Day: August 11, 2020

Porphyry Basin, Colorado is accessed via a narrow, steep 4WD road off of US550 between Ouray and Silverton.

My oldest son drove us up the road to the basin in July, 2020.  On the way up the mountainside, we passed a canvas tent with a stove pipe jutting from the top.  It was obvious that someone had set up that tent for a long term camp.  Upon arriving at the end of the 4WD road at an old mine site, it became apparent who was living in that heavy duty tent.  First we saw a large flock of sheep spread across the high mountain meadow, then a horse staked out nearby the roadway, two sheep dogs, and a lone shepherd watching over the sheep.

We wandered around the old mine site with its collapsed wooden structure and other scattered debris, being careful to not step on old rusty nails or other potentially harmful items lying around on the ground.

The basin is beautiful with an abundance of wildflowers, a mountain stream and a waterfall.  It was bright daylight so I hand held my Nikon D850, shooting with a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the flowers.  It was too bright to get a long exposure of the waterfall for that silky, flowing water effect.

Higher resolution images can be viewed on my Flickr page by clicking on the images in this post.

Thanks for following,

Ken