Tuesday Oct 06, 2009 at 19:13

Fall 2009 in Colorado - Part 2

Dolores River Aspen (click image for larger view)

Alice and I just returned from four days down in the San Juans in southwest Colorado, again on the hunt for autumn colours. Unfortunately, a storm beat us through there last Wednesday and, as with Aspen the previous weekend, blew much of the best foliage to the ground.

However, we didn’t suffer from the incessant blue skies that plagued the trip to Aspen (remember, this is a photographic trip – blue skies = bad). Instead another low pressure system rolled in on Saturday evening, unfortunately blocking sunset, but setting up some great weather conditions for Sunday.

As you can see from the image above, there were some good spots to be found, but they took some finding. The best foliage that remained was either in sheltered corners, such as in the canyon below the turn off to the Alpine Loop off the Red Mountain Pass road, and towards the Telluride end of Last Dollar Road, or was a lower elevations, such as the Dolores River some 60 miles to the southwest.

I’ve posted a selection of images under the Colorado - Fall category. Here’s a small selection:

Sunday morning up on Dallas Divide offered some dramatic skies and there was sufficient colour in the remaining foliage to make a decent image:

Dallas Divide (click image for larger view)

Next we drove Last Dollar Road for the first time from beginning to end – wish we’d done that before, as it’s a wonderful place, and not a particularly challenging drive (as long as it’s not slick from rain, I read). This side road is rutted and gathers the falling aspen leaves creating some wonderful lead-in lines for a photograph:

Forest Road (click image for larger view)

Finally, these aspen groves on the road towards Telluride from the airport (not Last Dollar Road proper, but many will think of it as such) still retained some decent colour and the cloudy light was suitably soft:

Aspen Study 2 (click image for larger view)

I’ve read elsewhere that this was the worst fall colour in a decade. While the famous vistas weren’t really in condition to shoot, there was still much to enjoy.

Posted in Locations

Stephen · Tuesday, October 06, 2009, 19:13 · Permalink

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