Scouting for Milky Way Photography in Rocky Mountain National Park

It's April, which means that we're still in the early stages of Milky Way season for 2026. I was hoping to get some early-season Milky Way shots in this past weekend, which meant that I needed to get out and find a location. I had a few contenders in mind, but one that I was hoping would work was Mills Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

I did my usual procedure of loading the location PhotoPills and using that to try to gauge where the Milky Way would be in the sky compared to the landscape. The thing that's tricky about shooting the Milky Way this time of year, though, is that it's very low and horizontal in the sky. Looking at the alignment in PhotoPills, I couldn't quite tell if the core would be able to make it over the mountains.

I had no choice but to get boots on the ground and do some scouting!

Video

The Hike

The hike up to Mills Lake is pretty straightforward. You park at the Bear Lake trailhead and take the Glacier Gorge Trail up to the Black Lake Trail, which takes you right to Mills Lake.

All in, the out-and-back hike ended up being 5.8 miles with 888 feet of elevation gain. It's not a bad little day hike in the mountains!

Alberta Falls

About a mile and a half into the hike, you'll hit Alberta Falls. Never having been to this area, and with my unhealthy obsession with waterfalls, I knew that I wanted to try to photograph it.

Alberta Falls is a nice-looking waterfall, but it ended up being pretty challenging to shoot. For starters, you're extremely limited with your compositions. There's really only one place along the trail that you can stand to frame the falls. I did contemplate going down into the creek to shoot it, but I actually don't think this angle would really work for this falls. Maybe if you waded and climbed up on the boulders at the base of the waterfall, but I'm still not convinced that this angle would be worth the risk.

Additionally, because the falls are in a bit of a gorge, the lighting wasn't amazing during my visit. Despite this, I decided to give shooting it a try. While I'm not going to be winning any awards for my shot, it did turn out a bit better than I was expecting.

Continuing to Mills Lake

With photographing Alberta Falls out of the way, I continued my way up the Glacier Gorge trail, working my way up to Mills Lake. Along the way, there were several places where the snow and ice were still quite prevalent, so I was glad I had my microspikes for this trip!

Other than these snowy sections and some whipping winds, the trail conditions were actually pretty great. It was a clear day with warm temperatures. Combine this with some of the amazing scenery, and it made for a great morning in the Rockies!

As I continued my hike up, I found a few different places that seemed like good contenders for a Milky Way shoot, but not this early in the year. I continued my way up to Mills Lake.

Mills Lake

It didn't take me long at all to make it all the way up to Mills Lake. My initial impressions of the area were just how beautiful it is. Having spent the majority of my life in Appalachia, alpine lakes like this never cease to amaze me.

I took this opportunity to take a break, soak in the views, and, more importantly, analyze where the Milky Way would be in the sky. Unfortunately, my fears turned out to be warranted. This early in the season, the Milky Way just isn't going to work here.

With that said, all is not lost! While this location doesn't really work for a Milky Way right now, it certainly does during other times of the year. I took note of this for future planning purposes.

Besides, it's hard to have a bad day when you're hiking in this kind of scenery!