Photos of Sunrise over East Inlet and Snow Capped Mt Baldy RMNP Colorado

Photos of Sunrise over East Inlet and Snow Capped Mt Baldy RMNP Colorado. These images were captured on an early Summer morning hike to the East Inlet Meadow. The East Inlet is located on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park and feeds into the waters of Grand Lake. As we arrived at our destination, a rare sight stood before us, a snow capped Mt Baldy in the summer. It had snowed the night before and snow is rarely visible on Mt Craig this late in the season as it normally melts by sunrise. In these images, Mount Craig or Mount Baldy as its affectionately named by locals, reflects upon the still waters of East Inlet. This expansive meadow view along with the S curve of the East Inlet waters is reminiscent of the winding sake river below the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.

Wildlife on the West Side of Rocky

Elk and Moose are often spotted along the trail grazing upon the lush meadow grasses. In fact, on our hike we ran into a Moose standing in the middle of the trail 10-15 yards in front of us. As it was still dark, he was only illuminated by our headlamps. We stood there for a few minutes and waited for him to make his way off the trail. Eventually, he slowly walked off the trail into a nearby grassy marsh. We then were able to continue our hike on the narrow path to our destination. This was not the last of our Moose encounters. Unbeknownst to us, a cow and her calf we bedded down 20-30 yards behind us while taking these photos. We could hear noises in the woods and upon leaving my photo buddy had spotted them through the trees.

Rocky Mountain National Park East Inlet Meadow Photo Gallery

These photos of the East Inlet Meadow and Mount Baldy were taken on June 24, 2019 between 5:11am and 7:18am.

Technical Details for Photography of East Inlet and Snowcapped Mount Baldy

The following camera gear was used in the Landscape Photography of the East Inlet meadow and snowcapped Mount Baldy in Rocky Mountain National Park:

• the Nikon Z7 with a Really Right Stuff L-Bracket,
• NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S lens,
• the NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S lens,
• a Really Right Stuff TVC-24 Mk2 Apex tripod,
• the Series 2 Leveling Base,
• a Really Right Stuff BH-40 LR Ballhead,
• and the F-Stop Gear Aloe Green Tilopa 50L Back Pack (with large Pro ICU).

This is a moderate and beautiful hike on the lush West side of Rocky Mountain National Park. The photo to the right was taken toward the end of our trip just before the sun rose above the peaks. These photos were all taken on the Really Right Stuff TVC-24 Mk2 Apex tripod The exposures for the images averaged between 8 seconds to 1/100 of a second at f/9. We used the Z7’s native ISO of 64.  Adobe Lightroom Classic CC was used for most of the RAW image processing. A few of the photos were then edited in Photoshop from a single exposure using Luminosity masks. This was done to add more tone and color to the brightest areas of the sky.

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