I spent a beautiful Spring weekend hiking around the Mississippi River bluffs in Frontenac State Park. Despite the great weather and scenery, I wasn’t able to create any photographs I was happy with. If you’re heading to the park, it offers 3 distinct ecosystems to play with. Like many other Minnesota parks, it has the usual woods and plains areas, but it also offers some beautiful bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. These turned out to be great places to catch the sun rise. At this time of the year, the sun was rising over the river, allowing the photographer to use a hard-step GND to hold back the sky and bring out the bluffs on the opposite bank. If you’re lucky, a thin veil of fog can develop on the river. For me it wasn’t just a thin veil but a cloud bank that rose up from the water and climbed into the sky. It was interesting to watch, but didn’t end up being very photogenic.

For the other end of the day, the plains area proved to offer equally interesting views. Because of its relatively elevated position, the plains in the center of the park have a clear horizon for sunset. There is a road running through the area that can give nice leading lines, and even a few trees to create some shadow or ray patterns.

While the park doesn’t offer that much in the way of trail mileage, many of the bluff trails go up and down the 400 foot cliffs. This exercise makes up for the shorter hikes (especially for us flat-landers).