Teapot Lake

My alarm woke me up at 4:00 a.m. this morning.  I rolled out of bed, took a few steps then sat down and asked myself “Do I really want to do this?”  I thought I could sleep a few more hours and still do an early morning hike and there was a good chance that the sunrise photo opportunity I was hoping for would turn out to be disappointing.  I thought at least I have a good book to listen to in the car (Neil Peart’s Traveling Music), I want to do a high elevation hike and everything is packed and ready to go.  So I stood up and got ready.  This was the third time in the last two months I’ve driven to Teapot Lake in the dark dodging deer, raccoons and porcupines.  As planned, it was still dark when I got there.  There was a little moon light but I still needed a flash light to find my way around the wet grass and soggy dirt along the edges of the lake.  I immediately had my camera on the tripod and started taking pictures.  

Using 30 second shutter speeds made it look like it was much lighter than it really was.  The sky soon began to grow lighter as the sun was beginning to come around again.  

I had anticipated the mist on the lake.  Last time I was there to try to photograph the Perseid meteor shower there was a little mist rising so I figured it would make for interesting sunrise photos.  

After the sun was up and the best light was over I hiked Bald Mountain which can be seen in the distance in most of these photos.  

I’m glad I didn’t go back to sleep.  If I had I am sure I would have had the kind of Sunday that would be forgotten by Wednesday.  Instead I had the kind of Sunday I will always remember.