A landscape photographer's tour

Keith's travels in Colorado - April-May 2006

In 2004 Keith first took his then fairly new Canon 1Ds on a driving tour round the Rockies in the USA.

This photo-diary covers a second driving trip around Colorado in April/May 2006.

There are lots of excellent photo books by people who've had a bit more time to look round than I have, such as this one by John Fielder... (lots of places I didn't get to)

This collection of photos and comments has been re-written to make it easier to follow than the original (big) web page.

On my return to the UK, I wrote a more technical article about the photographic aspects as a follow up to my original "Keith's first all digital visit to the Rockies"

There are other photo travel diaries covering trips to:
Washington and Oregon in September/October 2007 and California/Oregon in April/May 2007

Note for visitors from Colorado - I had a great time, thanks! I do really like the place :-)

	Daily pages 27th April London-Denver 28th April South park 29th April Leadville 30th April Aspen 1st May Aspen 2nd May Steamboat Springs 3rd May Steamboat Springs 4th May Steamboat Springs 5th May Delta 6th May Gunnison 7th May Gunnison 8th May Gunnison 9th May Fairplay 10th May Pikes Peak and back to Denver
What's the weather like? National Weather Service radar	Webcams What are the roads like?

Steamboat Springs

Interstate 70, heading west from Denver passes trough some spectacular scenery as it cuts through the Rockies.

Leaving I-70 at junction 133 is a road (to Burns) that follows the Colorado River. This is just east of the deep Glenwood canyon cut by the river. According to my map, I could take this small road on the way to Steamboat Springs.

colorado river - lyons gulch

Lyons Gulch - Colorado River

Converted to BW with 'Convert to BW Pro'. Selective (masked) application of a curves adjustment layer allowed me to emphasise some of the tonal variations in the foreground, which otherwise looked a bit plain.

A bit further up the river, the cottonwoods are just coming into leaf

cottonwoods by the colorado river

Cottonwoods

Straight conversion from raw. On a larger version of the print I'd look to emphasise some of the lines that lead the eye through the image. Mostly these are quite subtle variations - ideally they should not be directly visible.

The railway also follows the river, and I spotted this train heading the other way

big train

It was a long train, taking several minutes to pass by.

Just for my friends interested in such things, I've got a detailed view of the seven power units

union pacific seven header

Note for Mike ;-) - you can read the numbers clearly on the full resolution original

Not far after that, the tarmac runs out. Just how good was this road going to be? particularly given I'm not in a 4WD car.

Dirt road

Dirt Road

Fortunately there were some people working on the road who confirmed that it did go where the map said, and it was in good condition.

So to Steamboat. I spent a few days here on my last trip, so I'm staying at the Alpiner Lodge (lots of places here try to give that 'Alpine' feel :-)

Not quite the cosmopolitan air of Aspen, but it's a great place to buy a stetson...

This is the slack time of the year for places like this, and I had the Metropolitan Mudd Coffee Co. to myself...

Mudd coffee co

Mudd

For those of us from the UK, gas (petrol) prices over here still seem quite reasonable.

Gas price shock

Gas and liquor - shock horror price rises

US price $2.97 per US Gallon (78.5 cents/litre)
UK price (last week at home) 92pence/litre (~$1.66/litre)
or, for US visitors, we pay ~$6.28 per US Gallon

Cheap at half the price...

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