Saying Goodbye to the Rockies

June 11, 2017 in Adventure, Hike, National Park, Photography, Retrospective

This was it; this is the end of the time I had in Colorado. It's so crazy to think that I'd been away from Oregon for so long and it was nearly time to leave. To be honest, I had very mixed feelings about this transition. Though I would never choose to stay, I was going to miss Colorado. I did though, have one last hoorah left. It had been on my list for quite some time and with only one day left to adventure, I knew I had to hike the Flat Top Trail.

The first part of the hike was relitivly univentful, but when I was near to the top of the ridge, things got awesome really quick. As if it was planned, right as I came over a hill, I became away of a few climbers that were about to complete an impressive climb called the Dragontail. I worked my way as close to the edge as I could get and watched and photographed them summit thier climb and celibrate their sucess. I later went over and congratulated them, and we traded information so I coud share the photos with them. With much more to see, I pushed on to make my way to the end of the hike.

Feeling pretty good once I made it, I decided to keep going and push myself further, so I next chose to summit Hallett Peak. I scrambled across the rocks and tundra and slowly made my way to the top. At this point, this was the highest I'd ever climbed, just shy of 13,000 feet above sea level. I was shooting all that I could with the incredible 360 views when I started to notice that the clouds were moving fast and they were coming straight towards me. I couldn't believe it, in my excitment, I put myself in a siguation that could have turned for the worst. If those clouds held weather they wanted to drop or even lighting I would have been in real trouble, but I was lucky. The clouds were merely clouds, but I was not going to stick around and test my luck, so I started the long trek back to the trailhead.

Though the hike was incredibly fufilling, I wasnt ready to say goodbye to RMNP, so I just started driving around stopping at all the usual spots remembering all the amazing memories this place held. Slowly I made my way through the park until I was on top of the Trail Ridge Road and then I was heading down to the west side. I had no plan; I just wanted to soak it all in stopping whenever it felt right (which was a lot). It was at one of those stops when it felt like fate again, there before me was a mother Moose and her little calf. Knowing full well of the danger of agrovating the mother, I kept a considerable distance and a few trees as well inbetween us and let the zoom lens do all the work. After the Moose were through modeling, they made their way into the woods and I contined on.

After cresting Trailridge Road, I pulled over to a lookout and decided that this was where I would watch the last of the light fade away for the only sunset I'd watched in RMNP. There I met a few other photographers looking to get the smae sunset, so we kept each other company as we patiently waited for the light to get good, and it truly did! The sun ended up setting almost perfectly between two peaks as clounds flowed in and out of the area. For all the ways to say godbye to such a speacial place, the way the day ended up playing out was perfect.

Photography Date: 6-11-17
Writing Date: 8-20-18

One last look at Skypond

June 03, 2017 in Adventure, Hike, National Park, Retrospective, Photography

Before leaving Colorado, I wanted to knock a few trips off of things I wanted to see before moving, among those things was revisiting a few places as well as seeing new places. Sky Pond held a unique position in my journey toward becoming more adventures and pushing myself further than I had gone before, it was my first big hike. So I thought it would be a great way to loop things back around before I left. I was trying to get out with my buddy Jesse, but we couldn't make the schedule work, so I decided to hit it alone.

On my way into RMNP, there was a herd of Elk eating breakfast just off the road. Most of them still had the felt on their antlers, something I knew about but never saw with my own eyes, let alone photograph. I hadn't even made it to the trailhead, and this trip was already wondrous.

Except for some mountain climbers who got out there really early (you can see them looking like tiny ants in a few photos below), I was the only one on the trail and had a rather lovely moment of solitude at Sky Pond. I took some time to reflect on where I had been and the journey that got me to where I was. It wasn't too long after, maybe 45 minutes, which a small crowd of people came up to see Sky Pond for themselves. I was grateful for the time I had and knew I was going to take one more hike in RMNP, so I didn't want to get too emotional, but I love this place.

Photography Date: 6-3-17
Writing Date: 8-20-18

Monarch Lake and the West Side RMNP

May 21, 2017 in National Park, Photography, Retrospective

With the gate over the pass still closed, my buddy Jessy and I wanted to get to the west side of Rocky Mountain NP, so we drove the long way around. We thought that since we were already going to be in the area, we should hike in and check out Monarch Lake as well.

After a few wrong turns from Denver, we finally made our way to Lake Granby. There was still fresh snow on the mountains, and the contrast between the lake was beautiful. We took our time getting around the lake stopping many times trying to see everything we could until we got around to the trailhead to Monarch Lake. I guess I should use that word lightly; it was a seasonal road.

Monarch Lake was quite spectacular, though the weather didn't fully cooperate with us, it was still a beautiful little lake. We hiked around to one side to an outcropping of rocks where we enjoyed a snack while snapping a few picks. I would have loved having a canoe or Kayak.

After grabbing lunch in Grand Lake, we headed off into the west side RMNP. By this time, that bad weather I was mentioning early had decided to pick up, but that was ok, there was new ground to cover. To our luck, it was closer than we thought. Just around the corner as we entered the park were two moose grabbing a bite to eat just off the road. We, of course, had to stop and do our best to safely get as close as we could for a good picture, luckily we both brought our zoom lenses! This was a super exciting moment for the both of us as we'd never seen a moose before.

Photography Date: 5-21-17
Writing Date: 7-23-18

Trail Ridge Road Sunrise

April 25, 2017 in National Park, Adventure, Photography, Retrospective

Feeling quite inspired, I decided it was time to make the trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a proper sunrise. I don't think I've ever woken up so early, I've stayed up this late many times, but never woke up at 2:30 AM before. I was trying to, of course, beat the sun, but I also had a 2-1/2 hour drive ahead of me. The trip was pretty uneventful until I got into the park, that's when the fun begins.

I made my plane to see the sunrise at the lookout on Trail Ridge Road. This road closes just a few hundred yards above for the winter. The forecast was evident that evening so it would make for a beautiful sunrise, but for freezing temperatures. As I made my way up in elevation towards the lookout, I started hearing crunching noises. Then I started slowing down, eventually stopped and started turning sideways even though I was gunning it. I tried a few more times but was going nowhere, and I was running out of time. I got out to see what I was dealing with and that's when I realized what the crunching sound was, about a 1/2 inch of ice.

With no time to waste and knowing that the road was closed ahead, I decided to leave my truck where it was stuck in the middle of the lane and deal with it later. Unfortunately, I still had about a mile or s ahead of me to get to the viewpoint.

Thankfully I made it with enough time to set up and not be too stressed for time. The sunrise was amazing. There is something so special about dawn maybe its that fact that so little see them compared to sunsets. I had the place all to myself, not a soul in sight. Just me and the beauty before me.

Once I was done soaking it all in, I carefully made my way back down the ice road to deal with the truck. Luckily being stuck on an incline with the downhill direction being where I wanted to go, it wasn't that difficult to get unstuck. I did a bit of exploring of the park afterwards hoping to find some elk, but didn't see any. Later that week I replaced my old worn out city tires with a new set of all terrains.

Photography Date: 4-25-17
Writing Date: 3-18-18

Bighorn Sheep

April 23, 2017 in National Park, Photography, Retrospective

Every time we've gone by Horseshoe Falls, it's always been incredibly crowded. So naturally we've stayed away, but we could only ignore it for so long and decided it was time to see what the fuss was about. We got out there bright and early to avoid all the crowds. Our plan was successful, and we had the falls all to ourselves.

We made our way up the short hike to the falls and explored the area for a bit. Navigating the river turned out to be a little more tricky than I thought it would be with fresh ice over all the rocks. It was nearly impossible to tell a wet rock from a frozen one.

We eventually made our way up the mountainside, noting some fresh bear tracks, up to a little meadow. To our delight across the distance was a resting heard of Bighorn Sheep. I'd never seen these guys before with my own eyes, so I was pretty excited. It was right then that my camera battery decided to die, I couldn't believe it, I even had a spare battery in the truck. Hopping it was just from the cold or something like that, I put the battery in my pocket and made my way to the sheep.

Jesse recently picked up an excellent 70-300mm lens so he was sniping these guys out. After he got some shots, he let me borrow his lens and my battery in the pocket idea worked giving me a few shots. How awesome it is to see new wildlife up close in person, and with this zoom lens, really close. After that, I pretty much immediately bought myself the same lens, I didn't want to miss an opportunity like that ever.

Photography Date: 4-23-17
Writing Date: 3-18-18