Arrival at Rocky Mountain National Park, August 31, 2009
Rocky Mountain National Park - Eastern slopes - September 1, 2009
I’ve added photos from our September visit to Rocky Mountain National Park to two new photo galleries to my Haw Creek Galleries. Because of the number of photos I took on the trip, I’ll be dividing them up in to galleries by location and, under that, by date.
The first gallery is Arrival – August 31, 2009 and has ten photos.
The second is from September 1 and is primarily from the eastern slopes of Rocky Mountain National Park, with 48 photos. We wanted to take a couple of days to acclimatize at lower elevations before went up over 10,000 feet above sea level.
I’m working on the next gallery and will be posting more from other days of our September trip. I also have galleries to work on from trips in May 2009, September 2008, August and September 2007, June 2007, and January 2007, as well as older trips from before I retired.
September 8, 2009
We’ve visited Silverton several times over the years. Our first visit was 1986, arriving with the kids by a late 1800s era train. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad is a trip worth taking once in your life and we’ve done it twice.
One of thing I wanted to do on this visit was to get some pictures of one of the trains as it comes out of the mountains. I had taken photos of it before, but it was with a film camera that had developed a light leak — which we didn’t find out until after the images were developed, weeks later.
We got to the spot I wanted to take the pictures from early — and, then, a light rain started. Though we had picnic supplies with us, we decided to get out of the rain and go get a burger.
While I didn’t get the shots I wanted, I did get quite a few good images of two different trains.
Another place we’ve been to several times is Animas Forks, an old ghost town several miles from Silverton on a mountain road. The further you go on the road, the worse it gets. Though we’ve gone a lot further on these roads in the past, our little SUV isn’t built to take anything much worse than the road to Animas Forks. The roads are popular for four-wheel-drive, ATV (all terrain vehicle) and dirt bike enthusiasts.
Photos:
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
Silverton RV Park
Silverton
Aerial trams transported more than ore.
Animas Forks
Animas River
Boarding house
..
.
On the way to Silverton
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
Aerial ore tram
Goldeneye
Animas Forks
Boarding house
__________________________________
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 8, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
Travel Day — September 7, 2009
We had intended to travel a relatively short distance on Labor Day and camp in the mountains south of Glenwood Springs. A few days before, though, we changed our minds and decided that we wanted to travel a little further and camp near Ouray, Colorado.
Ouray is one of our favorites. A small mountain town, it has escaped most of the commercialization that many Colorado towns have experienced, yet tourism has helped keep it from withering away as has happened to many other old Colorado mining towns. Ouray is situated in a small valley and is surrounded closely by high mountains.
Our trip for the day took us along the foothills through Boulder, but west of Denver, to I70, then across the state to US 50 South out of Grand Junction and then US 550 to Ouray.
I took a few photos at stops along the way, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention to the camera settings and they didn’t turn out. Karen took a few pictures as we were moving down the road and I’ve included three of them below.
Photos:
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
Along I70 east of Grand Junction
Approaching the San Juan Mountains
Rocky Mountain National Park
House and yard atop a barren hill
.
Ouray, Colorado
__________________________________
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 7, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
__________________________________
<h4 style=”text-align: right;”>Commentary and images from the road</h4>
<p style=”text-align: right;”>image and information from September 7, 2009</p>
<p style=”text-align: right;”><em>This post is being simultaneously published
on <a title=”Exit78 blog” href=”http://www.exit78.com/weblog” target=”_blank”>Exit78</a> and <a title=”Haw Creek Out ‘n About” href=”http://hawcreekoutdoors.com/blog“>Haw Creek Out ‘n About</a></em>
Rocky Mountain National Park — September 6, 2009
It’s the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. We’re expecting there to be quite a lot of people on the trails today, so we pick one that, hopefully won’t be so crowded that we’ll be unable to get a parking lot. While there are shuttle buses for hikers, we’d prefer to be able to park and hike.
We get to the trail-head and the parking lot is full — no room for even a small car like ours. Fortunately, there’s another small parking back up the road a little ways and there was an empty spot there when we went past. Hopefully, no one has slipped into it — good, it’s still open.
Here’s a few photos from the hike:
(click on any of the following photos to view a larger image.)
Looking back towards trailhead
Pool on Big Thompson
Chipmunk
Tansy Aster
Fern Falls (slight time exposure)
Threatening clouds
__________________________________
Commentary and images from the road
image and information from September 6, 2009
This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About
