Category Archives: Colorado

Rocky Mountain Gold 2022

I’ve uploaded a gallery of images from a photo tour to the US in September and October 2022. The trip had originally been planned for 2020, but due to the COVID-19 Pandemic travel was too risky. So, 2022 it was, and six of us headed to the US in the hope of capturing the fall colours in the national and state parks bordering the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Steam Vents, Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park

The trip was to follow a similar to a route that I’d travelled back in 2011, although we spent most of our time in Yellowstone National and Grand Teton National park.

Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park

Other stops along the way included the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Maroon Bells National Recreation Area near Aspen, Red Mountain Pass, the Million Dollar Highway, the Silverton and Durango Railroad, Chimney Rock, the Cumbres & Toltec Steam Railroad (Chama, New Mexico), and the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Sheep Creek Overlook, Flaming Gorge, Utah

Mt Sneffels, Colorado

The weather and fall colours were in our favour throughout the trip and many pleasing images were captured. The full gallery of images from the trip can be viewed here.

Rocky Mountain Gold 2011 Photo Gallery

photoventures Regular readers of the site will recall that I visited the the US in October last year. During the trip I posted a short blog entry small selection of my photos from each day, along with a few words describing the locations, etc. The purpose of the blog entries was to keep friends and family up to date with where and what I was doing. As it turned out it also proved quite popular with some. Today, I’ve published a series of my favourite images from the shoot. This new HTML gallery was created in Adobe Lightroom 4. As with previous galleries I chose to use HTML rather than Flash because as we know the most popular tablets and smart phones (i.e. Apple iPhone and iPad) don’t support Flash.

Dryad Spring – Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park

The shoot was organised by my good friend Roger Reynolds at Photoventures

Rocky Mountain Gold – Day 15 (Durango to Denver)

Today was our last full day in the US and with that the last we’d be using our cameras. We had about 280 miles of driving ahead of us and as on previous days in Colorado lots of photographic opportunities, especially of aspens.

While we did make a few short stops for breakfast and lunch our only planned photographic stop was at the United States Airforce Academy in Colorado Springs. We were particularly keen to photograph the Chapel.

From outside the triangular shape is quite photogenic, especially when shot against a moody sky. Internally, the light spilling through the stained glass is something special. The following four photographs are only a small sample of the many I took during our 2 hour stay.

USAF Academy Chapel, Colorado Springs

Interior of USAF Academy Chapel, Colorado Springs

Organ, USAF Academy Chapel, Colorado Springs

Ceiling Detail, USAF Academy Chapel, Colorado Springs

Well, another trip to the US draws to a close. It’s been most enjoyable and I’m sure that I have many good photographs safely stored on my MacBook Pro hard disk. During the trip I’ve shot close to 9500 frames. I have used a Garmain Etrex Vista HCx to record GPS data throughout the trip, and added metadata and keywords to images each evening. The next task is to import Lightroom catalog I had created specially for the trip into my master catalog. Then begins the process of weeding out the bad and marking the best. However these last two steps will will need to wait until I get home.

** Disclaimer** Above images are quick previews specifically for this blog so that friends and family can see how I’m getting on.

Rocky Mountain Gold – Day 11 to 14 (Green River to Durango)

Days 11 through 14 have been mostly spent travelling from Wyoming through Colorado. We also made short excursions into Utah and New Mexico. Planned stops along the way included the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Maroon Bells National Recreation Area near Aspen, Red Mountain Pass, the Million Dollar Highway, the Silverton and Durango Railroad, Chimney Rock, the Cumbres & Toltec Steam Railroad (Chama, New Mexico), and the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The choice of such a long and at times out of the way route was to provide ourselves with as many opportunities to capture the golden colours of aspens and cottonwoods.

Flaming Gorge Lake from Sheep Creek Overlook

Aspens, White River National Forest

Aspen Detail, White River National Forest

Aspens, Maroon Bells National Recreation Area

Lone Aspen, Uncompahgre River, Ridgway State Park

Aspen Grove and Fence, Dallas Divide

Obviously, any other opportunity to snap a few photographs was also taken. One such occasion was when part of the group decided to take a trip on the steam train between Silverton and Durango. The line was constructed in 1892 to haul silver & gold ore from the San Juan Mountains, but passengers soon realised it was the view that was truly precious. This historic train has been in continuous operation ever since, carrying passengers behind vintage steam locomotives and rolling stock indigenous to the line.We’d been told beforehand that it would we probably take a lot of photographs, and as it turned out, we did. The following is one of my favourites.

Silverton and Durango Railroad, San Juan Mountains

Our last stop on this leg of the journey was to photograph the sun setting at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We did get a quite spectacular sunset, but my favourite shots were of the afterglow.

Afterglow, Great Sand Dunes National Park

Tomorrow we begin the long trek back to Denver. Hopefully, the weather stays in our favour.