Rocky Mountain's a solid dark-sky site when you can get away from the summer traffic. I've shot Milky Way arcs over the Mummy Range a few times, that kind of high-altitude clarity doesn't exist down in the basin. If you were there last month you caught the core rising southeast just before dawn, probably around four thirty. Worth the cold if you had clear skies.

Rocky Mountain has that open-space thing that makes you forget to blink. Last time I tried a mountain landscape I drew the whole foreground too tight and the page felt claustrophobic, completely missed what the place actually does to your eye. You nailed the part that matters: giving someone a second to just sit in it.