A landscape photographer's tour

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

Aspen to Ouray

Not so many pics, since the weather has deteriorated a bit and it was mostly travelling today.

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

Cloudy at Aspen, but no snow yet :-( the weather forecast predicts it for tomorrow though :-)

We're heading off west towards Carbondale and then turning down CO133 towards Hotchkiss

mt sophris

You can see that the snow line has descended. The mountain is Mt. Sophris and is over 12,000 feet.

It's a nice drive along CO133 up towards McClure pass. The road in the picture below is where we've just driven along.

mcclure pass

The other side of the pass is a more gentle descent. Including the odd coal mine where half mile long coal trains are loaded.

colorado coal train

I had thought of going across the Grand Mesa, but since it was solid cloud, the view might not be that great.

grand mesa in clouds

This is the view from the top, taken last time I was in the area (it's an 8 foot wide print)

panoramic view from grand Mesa, colorado

At Delta, we turned south on US50, and then along US550 towards Ouray.

More mountains appear in the cloud...

mountains in colorado

We're heading towards that gap in the mountains.

us550 to ouray

We're stopping in Ouray for a couple of days, so tomorrow it's off to take some more photos :-)

main street ouray

Ouray is a nice little town, with big mountains very close by.

ouray

Anyway, having watched the Vice Presidential debate recently, I thought I'd link to this SNL sketch ;-)

>> Next Day >> Telluride and Dallas Divide

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