A Winter Walk on the Mountain Loop Highway

Winter is always a strange time for me to get out and shoot. I love photographing in the snow, and I love how a blanket of snow simplifies a scene. But, it’s often tricky for me to actually get out during the winter, as it’s always a somewhat long drive to get to snow, and that has to play nice with my schedule. Then there’s the avalanche conditions to consider, which always complicates access to some of my favorite places. And of course, winter is right after fall, which is usually when I’m out shooting a lot, so I have a huge backlog of photos to process. By the time I come up for air, it’s already well into wintertime!

Despite all those challenges, I still do manage to get out a couple of times during the winter. This year, we had a great opportunity right as the kids were starting winter break. It had just snowed, and the weather was supposed to be clear and cold, but we wanted to avoid the crowds. So, off to the Mountain Loop Highway we went. This is a great spot as there’s no ski area, no lodge, and no through traffic. Simply drive to the end of the road, park, and start walking. The road is shared by walkers, snowshoers, cross-country skiers, and snowmobilers, but there usually aren’t very many people, and there’s plenty of space for everyone. You can walk the road as far as you want, but we only walked a mile or two up. Nonetheless, the views were gorgeous, even right from the parking lot!

The fresh coat of snow looked amazing in the morning light, and the fog swirling around made for some great scenes. I love shooting in conditions like this, as the fog is constantly in motion, hiding and revealing scenes moment to moment. In addition, the fog acts as a filter for the sunlight too, so the light can transition quickly from soft to hard. Since we were on the road and without snowshoes, my ability to move for a shot was limited to just the road, so a longer lens was essential (I used my trusty RF 70-200). The longer focal lengths allowed me to get close on interesting scenes and cut out the clutter.

As we walked, more interesting scenes revealed themselves. We moved slowly, both because the kids aren’t super fast, but also I was turning around to take pictures!

Eventually, we turned the corner and the angle of the sun on the trees changed. The view to the south had previously been mostly in the shade, but now the sun was providing some strong side light that lit up the trees in interesting ways. Whenever the sun does this, especially in the winter, the result is usually warm colors in the highlights and cool tones in the shadows, and that’s exactly what we got. Coupled with the fog, it made for some really awesome winter scenes! In addition to that, when I turned around the other direction, there was more fog and more interesting light on some peaks we had already passed.

It was a great day out in the mountains. Everyone had fun - we all got a great walk, the kids got to play in the snow, and I managed to grab some nice pictures. Even though we only made it a short ways, nobody seemed to mind. It’s an area we’ll certainly be back to soon!