Photography: Mountain Goat at Hidden Lake

My 500th post! Here is another picture from Glacier National Park that you can download for your computer's desktop. Prints of this photo can be purchased in my Etsy store. Use coupon code 5OFF2013 to receive $5 off any purchase of $15 or more.

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO...

In Logan Pass, where snow can drift up to 80 feet high in winter, I pulled off of the Going-to-the-Sun Road to stretch my legs on a 3-mile hike to Hidden Lake. When the lake was in view, the sun was about to tuck in behind the mountains. The color in the sky warmed up a bit and rays of light shone through the clouds and reached between the mountains toward the lake. I setup my tripod for a picture.

While looking through my camera’s eyepiece, I heard hooves on the rocks behind me. A mountain goat stood a few feet away. It stopped to stare at me. Soon it was joined by another goat, then a baby, then suddenly a half dozen were walking all around me. My camera never clicked so much.

The goat in this picture walked away from the crowd and just stared out at the view. After I got the shot, he lay on the ground and stayed there long after all the other goats left. It’s as though he only came out for the view and didn't want to leave until the sun fully set. If that were the case, we had something in common.

  

A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.