Dawn at the Columbia Icefields

After a chilly night photographing and then sleeping at the foot of the Athabasca Glacier, I shook off the cold with a cup of tea before getting out of my sleeping bag and taking a look around.  It was about 5:30 am when I was up and the blues and whites in the sky and on the mountains were lovely as they waited for the sun to light them up.

The image above was made at 5:47 am and less than 10 minutes later, the pink sunlight of dawn was splashing the upper reaches of the mountains on either side of the glacier.  It was beautiful and I took turns between watching the light move across the slopes and trying to remember to photograph.

I started where the light first reached along Parker Ridge and Hilda Peak on the western side of the Sunwapta Pass, then worked to the right watching as Mount Athabasca and Mount Andromeda were hit with shafts of light here and there.

I panned across the Athabasca Glacier towards the Dome Glacier and saw the light show unfolding there a couple of minutes behind my location.  I ran to my car and drove to a viewpoint where I could see up the valley to the glacier and up to the peak of Mount Kitchener (the first image in this post).  It proved to be a good move and I was able to watch the sunlight as it transitioned from pink into gold.

When the golden hue started to drain out of the light, I packed up and headed north towards Jasper.  A couple of kilometres down the road, I noticed this peak still basking in beautiful light.  I stopped and made this last image of a fine morning in the Rocky Mountains.