Perseid meteor shower over Trail Ridge Road

This year I taught a night photography workshop in Rocky Mountain National Park. As the date approached the forecast was looking worse and worse with building evening thunderstorms every day. It's usual in August to have afternoon thunderstorms but typically they're gone by the time night presses in.

One of my clients was concerned about the weather and understandably decided last minute to not come to the workshop. I was still fairly confident we would have clear skies at some point in the night, I just wasn't sure at what time or for how long. Thankfully my worries were eased and the cloud cover on our first evening parted and the Milky Way was revealed.

Unfortunately our good luck was limited the first night and after a couple hours of shooting, fog starting to roll in and blanket our lenses with dew. We saw a number of meteors from the Perseid meteor shower but not a Sky filled with them that first night's clearing. For our second night I decided to head up to Trail Ridge Road to get the darkest skies as possible in the park and increase our field of view.

Again the same scenario played out and and cloudy skies parted to a blazing Milky Way and meteors popping everywhere. Without a strong foreground element I decided to set up my tent without stakes on a rocky area that wouldn't impact the fragile alpine tundra. I then proceeded to light up the tent and help everyone with their exposures. As we left our cameras running we saw meteor after meteor after meteor, the most I have ever seen in one night. They were all over the sky, so not many were ending up near the radiant source but we all enjoyed the view nonetheless.

The night was over all uneventful besides chasing off a curious coyote and soon the clouds rolled in again. We all left happy and enthralled from the night's adventure from one of my favorite nights in Rocky Mountain National Park.