Gorge Trails, I bore right and headed up into new territory for me. The trail gained elevation pretty steadily, and then- after negotiating a few switchbacks- I found myself at the famed Loch. It’s definitely a location that has the scenic-thing going for it, but I found myself disappointed for two reasons. First, because on the hike up, there had been absolutely no wind at all, and I had harbored high hopes of getting a nice reflection shot once I reached the lake—but once I got up to The Loch the wind was blowing VERY hard. I thought perhaps it’d die once the sun came up (since this has been my experience on other occasions), but it just never let up. My second reason for disappointment was in the lackluster light that accompanied sunrise. With the dawn, there were a few scattered clouds off to the east, but over RMNP there was almost solid cloud cover. This cloud cover was being carried very quickly from west to east, and within a few moments of sunrise it had completely doused any direct light from the sun. As a result, the light was very flat & washed-out, not just at sunrise but on the entire hike. I don’t think I saw my shadow the entire time I was out on this hike. Not so great for photography. I wished the clouds would’ve at least been photographically-interesting ones (big, billowing, stormy ones maybe), but this was just a grim, solid, gun-metal gray cover blanketing the sky.

The photo that accompanies this post is a four-shot HDR panorama. After scouting along the shore of the lake a bit, I settled on this spot because I thought the trees on each side might frame the shot nicely and also provide a bit of foreground interest. I really would’ve liked to wait until the sunlight crept down the peaks quite a bit farther, but this simply wasn’t an option since those darn clouds were racing east to extinguish the dawn’s early light. Moments after I got the shots for this panorama, the direct light was cut off.

All in all, this wasn’t such a great morning for photography, but I did get in a nice hike. AND now I can finally say I’ve been to The Loch!

Thanks for reading about stuff I've photographed. -Rich