Lake O'Hara Trail and Cathedral Mountain
The alpine hike around Lake O’Hara and surrounding wilderness is an epic, bucket-list type of hike. Just make sure to plan ahead as they only distribute a handful of hiking permits per day, so call weeks in advance and get your permit.
The day we had our scheduled permit, forecasts where calling for thunderstorms, heavy thunderstorms. Oh great (enter other profanity here that are not appropriate for this social site), I kept thinking the days leading up to our scheduled hike, if the forecast was right, we wouldn’t be able to go because it would be too dangerous to be hiking on an alpine trail in that type of weather. The morning of our hike/permit we woke and those thunderstorms were still in the days forecast, but damn it, we were going up to give it a try no matter what. By the time we arrived there were small sun bursts breaking through the clouds and even though we had a passing rain shower a couple of times during our trek around the alpine trail, we were gifted by some of the most dramatic clouds and sky we could have ever wished for. Including this scene as we were at the far point of the loop looking down onto Hungabee Lake with the majestic Cathedral Mountain in the distance. We were no more than about 10-15 minutes out from our semi-wet lunch, when we came across this high point in the trail and the sun began peaking through the clouds and onto the mountain range across from us. I quickly pulled my tripod off my shoulder and acted quickly and was able to capture a few frames before the sun was swallowed up again by the clouds.