When the Mountains in Glacier and Waterton vanished

We thought we had left the smoke behind. Instead, it was waiting for us, erasing the mountains in two of North America’s most breathtaking national parks: Glacier and Waterton.

What Does It Feel Like to Be in Over 40°C (104°F) Heat?

I had never experienced temperatures above 40°C (104°F) until we began crossing the vast plains of the American West. Opening the car door felt like opening the door of an oven. Every time I stepped out of the air-conditioned refuge of our vehicle, a blast of hot, dry air hit me with surprising force.

Before leaving Maryland, I had sewn mosquito screens and attached magnets so they could stick to the door frames. They turned out to be perfect for the heat, dramatically lowering the temperature inside the car, even when it was parked under the blazing sun.

The afternoons were the hottest, and since we were driving west, the sun was directly in front of us. I found myself thinking about the Bedouins crossing the desert, completely covered from head to toe, and suddenly understood why. Whenever the sun touched my skin, it felt as if a scorching iron had been pressed against it. I could even feel the heat burning through the fabric of my pants. Eventually, I put on a sweater as well, simply to shield myself from the relentless sunlight.

My biggest problem, however, was my hands.

So, I went into the largest sporting goods store I had ever seen. It stretched for what seemed like several city blocks and sold every kind of outdoor equipment imaginable. Since it was air-conditioned, Martín and I happily wandered through every corner of the store.

There were at least ten different glove sections: cycling gloves, football gloves, golf gloves, and many more. Unable to find what I needed, we asked an employee for help. He started asking questions and then came up with the strangest one.

“Do you want them sticky?”

The question caught me completely off guard until I realized that some sports gloves have tacky palms to improve grip on a ball.

“No,” I replied, horrified at the thought of wearing rubber gloves under that blazing sun.

We kept searching. Some gloves were lightweight but black, which would only make my hands feel hotter. Then he asked another unexpected question.

“How big are your hands?”

I laughed, realizing I had never made such a specialized purchase before.

“Kids’ gloves come in different colors,” he said.

Fortunately, my hands are very small, and I found a pair of thin, white children’s gloves that fit perfectly.

Problem solved.

The Real Danger of the Heat

Extreme temperatures are not only something you feel on your skin while driving. They are something you breathe.

Yesterday, as we drove toward the Canadian border, the blue sky slowly disappeared. A dense, milky gray haze spread across the landscape, and I couldn’t believe we had run into wildfire smoke once again.

These were not storm clouds. The haze was smoke carried by the wind from numerous active wildfires. At that very moment, thousands of hectares were also burning across the United States.

We stopped at a gas station because I simply couldn’t understand how, after changing our travel plans to escape the smoke, we had found ourselves surrounded by it again.

The place was so remote that we had no cell service, so I asked the cashier what was happening. She was a middle-aged woman who seemed puzzled by my question at first. Then she realized what I meant.

“Oh, you mean the smoke?” she said. “We’ve had much worse days. It doesn’t really bother us anymore. What bothers us is that the government won’t let people cut down the trees. That’s why they burn. They should build roads into the forests so the logging companies can cut them instead of letting them turn into ashes.”

I was speechless.

A few minutes later, Martín joked that she already had a political platform and could probably run for president.

Yet her reasoning wasn’t all that different from the message governments often communicate on their official websites to reassure the public:

“Wildfires are a natural part of the forest’s life cycle and often help forests regenerate.”

“Although wildfires, insects, and disease may temporarily reduce forest cover, it is important to remember that trees almost always grow back.”

“A forest that will grow back is still a forest.”

What we have witnessed during our journey tells a much more complicated story.

Every year, these fires seem larger, more unpredictable, and increasingly impossible to control. I have seen places where the forest simply never returned.

Recuerdos del parque nacional de Mesa Verde, Colorado, enero 2021

However, what we have witnessed throughout our travels is far more complex. Today’s wildfires are becoming larger, more intense, and increasingly unpredictable. When fires burn at extreme temperatures, they can destroy seeds, alter the soil, and fundamentally change the conditions that once allowed the original forest to thrive.

In January 2021, during a visit to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, we saw areas where wildfires from three decades earlier had transformed once-forested hillsides into expanses of dry shrubland. That landscape had never returned to what it once was.

Glacier and Waterton: When Smoke Erased the Mountains

I felt defeated as the smoke grew thicker and thicker. We were already on the road when, with great disappointment, we decided to cancel our visit to Glacier National Park. The smoke erased the contrasts, muted the colors, and turned the park’s towering peaks into flat, ghostly silhouettes.

Martín and I had visited Glacier in 2021. It had been an extraordinary experience, although there was still so much snow that we couldn’t reach several of its most iconic places. That was why we decided to include the park once again in our 2026 journey.

One of my strongest memories from that trip took place near Chief Mountain, an immense block of ancient rock known as Ninaistako by the Indigenous peoples of the region, who continue to hold ceremonies and sacred traditions there.

On June 21, during the summer solstice, we watched the sun disappear beneath a crystal-clear sky while a few clouds shimmered with golden, iridescent light. Then I turned around and discovered a brilliant silver full moon rising through soft pink clouds behind me.

It was one of those moments that never leave your memory, and I had been looking forward to seeing that magnificent mountain again.

This time, however, we could barely make out its silhouette through the smoke.

We crossed back into Canada in search of clearer skies over the Rocky Mountains, but all we could see were the pale outlines of what should have been a spectacular landscape.

So instead of looking toward the distant peaks, we knelt down to admire what remained close at our feet: wildflowers, dandelion seeds floating in the breeze, and butterflies.

As we continued through Canada, we soon encountered a heartbreaking sight.

Entire mountainsides in Waterton looked like cemeteries of blackened, lifeless tree trunks. They were the scars left by the Kenow Fire, which burned nearly 38 percent of Waterton Lakes National Park in a single night in September 2017.

Nearly a decade had passed, yet the old forest had still not returned.

At these northern latitudes, it can take centuries for a forest to recover its maturity and ecological complexity. Although wildflowers, shrubs, and grasses now blanket many of the valleys, they represent a different kind of recovery. The ecosystem will never be exactly what it was before.

Near the hotels and popular viewpoints, we noticed rows of young pine trees planted neatly in an effort to bring green back to the landscape. Around them, visitors chatted, listened to music, and posed for photographs beside the lake.

I wanted to cry.

Not because anyone was doing anything wrong, but because I realized how easily we can grow accustomed to a wounded landscape once we no longer remember what it used to be.

As evening approached, however, the wind finally granted us a brief reprieve.

We left the bustle of the village behind and found a quiet spot along the roadside. We remembered it well because only a few hours earlier we had seen a black bear there.

Keeping our bear spray close at hand, we stepped out of the car and waited for the colors of sunset.

As we watched the western sky, something extraordinary happened behind us.

An enormous golden moon began rising in the east. It slowly emerged above the dark outline of the mountains and, moments later, its reflection appeared perfectly mirrored on the still waters of the lake.

It was a reminder that despite the scars on the landscape and the smoke that continued to suffocate the forests, the Earth was still alive with majestic strength, waiting for those willing to pause in wonder.

We ended the night driving for nearly forty minutes beneath a sky painted with the colors of twilight, the mountains finally standing in sharp silhouette against the horizon.

The wind had carried the smoke away, and at last we were able to fill our lungs with the clean, cold air of the night.

The Next Morning, the Park Still Had One More Surprise Waiting for Us

The town of Waterton lies nestled between towering mountains sculpted by glaciers over millions of years and the deep blue waters of a beautiful lake. Just a few miles from the U.S. border, it is the heart of Waterton Lakes National Park.

The first thing that surprised me when we arrived was the complete absence of internet service. I also noticed that no one was sitting around staring at their phones. At the same time, without a signal, there was no way to use our GPS.

While the staff at the visitor center pointed out places of interest on a map, a photograph of a small stream winding through a canyon of brilliant red rock immediately caught my attention. They handed us a paper map on the spot, which turned out to be exactly what we needed.

We left the village and followed a narrow mountain road. When we reached the canyon, I was struck by one remarkable contrast: it was the only place where water had protected the vegetation. Ancient pine trees still stood there with vibrant green branches, while only a few yards away the devastation was complete.

I tried to focus on the beauty of the rocks, on the strange green and yellow veins running through them, and on the crystal-clear water as it flowed into small waterfalls and tranquil pools. Plants clung to the vertical walls, and cushions of brilliant green moss filled the cracks between the stones. The dry rock was the color of deep burgundy wine, while the wet surfaces glowed with a rich, saturated crimson.

For a moment I imagined what this place must look like in the rain. Although I never saw it with my own eyes, I could almost feel it within me.

For many of us, climate change still feels like something distant, something happening somewhere else. Yet as I write this journal, I realize it is gradually becoming an unplanned visual chronicle of our own time, an era in which human activity has profoundly altered the Earth’s ecosystems and climate.

For many years, I believed my work was to photograph the beauty of our planet. Today, I feel it is also my responsibility to document its wounds.

Not to replace hope with fear, but to remind us that both exist within the same landscape.

That is why I photograph both: the burned forest and the wildflowers growing among its remains, mountains erased by smoke and the moon returning to illuminate the water.

Because only by seeing both can we begin to understand the full story of our time.

Breaking news!

There is a profound irony in traveling in pursuit of landscapes only to be met with nothingness. Our route brought us today to the heart of Jasper National Park in Alberta. We arrived full of excitement, ready to capture the towering peaks of the Canadian Rockies and the turquoise rivers and lakes we had seen so often in photos. Instead, we encountered a dense, gray, ghostly wall. The mountains had simply vanished.

The majestic Athabasca River—which ought to be framed by colossal peaks—flows silently today beneath a heavy sky that erases any trace of the horizon. Wildfires in neighboring British Columbia have driven in such a massive cloud of smoke that Canadian government alerts have just hit the maximum level: 11. High health risk.

What we came looking for 👆 and what we found 👇

And here you will see the route of this week, where we traveled for 1000 miles