Fall 2022 in SW Colorado
This map only begins to tell the story…
“You can't take a shot where you're not.” - Me
Day 0
Well, it’s "Go Day."
"(I promise, not all of my days are going to be this “wordy.”)
There's really no rush to pack as I only need to be in Crested Butte, CO by sunset. Coming from Monument, CO, it’s only about 4hrs, so no biggie. I’ve known this trip was coming, but have spent most of my time making sure things were squared away at home vs doing any prep for the trip. As far as the trip goes, I am still working on the last half of the itinerary, I have yet to pack the car, or get any clothing together. No worries tho, I’ve got time. Then, a message comes through, "I think I have your tripod."
I stop everything. It seems a Fella named Sean Pressly found my missing tripod that I brainlessly left on the side of the road last weekend while shooting Fall Colors up near Twin Lakes, CO. Long story short, I set it aside and packed my camera gear into the back of my Explorer, hit the button to close the back hatch, and was off to the next shooting location. It was a bright day, so I really didn’t need a tripod until the evening when the sun got a bit lower in the sky. Then, it hit me…; it was gone! “Can we meet?” I asked.
Sean was super nice and agreed to meet me halfway even as I insisted on doing all of the driving. I jump in the shower, it was on my list of things to do anyway, flew out the door, and raced to Castle Rock to meet Sean. The entire time I’m driving I kept thinking to myself, I cannot believe Sean found my tripod and reached out!”
Sean and I met up and chatted a bit. Of course, I had to explain how I ended up leaving my tripod and he had to explain how he came upon it. I offered him a reward, lunch, or even just a coffee. He accepted neither saying he was just happy to have me happy. I was definitely happy!
His mom was actually the one who read a Facebook post about me accidentally leaving my tripod behind. I asked him to have his mom choose an image from the Limited Edition Prints on my website as a thank you. You can read more about this entire event here on my FB Post. After the exchange, we parted ways; my head was still spinning! I couldn’t believe I got my tripod back with literally zero time to spare before leaving on a multi-day photography road trip!
I still had to go home, finish that itinerary, pack clothes and the car, and get gone!
Thank you Sean for returning my tripod…! :-)
Arriving in Crested Butte, I knew the sun wasn't how I hoped it would be. Regardless, I went ahead and scouted a River/Cabin scene that I had in mind for a morning shoot. About this time, I got in touch with a good buddy who was also shooting in the area named Jamie Rogers, aka Captain Colorado Photography. He joined up with me, strategized for the morning, and then we began heading towards the evening’s camp.
It's 100% dark. There was no moon to speak of and the last street light was about a twenty-minute drive back the other way. I see a person with a very bright headlamp walking roadside. I began thinking of when it was that I passed a parked car. I couldn’t think of one until almost all of the way back into town. “Where was this person going?” I thought to myself. "You okay?" I asked. Female voice: "Uh, I don't know."
To cut a long story short, she’d been dropped off on one end of a long trail and was to be picked up later at the other end. She hadn't seen her ride and noted that she was about an hour late from coming out of the wilderness. To make matters worse, she was not from the area; neither were I or Jamie. She was staying with a friend who was supposed to have been waiting for her, and by ‘friend’ I mean someone who’d she’d only just met and who agreed to drop her off at the trailhead in her car. The good Cap'n drove on to camp and I turned around to take the hiker to an address she had in a text. (I did say I was going to cut this story short, right?)
Well, we can't find the house that she had an address for as they weren't lit well. She's unsure of where the place is or what it looks like. I knock on a door with a porch light on. Pete answers. I ask his address pretty sure that his house wasn’t the one we were looking for. Nope, it's not the house we are looking for but it's close. Whew! Meanwhile, the Hiker gets a hold of her ride on the phone. She's sounding frustrated and looking confused. Pete and I are surely confused. While she complains of being confused and not understanding where the mix-up is, Pete and I begin looking for house numbers. He doesn't even know where his house number is. This is all going great! ;-) I had no idea what the Hiker’s mix-up was, but it wasn’t sounding good from what I could overhear. What had I gotten myself into? Did I just adopt a friend?
Pete and I finally find the house the hiker is looking for. It was on the end of the building Pete lived in and was about as dark as a house could be. The Hiker’s convo is going further south. Seems her ride wasn't even looking for her to be around. He says for her to go inside his place, a place that apparently even he is merely staying at. Pete knows the owner, but it's not the guy on the phone. She thanked me for my help. Asks if she owes me anything. “Of course not,” I said. I was just glad she has a place to get warm and rest before the morning and that I hadn’t adopted a friend for the length of my trip. It seemed her car was at the trailhead where she was originally dropped off. She was expecting it to be on the other end of the trail. Unsure what she's gonna do about that. I suspect her ride will take her back to the trail exit and she'll have to hike to the car; basically her original hike in reverse. The mountains can be tough. Oftentimes. a hike over a set of mountains can be short (hers was likely 12 miles) but driving around the mountain could take multiple hours as well. I wonder if her ‘friend’ drove her all the way to her car or merely to the trail to her car. Meanwhile, It is still Day Zero.
Day 1
Fast forward a few hours and, poof, I’m waking up the next morning outside of Crested Butte. I woke up with plans on shooting the Cabin w/River image seen below. I’ve wanted to shoot this scene for a while. The morning’s sunrise wasn’t that spectacular, but alas, I had my first image of the trip in the bag. It’s not an image that I ever plan on doing anything with since conditions weren’t that great, but here it is nonetheless. Ignore the dust spots and the poor image quality. I was so much not a fan of this image that my heart wasn’t into editing it. They can’t all be winners. Little did I know, these conditions would plague me for much of the trip. I hoped to return to this location later on during the road trip for a bit of environmental condition redemption.
Creekside Cabin with Mountain Views
I still had two composition ideas in my mind for the area. Since conditions weren’t great, I took the opportunity to visit these locations and ensure that I indeed did want to prioritize them enough to make a return trip to the area later. The terrestrial location wasn’t ready yet, tho I hoped to return to it later. The aerial location can be seen below, tho I hoped to return to it as well.
East River foreground with Gothic Mountain background
With the leaves nowhere near peak color, I pulled chocks at Crested Butte and headed towards the San Juans in the hopes of finding leaves closer to their Fall peak colors. I ended up driving Hwy 50 to 550. Along the way, I shot reflections with the drone at Blue Mesa Reservoir. I’ve been by this reservoir many times and don’t often see it as smooth as it was.
The next destination I had in mind was a Cabin w/Mountains scene I’ve always loved. I had a few different compositions in mind and was excited to see if they’d turn out in cameras as good as they are in my mind. Thinking back on the trip, I should have returned here after the snowfall that eventually happens. Missed a nice opportunity, tho hindsight is 20/20. I am sure at the time I was happily shooting something else.
I ended up settling on the below composition to offer up as a print. So many of the others were lacking “something.” The sky and I weren’t getting along at all. Either that or I somehow just wasn’t ready in the brief few moments that the sun would break through. Tho there are composition differences in the shots, the main difference in all of them as compared to the one I chose to offer as a print is the sunlight. If I remember correctly, even that sunlight went very fast.
What a view from your bedroom window, huh!? Prints Available
The evening hours found us headed for a set of S-curves in the road. Along the way, we stopped at a hot spring. Three ladies were already there relaxing in the warm waters. We dipped our toes in, chatted, took a few pics, and carried on headed towards the curves.
“What’s seen in the mountains stays in the mountains.” - Me
Hot Spring in the Mountains
Along our way to the S-Curves, we stopped at Crystal Lake to see how the reflections were looking. This is one of those locations that is easy to get to but can be difficult to get decent conditions. Here, the conditions were great but weren’t great as well, if you know what I mean…
Crystal Lake Reflecting Colorado Skies
After scoping out Crystal Lake, The good Captain and myself drove down to the S-Curves and shot them from above.
S-Curves from a previous year Prints Available
The shoot went well considering the conditions. We were on the cusp of an amazing sunset, but unfortunately, it fizzled out and was blocked by the clouds. I’ve got a love-hate relationship with clouds. :-) Those conditions can be seen in the image below.
Wiggling through to sunset
Anyhoo, after shooting, we headed down into Ouray to grab some interwebs, catch up on what was going on in the real world, and say our goodnights to the fam before dissolving into the wilderness all the while anticipating the next day’s sunrise.
