There we were, partially up Hidden Lake Trail, Glacier Nat’l Park. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s behind the visitor center at Logan Pass. It’s a gorgeous walk up to some spectacular scenery that always has a critter or two. On this trip, the snow hadn’t melted yet so the trail was for the adventurous and I wasn’t felling, adventurous. When going after landscape images, I tend to either go wide or long so when I walked partially up the trail, I had the 18-35AFS in my pocket and 80-400VR3 on the D4s. The clouds were racing across the heavens and as such, constantly changing the landscape with light and shadow. It’s one of the most beautiful ways to see our wild heritage in person, letting our imaginations run with the light over the land.
So I’m watching this living painting in front of me and saw the light bring out the unique topography up slope. As I scanned it with my imagination, I saw two climbers up on the slope. The first thing I thought was if they were to walk to the right spot they would be perfect to show scale. I zoomed out to 400mm and gave them a gander, they were walking in the right direction! I put the lens down and watched them and the light, the idea in my head was slowly coming to life on the slope. Then, they got to the right spot as the light hit it. Then, oh, be still my heart, they stopped exactly in the spot. I put my camera to my eye and shot. Then I just started laughing. These two adventurous souls walked all the way up there to take in the gorgeous view, only to record it on a iPad! So, I got scale with an iPad!