A landscape photographer's tour

Keith's travels in the Colorado Rockies - September-October 2008

Gunnison to Salida and the Sand dunes

Stopping off at the Great Sand Dunes National Park

Colorado is a great place for a vacation, or just a road trip round the state to photograph some of the scenery. If you've any questions about the hotels/inns/motels where I stayed, then please do feel free to drop me a line.

What's the weather like? National Weather Service radar Geological maps Webcams What are the roads like? (CO)	Daily pages 27th Sept.: to Denver 28th Sept.: Estes Park 29th Sept.: Rocky Mountain National Park 30th Sept.: Grand lake to Steamboat Springs 1st Oct: Steamboat Lake 2nd Oct: Steamboat to Leadville 3rd Oct: Leadville to Aspen
	4th Oct: Aspen and Castle Creek 5th Oct: Aspen to Ouray 6th Oct: Telluride 7th Oct: Durango via Silverton 8th Oct: Durango to Gunnison 9th Oct: Ohio Pass 10th Oct: Gunnison to Salida 11th Oct: Salida to Frisco 12th Oct: Loveland Pass 13th Oct: Via Mt Evans (almost) 14th Oct: Flying home

We travelled east from Gunnison and turned dow CO114 towards Saguache

The Volcanic rocks give a distinct type of landscape.

A Map of where we were - click the 'TER' buttton to get a feel for where the hilly bits are :-)

View Larger Map

More shots from my assistant :-)

At lower levels the Cottonwoods are still brightly coloured, although many aspens have now lost their leaves

So, on to US285 heading south

A big wide flat plain, with not much rain - the San Luis valley is a good place for solar energy

There was a distinct haze from dust in the air, and getting nearer to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, you could clearly see it being blown along.

The wind was gusting to 50mph, more than enough to move the sand at dune crests (picture is a crop of a shot from about a mile away)

The dunes are huge - note people for scale.

Very windy, this was a flowing creek last time I was here. I do normally teach people to keep their shadow out of the picture...

With the blowing sand (look at the tips of the dunes) it was somewhat hazy, but the clouds make interesting patterns on the dunes.

This was in April 2004, when the Medano Creek was in full spate

After leaving, we had to stop for Karen to retrieve some important items from the back of the car.

We've stopped off in Salida

A conveniently placed kerbside flag helps locate the car

And a pleasant coffee shop (Karen not shown due to bead shop next door ;-)

We're now in Salida and heading north on Saturday.

This probably marks the end of the daily blog, since it takes a while to do each day and we're going to have a few days 'holiday' before coming back on the 14th ;-)

Depending on the weather and where we go, there will be a few more pages, but they may be delayed a day or so.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions - hope you've found the pages of some interest :-)

>> Next Day >>Salida to Frisco

27th September >>28th September >>29th September >>30th September>>1st October>>2nd October>>3rd October>>4th October>>5th October>>6th October>>7th October>>8th October>>9th October>>10th October>>11th October>>12th October>>13th October>>14th October

Other travel blogs

Fall 2010 - Visit to the USA, Pacific Northwest	'Cascade Colours' from Keith's Autumn 2007 visit to Oregon/Washington
The North Californian coast - part of Keith's April 2007 tour	The photo above is a sample from Keith's photo-diary of his 2006 visit to Colorado