An advantage of walking along a forest roadway in the rain is getting photos like these, while passerbys stop to make sure you are ok, because nobody in their right mind walks around in the rain with a camera.
I made a number of images at this location, while walking around in the drizzling rain, along Forest Service Road 250, which follows the Conejos River for a long way in Rio Grande National Forest.
Valley, River, Mountainside, Mist
This was not the kind of weather I wanted, but I knew before I began this trip that there were significant chances of rain for each day here.
With the recent and continuing rains, the local streams were flowing again after a long dry spell and there is something irresistible about a mountain stream in every season.
It had been years since I visited Colorado in the fall. Not because I didn’t want to be there in the fall, but because the timing never worked out. This year I had a narrow window of opportunity to visit Colorado and I took advantage of it.
I knew in advance that this year might not be a great year for fall color in Colorado, due to a wide spread drought; but I knew that if I passed up this opportunity, I might not get another for years. So I went.
On the second day of travel, as I neared my destination in Southern Colorado, it began to rain. Mostly, light, intermittent showers, but sometimes heavy downpours. It rained and was overcast most of the time I was there with only the last couple of days partly sunny with occasional light rain.
I’ve driven past these peaks numerous times in my trips to and from this part of Colorado. Today those heavy clouds above the peaks inspired me to stop and shoot this image.
I arrived at the south end of Forest Service Road 250 in the late afternoon and I stopped a few time along the road to shoot a few images, while looking for a place to overnight in my vehicle.
This time of the year is not only leaf peeping season in Colorado, but hunting season as well. So there were many hunters in the Rio Grande National Forest, taking up many of the open campsites. I was also surprised to see that a number of forest campgrounds that were closed the last time I was in this area were still closed. I don’t know why, but I suspect budget cuts by the current Washington regime is responsible.
And the rains made some dispersed camping areas difficult or impossible to use. Fortunately, I found a suitable place to stay overnight, although I did walk into the area first to make sure I could navigate the muddy dirt roads and puddles.
First Night’s Campsite
This is an iPhone photo with the wide angle lense distortion making it look like those evergreens are leaning in to protect my vehicle from the inclement weather.
View from CampsiteBent Aspens
I found it interesting that this group of small aspens near my campsite are all bent in the same manner. Perhaps these were deformed when very small by a snow load and maintained that shape as they have grown.
More Colorado fall photos to come. Thanks for following,
A brief look at my camera screen in the early morning, showed that I at least got star photos during the night. I always have some concerns that the program worked as planned, after setting up the camera to shoot well after dark and then retiring to bed. Unfortunately, upon reviewing those images on a big screen it was obvious that the stars were big blurry bright spots. So apparently I either accidentally shifted the focus a little, during the final set up or maybe I forgot to switch off auto focus. I think it was most likely the first, since I vaguely recall having to shift the lens back into auto focus mode for early morning sunrise shots, after realizing the first shot was not in focus. I don’t completely trust my eyesight to get really good focus, when in manual mode.
But I still have two batches of star images to process, which I will have to get to soon.
After shooting a few early morning images, we decided it was time to move on and headed towards the Moab area. Moab has become much more popular than it was during my first few visits here. Now it is very crowded all the time it seems and the rapid growth rate is highly evident. We considered several possibilities for finding a campsite in this high demand camping area, finally selecting a small public land camping area not very far from Dead Horse Point and we were lucky enough to have two or more empty sites from which to select.
After setting up camp, we did a bit of exploring in the local area, stopping by Dead Horse Point to scout it briefly.
Dead Horse Point 1, iPhone Image
This scene reminded me of hiking in Canyonlands NP many years ago.
Dead Horse Point 2, iPhone Photo
After this brief visit to Dead Horse Point, we will return later for sunset photography.
I’ve fallen behind in my normal blog post schedule, being preoccupied with other summer time activities. I’ll try to get back to a more regular schedule.
Sunrise Golden Hour 1
I used this geological feature as a foreground for star photography. As usual, I’m slow at processing those night images, so the star photos will have to be in a later post.
In reviewing a map of the area near our base camp, we discovered a place referred to as Utah’s “Little Grand Canyon”, along the San Rafael River. So we set out to check out that site. Along the way we found other interesting places and sites. This post and following ones will showcase our finds.
The drive to the “Little Grand Canyon” was along maintained gravel backroads, although most of the roadways were washboarded, rocky and rough, but scenic for long stretches with exposed geological features.
There are a couple of easily accessible Native American artwork panels on rock faces along this drive. One requires walking up a slight incline to reach, but the most impressive one, Buckhorn Wash Petroglyph Panel, has a large parking lot and is literally right at the edge of the parking lot.
The Buckhorn Wash Petroglyph panel is long. Much longer than this panorama might indicate. I made this panorama with my iPhone by walking fast from one end of the panel to the other, trying not to trip and fall on the rocky, uneven surface. I was inspired to do this, after watching my son do it. Otherwise, I might never have thought to do a pano in this manner.
The following images are shots of small portions of the panel, showing details of some of the pictographs.
There are a number of signs placed in front of this panel with information and questions about what these images mean and how newer cultures came along and modified the older pictographs. And, yes, even modern day vandalism. In fact much damage to this panel was partially repaired in 1995.
Information Sign at Buckhorn Wash Petroglyph Panel
Please refrain from defacing such ancient records. These are already fading away due to natural weathering. Don’t accelerate the loss.
From our base camp, we made a number of drives along 4 wheel drive roadways, portions of which were easy, some of which were “moderate”, involving driving in washes, alongside cliffs, drop offs and over boulders.
One of the these 4 wheel trails is called “Black Dragon”. We started this drive from our base camp and exited between portions of the San Rafael Reef onto I70. The Black Dragon names comes from a Native American Pictograph, which this trail goes past near the I-70 exit/entrance.
This panorama was shot from Black Dragon Viewpoint along I-70. A portion of Black Dragon trail is visible (a narrow band of light color) at the base (approximately in the center of the image) of the geological feature in the distance.
Note the chalk outlines added by someone, joining several pictographs to make them take on the appearance of a dragon. This is a defacement of the original Native American artwork.
The pictographs on this panel were done by ancients called the Barrier Canyon culture. There are petroglyphs on nearby rocks done by the Fremont culture of Native Americans.
Native American Artwork Panel
Please note that the petroglyphs on these rocks are subtle when viewed with the naked eye. I have greatly enhanced these images to bring out the subtle artwork. So, if you visit this are, do not expect to see panels that look like those in these images.
You will also note that modern day visitors have added graffiti to these panels. Please refrain from defacing this delicate and fading artwork left to us by the ancients dwelling here long before modern day people arrived here.
Native American Art Panel 1
I made numerous images of different portions of the panel, to bring out the details sufficiently for viewers of this post to visualize the artwork.
And again I remind readers that I’ve overlapped and zoomed in on various portions of the panel (and used extreme editing) to make the art more easy to visualize.
An early rancher in this area left his name on much of the area and there is an old log cabin that he built alongside one of the easily traveled roadways that any vehicle can travel to, at least in good weather. However, just past the cabin that roadway becomes a “moderate” 4 wheel drive as rated by trail books, but has some intervals of what might be better be described as “difficult” 4 wheel drive sections, which we decided not to venture very far along.
This old shack is at an abandoned uranium mine site called the Luck Strike Mine, which is actually still classified as “active”, even though there has been no activity here for many years. The small structure on the right of this image is a powder (explosive) storage shed.
This sign near the shack give a brief and interesting history of the mine and the lives of the miners who worked the mine, many of whom developed illnesses related to radiation exposure before there were any significant safety regulations regarding such activity.
Most of the photos in this post were made via an iPhone camera.
