Finally had a day off that coincided with my buddy Kevin’s day off so we took advantage and made an excursion to the Mount Evans, Colorado summit via famed Mount Evans Road, the highest paved road in the country. It was a great day for it too! Last time I went the clouds rolled in way too early and about the time I was ready to get my best pictures it got really dark and started to rain. We had some clouds this time but the light remained satisfactory for photography throughout the whole day 🙂
We were encouraged that it was going to be a good day as we saw a few mountain goats and bighorn sheep on the steep curvy drive to the summit, but none with a place we could pull off the narrow road for pictures. No matter, goal number one was to reach the summit before the expected thunderstorms moved in. Lightning on a mountain summit is nothing to mess with! First order of business once we found a parking place was to take the quarter mile hike on the rocky trail to the actual summit and locate the geological survey marker! I’m pretty sure you have to touch it or the entire journey fails to be recorded in the big box in the sky 🙂
On our way up the trail there was a guy admiring the scenery who told us that on this particular day there was a good view of Mount Holy Cross in the distance. I have read about it, some of my friends have hiked the mountain and some have climbed it… but I had never seen it with my own eyes. I aimed my camera in the direction he indicated but didn’t see
anything… we were determined to reach the summit so I just snapped a picture thinking that I would look for it in Photoshop later. Finally on the way back down I looked again through the long lens and saw what I thought must be the legendary cross. Today I compared my image to the ones on the forest service site and I am reasonably certain that I have captured a good view of it in this image. That blackish pile of rocks on the left is Mount Bierstadt, a 14er upon which I triumphantly stood only four short years ago! You can see the cross in the background near the middle of the image, snow filled cracks in the great mountain that give the appearance of a cross. According to History.com, “William Henry Jackson became the first person to photograph Colorado’s elusive Mount of the Holy Cross, providing reliable proof of its existence.”. Also, according to Summitpost.org, “The first reported and official sighting of the cross occurred on August 29th, 1869 when the second in command of the Whitney (A Harvard Man) expedition, a Mr. William Brewer (then a Yale professor) reported seeing a far-off cross. As the expedition was returning to Denver, the group decided to ride their horses to the local mountain of Grays Peak. While atop, Brewer wrote that, “The Mount of the Holy Cross was forty miles away, with its’ cross of pure white, a mile high, suspended aginst its side.” “.
As usual on the summit at least one set of people saw our cameras and asked us to do their portraits… with their camera of course. Given our camera equipment they said it looked like we knew what we were doing! I replied, well either that or I just spent a lot of money trying to look like I know what I’m doing 🙂 Anyway I snapped a few shots for them with the magnificent Rocky Mountains in the background.
After a short stay at the summit we headed down to the visitor area where the bighorns and mountain goats were hanging out. The main goal of the day was to get some good
captures of the wildlife, and hopefully some of the way too cute baby ones. After only a couple of minutes a mama and goat kid were located, unafraid of the people and willing to pose for a few pictures 🙂 There were also some adult goats making their way around the boulder pile that made for some good captures too.
Finally we felt we had captured the scene adequately and began the drive back down. I was hoping we would see some larger herds feeding on the alpine tundra with a nice view of the amazing peaks surrounding Mount Evans and we weren’t disappointed! It wasn’t long before we encountered the unusual scene of mountain goats and bighorn sheep traveling in the same group! Pretty scraggly looking they were at this time of year when they are shedding their winter coats, but still a sight to behold! There was also a small mountain goat family making their way across the tundra, the little ones putting on a good show for the onlookers 🙂
Eventually they ambled off and we decided to head for home. 350 images I captured yesterday, going to take a while to get all the good ones processed! In the meantime I have a couple uploaded to my website, ready for purchase as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, wrapped canvas or traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool gift items, handy household items, tech gadgets like phone cases and batteries and much more!
