A landscape photographer's tour

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

Aspen and Castle Creek

A drive up Castle Creek road and Saturday in Aspen

This photo-diary covers a driving tour around the Colorado Rockies in the Fall (September/October 2008).

Although my third visit to the state, it's actually the first time I've been in Colorado at this time of the year. A good year for the Fall colours.

There are also photo-journals on this site covering a 2006 trip to Colorado and two to the Pacific coast..

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).

Since I'm not on my own, it's a bit more of a road trip and not quite so heavily phototgraphy oriented as before ;-) That said, I'm getting some excellent photos and look forward to creating some great new prints, black and white as well as colour.

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.

	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
What's the weather like? National Weather Service radar Geological maps Webcams What are the roads like? (CO)	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

I drove up Castle Creek road last time I was in Aspen, where there had been a light overnight snowfall and lots more up in the mountains.

It's quite a dull day, so I wasn't expecting quite such brilliant colours as earlier in the trip.

Note to Vicky ... yes more tree pictures ahead :-)

looking up along castle creek road

This is the view just entering the creek road (I'll be going to the left of the mountain in the middle of the shot)

tree in autumn

There are far more stands of aspens that have lost all their leaves already - one good storm and much of the colour will be gone.

trees in autumn

Further along the valley you can see the road heading towards Castle Mountain

castle creek towards castle mountain

More trees and a bit of colour

more aspen trees

Eventually (after about 14 miles) the road runs out and it's only walkers and cyclists can continue.

castle mountain

Oh, and one more tree picture :-)

aspen trunks 3

The water below is from a beaver dam.

You can see the lodge where I'm assuming the beavers are getting ready for the lake to freeze :-)

beaver dam and lodge

Not many leaves left in some areas

last leaves

Anyway, back to Aspen, where it's the Saturday market

aspen market

As you'd expect for Aspen, this is a slightly more up-market affair.

None of the cheap sets of tools, dodgy DVDs or vegetables with a shelf life of hours, that I might in some UK markets.

I also noticed that getting a camera out did not elicit the looks of suspicion you will find at UK markets - presumably the people here are not worried about people checking if they are claiming unemployment benefit ;-)

pumpkins