Zoom in

      The next time you head into Glacier National Park with your DSLR, intent on capturing a few epic shots, don’t forget your zoom lens. Typically, when trying to capture scenic shots, most people will be kicking themselves for not bringing or renting a wider angle lens. Everything is so huge in Glacier that you just can’t have a wide enough lens to frame it all in. There is definitely a use for your wide angle, but there are other options. 

          It’s always smart to bring your telephoto along in hopes of capturing some up-close and personal shots of the incredible wildlife Glacier has to offer, but don’t put it away after the mountain goat moves out of view. Keep it out and zoom in on some shots of the scenery. There is nothing like the elation of experiencing Glacier’s majesty first hand and up close, either driving or hiking. Have you noticed that once you’re back home and showing off where you went on vacation, you end up saying, “The pictures don’t do it justice. You just have to be there.” With your wide angle lens all those huge mountains will shrink down and lose their awe. Your telephoto will make those mountains feel as big as they are, in person. It’s not always easy to find the room to accommodate those longer lenses (200mm, and up) but once you start looking for those shots, you’ll be amazed at how many opportunities are available. Try it. Just zoom in all the way and put the viewfinder up to your eye. Your first impulse is to zoom back to fit more scenery into your frame, but hold your camera up a bit longer and look around through the view finder. Try framing a single peak instead of several. It will open up a whole new world of imaging.

          Portrait tip – This works for portraits too. Try this: Instead of zooming out (wide-angle) to make sure you get as much background in as you can, try zooming in (telephoto) and backing up (actually walking backwards) until your bff and the background fit in your frame. Don’t try to fit it all in. If your background is too blurry, try a smaller aperture. Can’t control the aperture manually? Adjust the ISO to a faster speed (higher number like 1,600) and that should help. This will give your images that larger-than-life perspective that you were trying for in the first place. Okay, so it’s the digital age, and you have thousands of pictures worth of room left on your card, so take both the wide angle shot and the telephoto. See if you don’t like the feel of the telephoto.

Exposure and Composure

Quick tip for sunrise/sunset pictures.

Some of the most dramatic scenes that we all love to capture are sunrise and sunset photos. Have you ever been disappointed in how the results differed from what it actually looked like? Especially for point and shoot cameras, the rich hues of oranges and reds can really lose their punch from reality to view screen. Before you toss your camera and figure that it’s time for an upgrade, try this quick tip.

 What happens is that your camera meter is taking in a drastic contrast between the dark part of your scene and the bright clouds/sun behind it. The difference in the amount of light on Mt Wilber in this image compared to what is lighting up the lower, darker part of the image is staggering. The bright part of the peak has around 6-8 times the amount of light that the foreground has and your camera sensor can’t handle that large of a difference. Your camera meter wants to pick out the middle ground and it usually produces blah results.  It’s kind of like when you’re driving on a Montana dirt road in the morning and the sun comes up. All of a sudden you can’t see the road anymore! All that dust on the windshield is lighting up with the direct sun and the road is still in the shade. Your eyes are in sensory overload with your pupils trying their best to close down and protect you from the brightness, but your brain is telling you that it is still important to be able to see what is quickly approaching your vehicle. Whatever you do, don’t use the windshield washer fluid to try and clear off the dust! 

What we want to do is to trick your camera into correctly metering the light part of your scene. 

Try these solutions:

 Solution 1) Re-frame and keep only a small amount of the darker, foreground in your picture, allowing your camera to correctly meter only the bright background. Lots of sky and only a sliver of horizon at the bottom. 

Solution 2) Use the AEL (Auto Exposure Lock) feature of your camera if it has one. Most point and shoots have this feature and you activate it by pressing the shutter release button halfway down. Your camera will focus and meter light. Frame your picture like you would for solution one with mostly sky and press the shutter release half way down. Now, don’t let up on that button while you reframe. Go ahead and push the shutter release all the way down after you have your image framed the way you want it. 

Solution 3) White balance is one of the least understood yet critical functions of a digital camera. That being said, almost all modern cameras allow you to control your white balance. The icon for this feature will be “WB” and it allows you to tell your camera what type of light source you have. Usually you can specify Tungsten (a regular old light bulb) fluorescent, sunlight, flash, shade, cloudy and auto. If you let your camera choose, it will set it at daylight for this type of scene, but you may want to try selecting the “shade” setting. It will throw a lot more orange into your sunset. 

Baby girls who aren't so baby or girly.

Cecily perched on the ridge above Ipasha Glacier. Mt. Merritt is in the background. 

     Cool shot eh? We started the day off by hiking the six miles from Flattop Campground to 50 Mtn campground. It rained on us pretty much the whole way. It was one of those days where we were cold and wet, but if we kept moving we stayed warm enough. It's a matter of trying to judge whether or not you'll have enough energy to make it to camp without stopping to refuel because if you do you'll have to pull out more clothes and change and take up time. It was only six miles and. . . well, if you backpack you know.  It was a pretty hike but kinda miserable. Worth it though.
     When we pulled into camp we could see nicer weather headed our direction. We had a break in the rain so we set up our tent and parked our overnight packs inside to stay dry (minus food). We went down and cooked lunch in an empty food prep area while we waited for the sun to show up. The plan was to eat and get in a nap before we took off. Because of the time frame we were looking at I talked Cecily into not taking the nap (which was really for me anyway) and we headed straight out. We hiked up to the Sue Lake overlook to see what we could see. Although it was a great view we actually couldn't see any glaciers and we were cliff-locked from reaching any. That kinda of sucked. I was planning on a ridge line traverse with a trail accessing it all. In my plan, we would be back to camp in a little bit of no time and have had a fairly easy day. The actual amount of effort for our afternoon was starting to soak in. I entertained the idea that we could always come back in a week but I really couldn't afford the gas, time, or supplies. We had bad weather in the line up and didn't want to waist a 3 day trip. I made up my mind and was going to have to break it to my baby girl that our day was only about half done. Back down to the main trail and south on the Highline. We entered the cirque below Cheney Glacier and climbed the 1,000 feet up to the ridge to overlook Cheney. Shale sucks!  According to J. Gordon Edwards' book "A Climbers Guide to Glacier National Park" in the 1950's you used to be able to step off the ridge and walk the glacier down to connect with the trail from Stoney Indian Pass. (You can see the amount of glacial recession here) What we found was about a 50' drop before we would have made it to the glacier. We spent the time to capture all the images I would need for the book and as I did I realized that I was going to have to convince Baby Girl that we were still going to need to climb up one more ridge. Another 1,000 feet-ish. You know what I told her? The truth. I knew she wasn't going to want to and I knew that it was going to push us close to what our physical limits were at the time so I laid it out so that she could be a part of the difficult decision. You see that face? That's her I-don't-really-want-to-because-it's-going-to-be-really-tough-but-I-know-you-won't-make-me-do-anything-that-I-can't-do-and-I-trust-you-and-am-going-to-be-tough-Dad-anyway look. Kids are tough. Don't ever shy away from challenging your kiddos to do something they think they can't. Especially when you are in it with them and you're not even sure you can. That's when they get to see what you're made of. Some people won't even challenge their kiddos to behave in the store but look at this little lady. She's going to change the world. I really mean that. Parents who won't challenge their kids are displaying their own fear for all to see. 

     Let's return from that little bit of wisdom, now. (That was a freebie by the way. The next one will cost ya.) We spotted our route and made our way up the shale. I just wanted to get to the saddle and make it over that next ridge to grab the images we needed of Ipasha. It was a little overcast but it looked like that might clear off before the sun set behind the ridge which would give us some really nice light. We turned around and realized that I needed to break out the tripod and camera again for another set of images of Cheney before we could continue. We ate a little more food for energy but that's when our water ran out. Bummer. I hate dehydration. I have some staples in my gut that make it fairly painful when I'm lacking the proper amount of water in my body. Eventually we made it to the ridge above Ipasha and the view was awesome. The sun came out just as we reached our vantage point, too. We spent about an hour as I worked the golden hour of nice, warm light.

      I posted this iPhone 5 panoramic shot to Osprey's timeline which nabbed me a like from their team. The sun set as we trekked back to camp. When we dragged our butts into the now brimming campground I told Cecily to grab our water bottle from the tent and meet me at the food prep area. After a 14 hour hike/scramble, I was spent. Some guy asked me how I was doing. I almost gave him the quick dismissal of a "pretty good" but I realized that It was fairly obvious that I wasn't fine. I was really tired, so that's what I told him. I think he could tell, so he asked where I had been. I told him. There were about 20 people in the food prep area and they all seemed to be paying attention as I laid out the days' trek to him. Everyone seemed interested and it was a great chance to get the word out about my project to 20 or so folks that I knew would be genuinely interested in my project and book. As I finished up, Cecily came running down the trail and tripped over her own worn out, skinny bird legs. Everyone gasped and before I could ask if she was OK, she peeped out a weary but typically chipper, "I'm OK". There was a unified sigh of relief behind me as my baby girl snuggled up beside me to warm up and get in a quick reassurance from me that she actually was okay. I could see that much in her glance up at me. About then a gal named Jennifer from Glacier Guides asked if Cecily had gone all that way with me. My chest puffed up a couple of inches as I replied. The four or five guys that had graciously made room for us to plop our tired backsides down started asking more questions as they checked their manhood next to this 50-pound, girl. Anyway . . . that was a great day!

The Spark

     

View of Stoney Indian Pass from the vantage point of Cheney Glacier

A number of years ago a good friend of mine, Andrew Hansen and I took our farewell backpacking trip before we each moved away from home. It was a 5 day trip through the northern section of Glacier National Park. We had spent a lot of time inside of Glacier before that but this trip took us far into the backcountry of the Park. I was already in love with Glacier but this trip sparked something inside of me that could not be ignored. It was the last day of our trip and from just north of the Ptarmigan Tunnel we could see Ahern Glacier. Before I get to that I should back track a couple of days. 

     It was the third day into our trip and after an endless number of switchbacks our trail had climbed a couple thousand feet of elevation to Stoney Indian Lake. Now, sometimes you can survey the landscape from the trailhead and pretty much figure where a trail is going to take you because of the topography. Our eyes scoured the far shore and there was no obvious route past this walled-in lake. It was one of those places that we stood in awe and wondered where in the world someone would have constructed a trail through this cliffy, rugged terrain. We ended up on a ledge on the far side and zig-zagged our way up even more elevation through the cliffs on the other side. With extreme winds forcing us to tuck in or tie down any loose items we felt like we were on top of the world as we approached the tiny saddle between Stoney Indian Peak and the top of Glacier National Park which is 10,500 ft Mt Cleveland. We found refuge from the wind on the backside of a snowdrift that had lingered all the way to this first day of August. As we broke out sustenance to refuel we realized that this was the highest point we would reach on our 60 mile trek. As much as we felt like we were on the top of the world the truth started to soak in. We weren’t. Our perch gave us perspective of a landscape far above which didn’t take us long to realize was greatly unexplored and untouched by humans. We made a pact to return with more time to satisfy what was calling to something deep inside of us. Our viewpoint allowed us to see high, hanging valleys with waterfalls that misted down hundreds and even thousands of feet all around. What would draw attention as a main attraction in other areas of our nation didn’t even merit a name on our map of Glacier. Hidden far above, giant fields of ice and snow that never completely melt were the source of all this lush beauty. In another month winter would begin again and blanket this land with another puffy white and frozen layer locking out almost all life for another 9 month respite.

Fast forward 20 years to the day. Here we were standing in the exact spot as we did many years previous. The wind was not as fierce and the drift from our previous trip had melted weeks before. Two weeks ago Andrew messaged me and let me know that he and a buddy, Lance Fisher, were coming up to backpack into Glacier and wanted to know if I could go with. We didn’t plan to be in the same spot on the same day as that trip 20 years ago. In fact we only realized the significance as we were winding our way up those switchbacks under Stoney Indian Pass. We were anticipating the view from the top and comparing this trip with that one. We both had families now and the amount of hiking I was able to get out and do was minimal compared to what I imagined I would all those years ago. 35 lbs of 2-year-old tends to limit the amount of trail a person can cover in a day. Not to mention the amount of extra weight I had gained even without a kid on my back. It was this moment that I realized if I didn’t make a huge effort this “call of the wild” would largely go ignored in my life.  Only a few days a year in Glacier would not satisfy.  Was it possible to spend a majority of my summer inside Glacier? As a successful wedding photographer who’s business all but died as a result of the economic slump I was open to new ideas. I just didn’t want to have to put down my camera. 

Back to Ahern Glacier and our last day of this second time through the northcountry. A seed was now planted in my mind that I milled over for the next couple of years. Just north of Ptarmigan Tunnel there is a vantage point that allows the view of Ahern Glacier. My brief survey of this giant field of impossibly slow moving ice hanging on top of the world initiated this quest. I was going to hike, climb, scratch or claw to each of the glaciers inside of Glacier National Park. On my first journey through the northern section of Glacier all those years ago, there were 36 glaciers inside the borders of this national treasure. Now there are only 25 and by the year 2020 there will not be any left at all. My quest has morphed and transformed into what it is today largely due to the recent studies showing that we have little time left to experience these treasures. 

From a distance there is nothing special about a glacier. In fact, they are distinguishable from annual snow fields only in that they appear dirty because of the amount of dirt, leaves, pine needles, bugs and other debris they collect year to year while annual snow is relatively clean and white. Up close they take on a whole new intrigue. From formations they carve and shape in the local topography to the unique details specific to each glacier, actually exploring on-ice brings a whole new world of fascination.  There are only a handful that are accessible by trail and the shortest round trip is into Piegan Glacier which was 12 miles and an elevation gain and loss of around 5,000 ft. The Park Service will not allow an airdrop by helicopter and low lever arial photography is also prohibited. My own two feet are the only method of accessing Glacier’s glaciers. This summer my 3 older kiddos and I hiked and climbed many miles in order to photograph 19 of the 25 remaining glaciers. I am very proud of their tremendous effort in order to hang out with their crazy yetti-dad to complete his quest. More than once we drug our butts into a Glacier National Park backcountry campground well after sunset gutting out 15-mile plus days in order to capture images of glaciers at the “golden hour” of sunlight. We’d slog into a meal preparation area full of hikers who remarked on how tired we looked with questions of where we’d been and if the kiddos went all that way too. “They’re my little mountain goats in training” I’d reply with a wink and start my stove to cook our dinner. 

Well, there you have it. My quest is to preserve the crown jewels of our nation's Crown of the Continent through photographs forever. I will be using several elements of the social network to document our journey. In the late fall/winter of 2014 I’ll publish a coffee-table style book with a chapter dedicated to each of the Last 25. You’ll get to know me and meet my family as we are starting to be known as the real Wilderness Family.