Glacial Flour in Lake Haiyaha

Pools in Chaos Creek below Lake Haiyaha in Rocky Mountain National Forest, filled with glacial flour, reflect the intense blue of a clear sky on a sunny day.

I often wake naturally around 3am, and instead of just lying there, or forcing myself to go back to sleep, I get up and usually head into the mountains to photograph the sunrise. I had heard of a land slide far up above tree line that filled Lake Haiyaha and Choas Creek with “glacial flour”, the super fine sediment that results from such geological activity, and wanted to capture this rare and ephemeral event.

I started at Bear Lake and pushed past Nymph Lake and Dream Lake, wanting to get to Lake Haiyaha as soon as possible. Once I reached the smaller pools below the lake, I scrambled my way up the large boulders shooting various scenes. By the time I reached the lake, the sun was already too high, and thus the lighting a bit too harsh for great photographs, but I used the opportunity to scout for a good spot to shoot from in the future.

On the way back down, bush whacking and scrambling my way back to the trail, I missed the signs and ended up half way down Glacier Gorge towards Loch & Mills Lake Junction before realizing I was a couple miles off course. It served as a reminder to be prepared for anything in the mountains. By this time I had run out of water and food, and so ended up foraging for whortleberries before heading back up to Lake Haiyaha to catch the trail back down to Bear Lake.

It ended up being a much longer and arduous journey than I had anticipated or prepared for, but I did get some great shots, and now have several places in mind to shoot from on a more cloudy and overcast day when the light is more diffuse.