We just returned from a few days photographing the elk rut in Rocky Mountain National Park. The last few times Kevin and I have visited the park, including an adventure to Yellowstone, we were thinking we were probably too early for the full experience. This time we thought delaying the trip until October might result in cooler weather, smaller crowds, and perhaps a more vigorous rut season.
Aspen leaves in many parts of the state of Colorado are reaching peak color this weekend. A brief excursion around the Cripple Creek and Victor area revealed a variety of gold and red colors adorning vast swaths of aspen stands in the 10,000 foot elevation range.
Today at around noon Colorado time, the sun will cross the celestial equator, marking the passage of summer and the advent of celestial autumn. For me it means that the best photography of the year is nearly upon us.
On a rare occasion people do come to visit me, and often it's because they want to climb the Manitou Incline. There may come a day when my old legs will no longer carry me up the 2700 rugged steps over the old cog railway that takes one to 8500 feet in elevation in just one mile of near verticle climbing, but on this day I was willing to give it one more try. Even though the previous sentence may have set a record for word count, last weekend's climb to the summit did not 😦
Quiet has returned to the mountains. The labor day holiday has marked the unofficial end of summer and thousands of tourists with their RV's and trailers have headed back east to their homes on the great American flatlands. Wildlife are tentatively returning to their favorite feeding grounds, and they didn't seem to worried about a lone photographer. In fact they seemed to recognize me from the quiet months I spent with them, prior to the summer invasion.
It was supposed to be a regular photo trip to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. However as it has been so many times this summer, photography in the Refuge was a stunning failure. Birds we have seen in abundance the last few summers are strangely absent. The coyotes were sleeping and the bison nowhere to be found. That's when it began... our short road trip was extended.
There's nothing like a piece of new gear to jump start waning interest in an old hobby, and my new Garmin 22x GPS handheld should do the trick. Back in the day, before blogging and vlogging were even a thing, and social media wasn't an idea yet, I was posting trail reports on my website.
For many of you who have been following my blog for many years, the Three Amigos are a familiar sight. But after a long cold winter, it always brings my heart joy to see them in the spring, happy, healthy, and still together after almost a decade of following them.
God was smiling down upon me yesterday when an elk herd appeared out of nowhere to give me an opportunity to finish a video I've been working on!
This was a day that I have been eagerly awaiting for months. The osprey have completed their 4,000 mile journey across two continents, to arrive in my favorite Canyon some time this week.
Colorado Photographer / Author | Steven W. Krull 