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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 :-)
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Gunnison (2)
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...
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.
View from the road, towards the Anthracite range.
It's only 25 or so miles to Crested Butte
Crested Butte appears...
A bit further on, the town is visible
Crested Butte, CO
- 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...
At 15 M.P.H.
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.
Snowmobiles
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' :-)
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 :-)
Road junction, Gunnison
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...
Sonic - minimise your interaction with other people
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...
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