Got back from Colorado yesterday, after an eight day trip with a friend. Our original plan was to backpack the Maroon Bells Wilderness area, but that got sacked when Keith wasn't feeling his best on the drive out. We brainstormed, and came up with some alternatives, turning the whole trip into a photography trip, rather than a backpacking trip. Here's the chronology, with pretty pictures!

Thursday, July 20

Drive to Sweetwater, Texas. There is nothing worth photographing between Austin and Sweetwater. Seriously. You get to drive through such wonderful places as Cedar Park (all of which is under construction, apparently), Leander (same story here), Lampasas, Coleman, Goldthwaite, Santa Anna (yes, there is a Santa Anna in Texas...how ironic), Abilene, and some other places with a Dairy Queen.

Friday, July 21

Drive to Buena Vista, Colorado. Once you get past the vast empty high plains of the Northern panhandle of Texas, filled with the lovely odiferous mixture of huge cattle ranches and oil pumps, you finally see mountains. Ahhhh, this is what we're here for. Alas, no pictures yet, we're tired. It's 75° at the KOA.

Saturday, July 22

Drive twenty miles, twelve of them on dirt, up to St. Elmo Ghost Town. It is packed with tourists, and most of the buildings have been restored. All of them off-limits; the sign says "All property is privately owned, please stay on the street." So, it's not as quaint as we were hoping and expecting, but it was certainly photogenic:

After the photography in St. Elmo, we headed up the jeep trail, rated "moderate" by the author whose book Keith purchased at the KOA, in Keith's new Nissan X-Terra Off-Road. We would learn later that the X-Terra is a very capable off-road vehicle, but that its mud flaps pretty much just get in the way. Here's the grated dirt road past Tincup Pass:

Sunday, July 23

Got up early and drove to South of Aspen to spend two nights on Crater Lake, the upper lake from the more famous Maroon Lake in the Maroon Bells Wilderness area. We were told by the ranger at the guard station at the bottom of the canyon that, should we have to park in the lower of the two overnight parking lots, we could take the trail, rather than walk up the road. Cool, a trail! Turns out, not so cool. It's a trail used heavily by horses, not humans. We concentrated most of our steps on avoiding dung, instead of aiming for flat terrain. The upper lake is a short 1.8 mile hike. Here's a shot from that evening:

Monday, July 24

The best light on the Maroon Bells mountains happens in the morning, so we got up early and headed to the West side of the lake. It was quite a beautiful site, and then we were completely blown away by the blessing bestowed upon us by God Himself:

This was worth the whole trip right here. Even if the cameras froze up, I'd drive twenty-four hours all over again to see this.

I'll continue more later. Good night!