// Adventures and Photography from the Colorado Plateau, Rocky Mountains & Beyond
Fall Colors 2013
Saturday, October 5, 2013
After spending a cold night camping near Vista Point along Owl Creek Pass Road, I was up in the darkness taking down my camp. The temperature was in the upper teens, but surprisingly it didn’t feel that cold when I got out of my sleeping bag. When my camp was loaded into the Jeep I drove through Ridgway over to the Dallas Divide so I could catch the sunrise on the Sneffels Range.
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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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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.
Leave a CommentThursday – Sunday, November 1-4, 2012
After work on Thursday evening I got in my Jeep and drove into Utah again. I had taken Friday off from work and was planning on meeting a group of friends in Beef Basin for a long weekend of camping and exploring the area. A few months earlier my friend Rob had tipped me off about a large petroglyph panel in the area he knew I would be interested in finding, and that was the beginning of planning for this trip. I arrived at our predetermined campsite in the dark and found Marty already there with his tent setup and a campfire already going. I was surprised to only be the second person there but knew the others would arrive shortly. Twenty minutes later Alex, Rob and his companions showed up. We sat around the fire for a little while waiting for the others, but headed to bed before anyone else arrived since we planned an early start for the following day. As soon as we were in our sleeping bags Jared and his brother Brian showed up. Later that night I heard Dave and his son pull up in their Jeep. We had all made it.
2 CommentsSunday, October 28, 2012
It was one of those days that I just needed to get out hiking and exploring by myself, so that’s what I set out to do. Last year around Christmas I had planned to hike along the Dolores River near Bedrock but got a severe headache on the drive there and had to turn around and head back home. I hadn’t made it back that way yet, so I thought it would be a good time to try again. After leaving home and driving through Unaweep Canyon to Gateway, I then followed the Dolores River to Paradox Valley and turned off at the dead-end road by the Bedrock store to the boat ramp. One day soon I want to float the Dolores River from the Big Gypsum Valley to Bedrock and wanted to check out the takeout. After leaving the boat ramp the road I was on got a bit rougher, but I managed to drive a little ways further until I reached and area that was completely washed out. I parked my Jeep there and continued along the river on foot. The hike was easy and for the most part since it followed an old road that hadn’t been driveable in quite some time. After a few miles I reached a few boulders with petroglyphs on them that I had hoped to find.
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