McKenzie, Keiko and I left Kalispell last Friday at 4:00 AM in order to reach the summit of Logan Pass in Glacier National Park before sunrise. As soon as we arrived we set about girding our loins for the battle ahead…swarms of mosquitoes defended the wooden walkway above the visitors center. We sprayed each other down and Kenzie and Keiko went to change and I ascended the stairway which took us to the trail. I waited at the top, and had a staring contest with a Bighorn sheep who was grazing at the corner of the building…it was obvious he was in no hurry to leave on my account. The girls were prompt and we headed up the boardwalk to find the right spot which would allow us to photograph Kenz and Mt. Oberlin at the same time. We found it, but the lighting was not as good as expected so after a few exposures we moved off to the side and that was when the repellent began to wear off for Keiko and I. McKenzie was fine …she was standing on a rock knoll that must have been getting just enough of a breeze to keep the dreaded insects at bay. I decided that we’d had enough fun and we retreated outnumbered by a billion to one!
As soon as we left the hill, it started to rain. And it rained…and rained. We all sat in the vehicle staring in silence at the rain bouncing off the windshield…we were bummed. Our next site was to be the Highline Trail, but there is no way I wanted to put Kenzie out on a rain-slickened rock ledge above the Going-to-the-Sun highway. We drove down off the summit to the east and hoped that our third site wasn’t getting rained out. The rain slackened and then quit and we could see the sun shining on St. Mary’s, a small town at the east entrance of the park. It was looking good. We back-tracked a bit to a restroom for a change of costume and by the time we were ready to go it had started raining again.
We drove back to the summit where it was raining even harder, we sat in gloomy silence. Finally it quit. Simultaneously, Keiko and Kenzie said, “Let’s do this!” and I agreed. I dropped them off at the trailhead near the parking lot and drove to the observation deck below the trail and across the highway…about 100 yards away.
They walked to the rocky ledge of the area where we had discussed would be our shoot area and I was ready at nearly the same time. We had walkie-talkies to communicate with each other and we commenced with the shoot. At the same instant we started the shoot, the wind picked up and the rain started to drizzle. I asked Kenzie if she wanted to quit and she told me that it wasn’t that bad, so we continued. What a trooper!
Now, when you hike or visit Glacier National Park, the last very last thing you expect to see on the trail is a ballerina in a pink tutu! People stopped in amazement (or possibly confusion…thinking they’d taken the wrong turn somewhere along the trail) to ask what was going on and it was explained that it was a photo shoot…then they wanted to know where the photographer was (as it was pretty obvious there was none standing nearby) and when the girls pointed out my location (which was shrouded by the shrubby alpine vegetation) they couldn’t see a thing and probably thought the girls were on drugs! My side was equally as hilarious. At one point I was using my 500mm lens, which is quite an attention getter…it’s big and white and about three feet long. Of course people, mainly men, would ask what I was taking a picture of…a goat? I told them, “A dancer.” They asked, “What kind of goat is that?” I replied, “It’s not…it’s a dancer.” “Well, what kind of sheep is a dancer?” still not getting it. I said, “It’s a girl in a tutu standing on the ledge across the highway.” Silence.
To view a slideshow of more images from this shoot click on this link: Kenzie’s Midsummer Daydream
If you have never watched a Photodex slideshow you will be asked to install their plug-in, which is necessary to view this show. It’s harmless and doesn’t take up much space and it loads quickly. This is a great program for watching slideshows of images! Try it.
Finally we were able to finish shooting and I called them off the rock face and we met at the summit parking lot and we exchanged our respective stories of the disbelief and confusion we’d spread among the tourists of Glacier National park that day. We laughed long and hard.
We’d triumphed over ravenous mosquitoes, wind and rain, disappointment and weird looks from the visitors…and we’d gotten most of the shots we came to get. We would have to return and reshoot “The Ledge” portion of the shoot and also the Sunrift Gorge scenes, but our day at the park was a success and we had a good laugh doing it.
