Why I packed the alarm clock on vacation.

Why would anyone get up before 6am on their vacation? My answer lately has been "To catch the morning light".

When you're just days from the summer solstice, as we were in early June in Waterton National Park, that means getting up and rolling early. The sky just starts to show light about 5:45 and suddenly at 6 the sunlight is streaming across the prairie and straight in to the mountain valley. Luckily my wife shares my early morning obsessions some days and we were up and out chasing the first light.

Thank goodness we had prepared a thermos of coffee the night before!



Many balsamroot plants at the valley level had flowered in late May or early June and were starting to show to look pretty tattered by the time we were there in mid June. We were lucky to find this cluster in good condition and I wanted to shoot them from an angle other than our usual downward looking viewpoint. I was struck by the low angle sunlight striking these and had the advantage of both a mountain ridge and a glorious blue sky as a backdrop.