Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Lost Lake, Kebler Pass, Colorado

Click here to hear an audio report from the field.

On the last stop of the Fall Colors 2008 Tour, I just couldn’t stay away from Kebler Pass, it’s like an old friend or coming home.  I must admit that I was a little worried driving in last night that I was too late as at least half of the leaves have already dropped.  So my tactic was to camp at the Lost Lake campground and hike the Three Lakes trail for sunrise.  This is a trail that I hiked way back on my very first Fall Colors tour in 2005 and where I got the popular “Lost Lake Mist” image.  I decided that I wanted to revisit these places as I am much further up the technical learning curve now and perhaps I could get some better images.

As I set out this morning the snow on Mt. Beckwith was glowing brightly and the reflection of Mt. Beckwith on the glass-smooth Lost Lake Slough was perfect, but I pressed on for Lost Lake itself.  The night was cool and there was lots of frost on the ground and not a cloud in the sky, so I knew that there would be little color in the sunrise and that my strategy looked good.  I got up to Lost Lake, huffing and puffing after a couple of hundred foot climb, and unfortunately there wasn’t any mist rising off the lake and the scene was unremarkable.  I did take some pictures, since I was there, and then pressed on for the falls feeding into the lake.  The waterfalls were ringed with ice and some of the green moss peeked through the rushing water and I stopped down my lens to get as long an exposure as possible in order to blur the water.  I am really hopeful that picture turns out.

I then moved on down the trail to Dollar Lake, which was nice but did not really excite me for a picture, but then I followed a little side trail and came upon a sweeping overlook of the entire Kebler Pass valley with the dike and Ruby Peak in the background.  The light was very harsh and from the side and a lot of the Aspen trees are bare, not really a good time for a picture there, but definitely a good spot for late afternoon or evening when the Aspen are peaking.

I figured I was done and started on the trail down the ridgeline back to the campground and was stunned as I came upon scene after scene that I wanted to capture.  The trail was still not in direct sunlight yet and the warm glow lit up the millions of aspen leaves carpeting the trail and forest floor and each scene looked more inviting than the last.  As I was taking the picture above I was yelled at by a protective chipmunk and I could swear that he was throwing stuff down on me.  The wonderful grandeur and beauty made me want to keep moving down the trail to see what was around the next corner, but at the same time I didn’t want it to end, because I know that from here I will start my journey back to Denver and civilization.  I wish that I could bring all of you out here to experience these wonderful moments that happen to me, and I think that my pictures capture part of that.  Kebler Pass is still my all-time favorite place to view aspen in Colorado.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge

Click here to hear an audio report from the field.

Chanced by these Sandhill Cranes on their migration through Colorado, they are absolutely majestic birds and it was fun to hear them talking to each other as I looked on.  Click on the Audio Report above to hear them.

Monday, October 06, 2008

La Manga Pass, Colorado

Decided to travel down to far southern Colorado to try something new and am I happy that I did.  I have driven over La Manga pass countless times on the way to our place down in Regina, New Mexico, but I always had the family in tow and never took the chance to photograph it.  I did a speed run down from Denver and stopped by the Forest Service office in La Jara and formulated a plan to shoot on La Manga and then try to spend the night at a campground up the Conejos River Valley.  I started on the far south side of the pass, right on the border wth New Mexico, and slowly worked my way back.  By the time the sun was going down I set up at the top of a road cut overlooking the Conejos River Valley shown above.  The color developed slowly and in a subtle way but I was able to capture a little of the aspens in the valley itself.  If you look closely at the picture the shadow areas have been enhanced and are pretty noisy, but I think it works.  I would lighten the valley up some more but there’s just not enough information there.  It was a gorgeous sunset and on my way down I did some time exposures of the golden glow on some aspen trees, it was practically dark but I just couldn’t stop taking pictures.  I love days like this!

Friday, October 03, 2008

Kenosha Pass, Colorado

The Tour continues and I spent last night on Kenosha Pass and I have to tell you this is really a hidden jewel in Colorado and just 65 miles from Denver.  Most people just zoom by on their way to South Park, or perhaps visit the rather overused bathrooms at the campground on the east side, but if you go just a couple of hundred yards beyond that it is a whole different world.  First of all, it is dispersed camping so you don’t have to pay for it and there are a bunch of spots scattered around the meadows and aspen groves.  I imagine that during the weekends and summer it is busier, but I had the place to myself on this weeknight.  When I was shooting the sunset I noticed an elk bugling in the woods across the valley and he was still at it at 5:00 this morning. I wandered around the meadows and aspen groves this morning, watching to see whether the sunrise was going to give me any color.  In the end a large cloud just above me was lit up and reflected a beautiful soft light onto the groves of Aspen trees.  I started to wander to the east and discovered the valley pictured above heading off to the north towards what I believe is Guanella Pass and Mt. Evans.  The glowing Aspen trees and the more subtle browns of the grasses and bushes contrast nicely with the blue sky peeking through the wispy clouds.  On the way back I cut off the valley and found a grove of old-growth aspens that must have been 2 feet in diameter, very stately looking in contrast to the younger trees.  Kenosha Pass is definitely a rival in my mind to Kebler Pass, my all time favorite place for aspen trees.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Spring Creek Road, above Green Mountain Reservoir, Colorado

This is the first entry of the Journey Through Landscape Fall Colors Tour 2008, or JTLFCT08 for short.  Got a late start out of Denver last night and drove in under cover of darkness, so I was uncertain to what I would find when the sun came up.  I parked on a short spur road off the main Forest Service road where it looked like there were some aspen trees.  I started walking down the road in the dark with the glow on the horizon lighting my path.  There were aspens on both sides of the road in full bloom, some almost a beautiful golden red color, and the road ended about half a mile down with a sweeping vista overlooking Green Mountain reservoir Ute Pass.  Just at the end of the road there were the two aspen trees pictured above, reaching up into the sky above the aspen grove, catching the wonderful golden glow of the sunrise.  I don’t want to sound too cliche, but the beautiful light of the morning and the solitude of the aspen grove really made it a magical morning for me, a great start to the Tour.

Click here to hear an audio report from the field.