Back in 2004 I made a road trip on my motorcycle to the west coast. During the 3 week trip I road 4200 miles. I drove down the northwest coast of Washington into Oregon, ate seafood in Seattle and tried to cover as many National Parks as I could fit into the schedule. I camped along the road except for 4 four nights, setting up camp primarily in National Parks.

I only scheduled one afternoon and night in Glacier National Park which is not near enough time to really see the park. I setup camp in one of the campgrounds near Lake McDonald but for the life of me can’t remember which one. The previous year was one of the worst seasons of fire in Glacier National Park. A 136,00 acres were burned that year. One of the largest fires was the Roberts Fire, which burned 57,570 acres, that is near the lake. I could see the barren and naked landscape across the lake. There was a fire burning nearby, causing a haze to settle into the lower valleys of the park.

It’s cold outside this evening so I’m going through my archives and found this image that caused me to remember  the trip. I wrote about this trip before and have a color image or the lake, if you care to check it out. I converted this image to black and white with Silver Efex Pro using one of the presets then making a few simple adjustments in Lightroom 4.

A final thought : I have in the past wished we had more respect for nature but I think I would rather we understood that “we are nature.”