Fall/Winter Fluctuation

Last Thursday I set out on a near loop trip from Durango to Mesa Verde.  A storm was approaching from the south, so precipitation was expected.  But in the morning, all was tranquil along the Animas River in downtown Durango, where there is a fine walkway/bikeway along the water.

Just outside town, the scenery was already fine.  A rickety fence is the photographer's friend!

A fine mix of aspens and spruce provide color contrasts.

Blow up this pic and you'll see a vast number of white aspen trunks along with the yellow leaves.  I just thought it was a bit surreal.

A dusting of snow brings out the intricate features on this rock face.

The San Juan county courthouse in Silverton.

Another shot of the courthouse...on the far left...with some fall color in Silverton.

Downtown Silverton.  Quite busy on this day as the train from Durango was arriving.

The countryside between Silverton and Red Mountain Pass is laden with various minerals, which add to the scenery.

Mining operations continued on Red Mountain Pass til the mid 20th century.  The company that did the mining still exists and is working on site restoration.

Snow dappled Red Mountain.

Any idea on why it's called Red Mountain?  The colors of the terrain blend nicely with the aspens.  This pic was taken around noon...still no precipitation.  But it was approaching from the south.

Aspens and evergreens create a palette of colors.  Simply breathtaking.

On the road south of Red Mountain Pass, there is a platform built out over a canyon with a sheer drop of several hundred feet.  Go out on the platform and you get this view of a waterfall...perhaps 250 feet high...dropping out of a glacial hanging valley into the gorge below.

This scene is just east of the town of Ridgway, which is between Ouray and Montrose.  It's looking south, with the clouds gathering over the peaks.

Another shot in the same area.  Fall is obviously giving way to winter in these parts.

And now I'm at Lizard Head Pass, up in those mountains at 10,222 feet.  Snowing merrily!  The Lizards do not like this type of weather.  They were saying, "Get us to Phoenix ASAP!"  Through the fog here, I could hear sheep baaing and their herders whistling...couldn't see them, though.

The snow was sticking on the spruce trees at the pass, creating a primeval boreal effect similar to a winter scene in the Cascades.

I descended the pass to Rico, elevation 8800 feet.  There was an awesome aspen grove immediately south of town, its brilliance muted a bit by the rain, snow, and fog.

Cottonwoods in the Dolores River valley.  As colorful as the aspens.

I advanced to Mesa Verde, which was shrouded in rain and fog.  It's always a mystical scene when an area receives unusual weather, which was certainly the case here.

The scrubland of Mesa Verde, scarred by recent fires, exhibits fine fall color in its own right.

And at the end of the day, from my balcony at Far View Lodge in the park, the light was sublime.

Soggy Day in the San Juans

I set out this morning to do a loop through southwestern Colorado...primarily for the purpose of leaf peeping.  This countryside north of Durango was a good start.  A rickety fence is the photographer's friend.

Blazing orange aspen.

A mountain valley has a fine contrast between blue spruce and aspen.

Blow this pic up and you'll see that it's a study in aspen trunks...white rods in a sea of gold.

This mountain had a dusting of snow that revealed its intricate rock formations.  I learned today that the San Juans are of volcanic origin..though the volcanoes died 20 million years ago.  Still, you see some resemblances to the much newer Cascades.

Silverton, CO, with the San Juan county courthouse on the left.

Downtown Silverton.  It's quite busy...a major touron stop, and of course the northern terminus of the railroad from Durango.  Need to stay here sometime.

North of Silverton, you get into mining country with all sorts of minerals coloring the mountainsides.

Near Red Mountain Pass.  Wonder how it got its name?  Lots of gold and silver was extracted from this area between the late 19th and mid 20th century...at least 300 million dollars at todays value.

Blazing hillside.

Another dappling of green and gold.

This waterfall is between Red Mountain Pass and Ouray.  a platform has been built out over a cliff so when I took this picture I was looking maybe 300 feet straight down!

West of Ridgeway, the highway heads straight for the San Juans.  This pic was taken about 130 PM.  No rain had yet fallen, but the forecast had an 80 percent chance of moisture.  And it was closing in from the south, the direction you're looking toward in this photo.

Fall in the foreground, winter in the background.  Winter will soon take over the whole area.

And here's the 80 percent chance of precip!  Ascending south of Telluride to Lizard Head Pass, 10,222 feet above sea level, a steady rain turned to slushy snow.  Naturally the Lizards had to have a photo op at their pass, but they didn't like it.  "Get me to Phoenix!" is what they're saying.

Nonetheless, the snow was beautiful, coating the spruces in fresh white.  It's a boreal look, like Canada or Alaska.  Wild and untamed come to mind.

Now I'm in Rico.  At 8800 feet there was a mix of rain and snow here, but look at the aspen blazing just south of town!  There were some of the best aspen I've seen here around Rico.  But it was gloomy and misty on this day, so the full effect was missing.

This shot from Mesa Verde was taken as the rain was beginning to diminish.  I'm staying at the Far View Lodge in the park tonight.  It's very quiet, peaceful, and cold.

Mesa Verde is in P-J country (pinyon-juniper) and the trees have been further diminished by a couple of large fires in recent years.  But the hillsides are still in fine fall form.  The damp fogs and mists reminded me of Ireland.  A rare day in the normally dry four corners region.

And at the end of the day, this was the view from my deck at the Far View Lodge in Mesa Verde.

Steens Odyssey

On the way home from the eclipse I spent a couple days in southeastern Oregon.  This is one of the remotest areas in the US...the emptiness reminds me of the Australian outback.  It's not quite that empty, but it's fairly close.  And there's a lot of surprising country.  Here, south of Burns, hay is big.  In late August, there are fields of bales.

The big man in these parts in the last quarter of the 19th century was Pete French, who amassed large holdings into a vast ranching operation.  Pete used some spurious methods, including buying land surrounding a private inholding, then denying access to the inholding owner if he wouldn't sell to French.  This was one of French's properties...Sod House Ranch near Malheur Lake.  He stayed in this building when visiting the ranch.

Although SE Oregon is very dry, the topography...high mountains scattered here and there...catches some rain and snow which irrigates some of the flatlands.  Such is the case on the Blitzen River, which has vast wetlands that form a refuge for many thousands of birds through much of the year in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The historic Frenchglen Hotel, built in the early 1900s.  You can stay here.  This is the second time I've been in this area...first was around 2000. It's literally an oasis in the desert.  

I headed up Steens Mountain.  The road is unpaved, but the northern leg of it is well maintained so you can get up to the top with a passenger car.  The southern leg of the loop is BAD!!  I took it in 2000 and barely made it; some of the potholes were almost big enough to swallow my car.  So this time I went up the north leg and back the way I came.  This country was settled in the late 1800s by Basque sheepherders, and their descendants are still here, raising sheep.  These guys are hanging out around 8000 feet elevation.

Getting near the summit of Steens, 9000 feet up, I encountered patches of snow in shady north facing spots. 

  Kiger Gorge, a perfect U-shaped glacial valley.  The notch at the top of the wall was also cut by ice overflowing the top of the ridge.

At the top of Steens...9700 feet above sea level...the weather was dynamic.  Showers and turbulent clouds shrouded the playa a mile below.

Volcanic rocks and virga.

The Lizards do Steens!

Downbursts from the convective clouds raised dust from the Alvord Lake playa far below.

After descending Steens, I visited Pete French's round barn, some distance to the north.  This structure was built in the 1880s by the fabulously named Nimrod Comegys, Pete's architect.  It was designed to train horses indoors during the long, cold winters.

Blow up this pic and the plaque explains the barn.

The interior of the round barn features ingeniously designed symmetrical roof supports, the largest being essentially tree trunks left in their natural state, minus the bark.