Pettit Lake Sunrise

Horizontal orientation. Canvas prints are available with optional barnwood or hardwood floating frames hand-crafted by the photographer, making a truly unique and one-of-a-kind piece of art. Please see images for details.

For my first visit to the Sawtooth Mountains in July 2023, I chose to hike to Alice Lake, on the Alice-Toxaway Loop. I left home at 3:00am and arrived at the trailhead at 6:00. The hike begins along the shore of Pettit Lake, and I stopped several times along the shoreline to photograph the lake. I was accustomed to the July heat in Twin Falls and didn’t quite expect it to be 30 degrees cooler in the mountains, but it was quite refreshing. I intended to hike about 7 miles to Alice Lake and back, but I arrived there much sooner than I expected and wasn’t quite ready to turn back. I ended up choosing to hike the entire loop, which took me until about 6:00pm with all my photo stops. My GPS showed a total of 21 miles overall, but the entire hike was beautiful. I took more photos in one day than I had ever done before! This scene caught my attention because the water was smooth as glass, reflecting like a mirror the golden sunlight and residual mist along the opposite shoreline. Just this scene alone made the early morning worthwhile!