@Julie_Gunstensen , thanks for your comments!
The only way to get higher up from the this spot would be to use a drone! 
One thing I will suggest is to think about how a scene like this is viewed with your eyes. Usually when you look upon a scene with multiple layers over a long distance, each layer decreases in contrast the further away it is. In your photo the contrast is the same across the whole photo, making it loose that sense of depth.
That’s an interesting take on this image. In general, I agree with you, but in this case, the magnificent light show in the background was very contrasty and bright. The foreground was not. With this image, the primary areas of interest are the sky and then the snow-covered mountain, and so I left them intentionally a little bit lighter than their surroundings. (The eye tends to go to the brighter parts of an image first.).
Just some nitpicking, is the right side a bit dark? I actually think the right side could be cropped out so that you are left with a 1:1 crop of the left side (where the interest is). But that is just my personal though.
Yes, it is brighter on the LH side, but that is from the directionality of the light. I might try adding a linear gradient to lessen it a bit. I might try a 1:1 crop, too, just for fun, but I do like the balance of the composition as-is.