A landscape photographer's tour
Gunnison - Crested Butte (and back)

After that fascinating evening in Delta, I was glad to find that it was graduation weekend at the prestigious Western State College at Gunnison.

An entertaining evening in the company of numerous recent graduates, where I found that it does indeed help to have an English accent ;-)

From my conversations I understand that a major attraction of the college is the fact that Crested Butte Ski area is just up the road...

Keith's travels in Colorado - April-May 2006

In 2004 I took my then fairly new Canon 1Ds camera on a driving tour round the Rockies in the USA. This photo-diary covers my second driving trip around Colorado in April/May 2006. This collection of photography 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"

What's the weather like? National Weather Service radar Webcams What are the roads like?	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

Gunnison (2)

So, the next morning, somewhat later than usual, I decided to go for a brief excursion into the mountains.

Not long after this picture was taken, I spotted an interesting view off to one side. It's the best example I can give of how I sometimes see shots that might make good prints.

I pulled over and took 15 different pictures at the location. The one below has had only minor adjustments after conversion to black and white. It might be that one (or two) of the others looks better when I'm back home.

It's only 25 or so miles to Crested Butte

A bit further on, the town is visible

In case anyone is wondering, I shoot the in-car shots with the 16-35 lens at about 20mm, manually focused to infinity. This gives a huge coverage, requires no real aiming, and allows me to crop out the images you see.

The town has a 15 M.P.H. speed limit, which is relatively difficult to maintain, although there is a convenient radar speed indicator...

Quite a pleasant little place - probably without the range of shops (Gucci, Dior etc.) that you find in some other ski towns I've visited.

I decided to go up the Kebler Pass road to see how far I could get. I knew it was closed but it was worth seeing how far the car could go.

There were lots of snowmobiles parked by the road, and eventually the track ended with a large collection of vehicles, all looking better suited to mountain driving than mine.

It seems that the road is pretty heavily packed with snow and it is the best way to get to higher ground for snowmobiling and skiing.

Some people live further up the pass and need snowmobiles to get to their homes. I'd seriously question the wisdom of this, but then again I live in a city that gets an inch of snow a year...

I had a chat about all this with some people getting ready to head off up into the snow. Including this guy, who had a video camera mounted to his helmet :-)

I also learnt from them that my car (aka the 'barge') is indeed an 'Grandma/Grandpa car' :-)

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Back in Gunnison, I decided to go for a coffee, since I'm staying not far from the main street.

The roads really are appreciably wider here than back home, indeed you get the feeling that -everything- is slightly flattened. With a 25 M.P.H. speed limit (that people do observe) you also get the feeling of traffic gently flowing past in a slightly unreal way - or maybe I just had too many shots of espresso in my Latte :-)

Walking back to my motel I went past the Sonic Drive-in, where you have a sumptuous 3 course meal in the comfort of your own SUV...

Although if you wanted to get a drink from the nearby liquor store, you will be out of luck - closed on Sundays throughout Colorado.

Fortunately this does not apply to bars...

Next Day >>

27th April>>28th April>>29th April>>30th April>>1st May>>2nd May>>3rd May>>4th May>>5th May>>6th May>>7th May>>8th May>>9th May>>10th May

More Travel blogs

October 2008 - Travelling in Colorado (picture from 'Photo-blog')	'Cascade Colours' from Keith's Autumn 2007 visit to Oregon/Washington
Fall 2010 - Visit to the USA, Pacific Northwest	The North Californian coast - part of Keith's April 2007 tour