I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time… to go see the Sangre de Cristo Range of Colorado up close. I can see them from my favorite vantage points on my hiking trails around home, but I have never actually seen them up close. I tried once but the road on which I turned was in a valley and I didn’t really get to see much except foothills.
I almost went up to Waterton Canyon to look for bighorn sheep today, but I was tired and a six mile hike up the dirt road didn’t seem to be in my best interests, so the Sangres it was! Drove down High Park Drive from Cripple Creek over to Highway 9 and then down to 50 where me and the big dog proceeded west along the Arkansas River. I had to make one stop on one of the many pull outs along the river so Big Dog could stretch his legs. Didn’t get the big camera out there, but I did get a nice shot of the river with my phone camera 🙂
Finally we arrived at Highway 69 where we turned south and it was just a few miles up a
canyon before the big mountains came into view. I took my first opportunity to pull over and get some shots because the light was good, but rapidly changing. I brought along both of my zoom lenses, the 70-200 and the 100-400 and it turns out they both came in handy. My polarizer only fits on the 70-200 and there were a few times when the sun was bright and from the side where that filter came in handy! Moments of sunlight and longer periods of overcast skies were a challenge today but by the time I got to Westcliffe I was satisfied that I had captured what I came for.
Westcliffe is a quaint little mountain town way out in the boondocks in southern Colorado. It took but a few minutes to cover the entire town in both directions as I looked hopefully for a micro brewery. There were none to be found and my phone didn’t have a signal there so that a search could be performed so I just decided to head on back. There was a BBQ place there that looked intriguing but I wasn’t that hungry yet and there were some antique stores and art galleries and a coffee shop that also caught my eye! Sometime when I can get an earlier start I’ll have to go back and check it out 🙂
On the trip back I was keeping a close watch on the hillsides hoping for a deer or elk sighting and just when I thought I was going to be disappointed, I encountered a herd of mule deer right along the side of the road! I snapped a few out the truck window as the herd moved up the mountainside. This bunch was so cute, all of them looking at me, especially the three all perfectly lined up in the middle of the frame! Eventually they had moved far enough away that I was able to get out of the truck without scaring them off and captured a few images while they looked on from this neat looking rocky knoll (below center). Some sunlight would have been nice for these pictures but by this time the sky was pretty well overcast. Oh well, it was still fun to see them.
All in all I collected about 110 images for the day so I have a lot of processing to do! As always, these images and more are available as wall art and gift items on my website. Please check back in often as I will be displaying many more!
