The Rocky Mountains are certainly a major feature of the Western United States.  However, while they are very large both in size and height, I do not often find them as interesting as the Sierra Nevadas or the red rock country of Utah and New Mexico.  There of course are always exceptions.

After a long hike up into the high country, this lake is discovered near the end of a long hiking trail.  The attraction to me was the sharp peak, created by a glacier carving out a U-shaped valley to one side of the peak.  This glacier valley cut away the mountain, leaving the sharp peak you see today.  Put this behind a lake, and a nice blue sky above, and my camera goes into “auto-capture” mode:  clickclickclick… 🙂

This photo was captured later summer of 1999 using my Canon Elan camera and Kodak Gold 100 film. The panorama was stitched from 4 portrait images captured with manual exposure to force all exposures to be the same.

I look at this image fondly, knowing I will never again see it in real life.  I am now too old for such a hike!