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Author: Randy Langstraat

Fall Colors on Owl Creek PassFall Colors on Owl Creek Pass

Fall Colors on Owl Creek Pass

Fall Colors 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013

I left work on Friday and headed south to the San Juan Mountains near Ridgway to start my annual week-long October trip. Normally, I spend this week in the desert of southern Utah and northern Arizona, but this year I decided to spend the first weekend chasing fall colors in the San Juan Mountains since the colors were a little late this year. After a quick dinner stop in Montrose I was soon driving up Owl Creek Pass as a winter storm moved through the area. Many of the aspen trees still seemed to be pretty green for this time of the year, but with the fresh snow on the ground and tress, low clouds above and colorful oaks, there were plenty of beautiful fall scenes.

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Red Mountain Fall ColorsRed Mountain Fall Colors

Red Mountain Fall Colors

Fall Colors 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013

Getting out on the last weekend of September to check out the fall colors in Colorado is kind of a tradition of mine, and this year would be no different, even if the colors are a little behind this year. On Saturday, Kelly and I headed up to the San Juan Mountains between Ouray and Silverton for a day trip just to see how the colors were. We found the best color between Ouray and Red Mountain Pass with the best display around Ironton Park and Crystal Lake. Lucky for us, a recent storm had capped the surrounding mountains with fresh snow, too! We spent the morning hiking around Crystal Lake and taking plenty of photos.

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Monument CanyonMonument Canyon

Monument Canyon

Sunday, September 15, 2013

On Thursday evening my friend Lisa contacted me to let me know she was taking a last minute trip to the Colorado National Monument this weekend and she wanted to see if I was available to go hiking on Sunday morning. It just so happened that I planned to be home all this weekend and was planning on hiking around the Monument already. We planned to meet up on Sunday morning and hike Monument Canyon from top to bottom. It has been a few years since I hiked the full canyon and I was looking forward to it. We met at the lower trailhead at 8:00am, left her car there and then took my Jeep up to the upper trailhead.

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The IslandThe Island

The Island

Saturday, September 14, 2013

I’ve seen The Island sticking up between Wedding Canyon and Monument Canyon for many years while photographing the Colorado National Monument from the overlooks along Rim Rock Drive. You can see The Island across the canyon in the photo below taken earlier this year from Grand View. For a long time I’ve wanted to hike up there but never seemed to get around to it. I decided to change that this weekend.

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