Rocky Mountain High

 

Glorious Yellow Reflections

Yeah, if I’m honest I’ll admit that I made merciless fun of John Denver in my teens.  He seemed overly sappy.  I had a point, but as I get older sentimental music doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

My two traveling companions last week in Central Colorado are big fans.  That and a visit to The John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen made Rocky Mountain High a pernicious earworm all week.  Oh well, there are worse things.

Lightroom Map; we covered some territory

From our lovely VRBO house in Hotchkiss, we drove incessantly and joyfully.  I’m so grateful to Sara Goodnick for the planning and driving during this exploration.  I had a grand adventure with Sara and Jack Jordan.

I’d chased around the Ouray area a few years ago, but this territory was all quite new.  What an adventure.

 

Colorado up-view

Until our last day we had rather blank, blue skies, the bain of photographers’ existence.  I remembered my friend Jerry Dodrill’s quip for such days, “shut your sky hole,” which means that, on such days, it’s generally best to compose images without big blank blue blotches.  In this fisheye image I de-emphasized it instead.

 

Long-Lens abstract

Despite the dry summer the state had endured (which seems to make some stands of aspens dull-colored) , there were some nice bright pockets of yellow trees.  Like the North Kaibab, which regular readers will know is my usual spot this time of year, there are lovely intimate scenes, but the mountains around Crested Butte and Aspen also offer grand vistas along with the color. Even with the proximity of the Grand Canyon, we really don’t get that here in Arizona.

 

Up Castle Creek Canyon

Photographer Grant Ordelheide (a Colorado Native) was generous with location advice.  From him we learned about Castle Creek Road, which included A visit to Ashcroft Ghost Town, lunch at the lovely Pine Creek Cookhouse, and this view of Greg Mace Peak through the trees.

 

Painterly Light along Kebler Pass Road

On our last full, day, we awoke to clouds.  My favorite images came from that morning; this dappled light on the Beckwith Peaks and the reflection shot in the heading of this post.  We stumbled on this little tank and waited a couple of hours for the (literally) 3 seconds of light which transformed the scene.  I did a little happy dance, I’ll admit.

But I don’t think I’ll go as far as saying it was a Rocky Mountain High.

More images from the trip are in the Autumn 2019 Gallery on the website.