legendary
Dallas Divide
seamed panorama with a twist
legendary
Dallas Divide
seamed panorama with a twist
I headed west immediately after work the third Friday night in September to retrace part of my Ride the Rockies route. While pedaling along the Dallas Divide in June, I had watched in awe as stand after stand of gloriously green aspen breezed by. All I could think back then was how great this place would be in autumn. Now was my chance to see it in real life instead of imagining it or reading about it in someone else’s trip report.
Thirteen rolls of film later, boy do I have some tales to tell. I ran out of film! Had to pay top dollar for five more rolls in Telluride.
My weekend of color was one of the most incredible I’ve ever beheld. I should have known from the beginning this would be a trip of a lifetime, just like Ride the Rockies. Colorado is such a beautiful place to live, to work, to drive, to hike, to bike. To photograph! :)
First thing the first morning, a skunk crossed my path near the Mount Sneffels trailhead. He did not have his tail up, and he did not look back to see what or whom disturbed him. I gave him the whole darned trail! The entire meadow, in fact. I had no interest whatsoever in competing with or shooting him.
I also saw a kestrel. He swooped down right in front of me and right past the shoulder of another hiker, who didn’t quite know what was going on. Didn’t even really turn around to look. But I knew. I wish I could have been fast enough to focus and shoot. But alas, I didn’t even have the right lens mounted. I had been macro shooting frost-covered leaves.
A little later, I heard a noise. This wasn’t the typical hoof-snapping-twig or antler-breaking-bough sound. This was all out trunk-gnawing, tree-dragging, bush-splashing dam construction. My heartbeat quickened as I quietly proceeded toward the gushing spillover at the rim of the rancid pond just above the clearing.
The sudden slap on the water caused me to jump, but also sent a wave of puzzlement through my veins. This slap was too far away for me to have frightened the nervous builder. I also knew there was no way the lumber supplier could have moved that quickly across the pond. Could he???
Before I could see across the water surface, movement caught my eye. Bright orange and camo-decked movement. A muzzle-toting, thickly whiskered hunter grunted something unintelligible as he brushed past me on his way back down the mountain. I climbed up the loggy drainage and scanned the crest of the water, but saw nothing but waves and hauntingly still den. All the workers had punched out on the time clock. I missed my photo op.
I tried to capture sunrise on Sneffels, based on my maps and trail guides. I guestimated which direction was east in an area I’d never been before, and I tried to position myself to capture the sunrise on the entire escarpment. Some portions of the range did indeed turn slightly red as the sun touched the tips of their peaks, but not too much because Sneffels was casting too great a shadow. It truly is the monarch of that range. It does stand out more than anything else. I felt almost as if I was in the Tetons. Sneffels has a similar shape. The surrounding mountains made me feel as if I was in the Canadian Rockies.
When I realized I wasn’t going to get the red sunrise on the snow-covered peak I had hoped for, I drove back down the road to within view of the peaks that were catching the sun. They weren’t as tall, and they weren’t as dynamically shaped. But they were surrounded by aspen-coated foothills, and the sky was blue. I’m not so picky that a sunrise has to be on one particular peak for me to enjoy it.
There was another photographer, on motorcycle, tripod-laden, who picked close to the same area I had. He mounted his large-format camera on his tripod and waited. Took hand-held meter readings. Shot and shot and shot. From that one position, never turning around to look at other color events happening elsewhere.
Yankee Boy Basin was next. Ooooie! Man, what a road THAT was!
It wasn’t all that difficult a road. I only had to go into four once, and then, it was four high, for about maybe a quarter mile. The road itself was in pretty good shape. I could have taken my Corolla up most of the way. I may not have wanted to, but I could have.
Some wicked-looking mountains surround Sneffels. The most difficult move on Sneffels, atop the Lavender Col, is supposed to be harder than the Trough or the Homestretch on Longs. I do want to try Sneffels one day, but remembering how scared I was on Longs definitely messes with my head. I think Sneffels is one of the easier peaks along the Dallas Divide. If Sneffels truly is more difficult than Longs, just think what that makes Dallas (the most difficult peak in the state), Teakettle and plenty of jagged others.
While hiking around in Yankee Boy Basin, trying to snap some pictures at just the right angle, with just the right background, suddenly the scree beneath me did what scree does best. I in effect "surfed" partway down the slope, but then lost my balance and glissaded down the rest. Ripped my pants. I hurt. I hurt so bad, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stand up when I stopped sliding. I kept my camera up above my head the entire ride, so it was undamaged. But I knew at the bottom I was going to have bruises.
You should see my leg. It is a mess!
I remember getting back in the car and going, “Ow!” It was somewhat sore coming back up the slope, the circuitous route, of course. I wasn’t about to navigate the scree again. Definitely gave me strong feelings about climbing difficult mountains with that kind of footing. This was one steep mama, all loose scree, top to bottom. Was the picture worth it? It’s a good shot . But I can’t say I would have snapped it if I had known it was going to hurt so much.
After the lovely shelf road leading to picturesque Yankee Boy Basin, and taking pictures of my 4Runner in various predicaments, I headed south on the Skyway toward Silverton. Oh, man. I’ve found a new favorite autumn haunt . Not that anything can ever really replace the Bells, but the aspen groves along this corridor were magical. Entire walls of gold . Makes the mining history a little richer.
I pulled over about a hundred times. I couldn’t get enough photos. Sometimes I would pull over where I saw a tinge of red or orange, and there would be others doing the same thing. I would look around to see if I could find a different spot, something that wouldn’t be a carbon copy of what everyone else was shooting. Then I would notice power lines. These people were shooting regardless of the powerlines or background. As I was dropping off my film the following night, the guy ahead of me was having one of his aspen shots enlarged, and I noticed a powerline going all the way across his photo. It was indeed a nice photo. Nicely composed. Better than most. But it had this sagging black “scratch” in the sky all the way across.
Of course, I can take out powerlines. The preference, of course, would be to try not to shoot powerlines. So I don’t have many scenic pictures with them. But when there is no other way, I can take out powerlines. It’s just not something I want to do. I don’t view photo manipulation (outside of standard touchup) as being ethical.
I did a lot of little hikes around Silverton, nothing big . I’d been wanting to climb a mountain. Boy do I ever have that bug bad! I could hear Handies calling out to me as I drove toward American Basin. I wanted that mountain, and the mountain knew it. “Red Cloud will have a red cloud tonight,” it whispered in my ear. “I’ll give you a view you won’t forget!” it promised. I kept driving.
On the way back to Ridgway, I didn’t take as many photos. The sun was in a different position, the aspens I’d skipped heading south weren’t favorably lit when I headed back north. Also, I realized I have a tolerance level of about 10 hours of solid driving and shooting. I passed right by a couple of awesome shots because I was tired of shooting. I wanted to get out of the car, I wanted to hike, but no more shooting. I probably have close to the same tolerance level for strictly hiking or biking. I just don’t get to do either activity often enough to notice such an idiosyncrasy.
Doing more than one favorite activity at a time, though, I can go 12 to 16 hours. I need variety, I guess.
Next I wanted to get THE shot at Dallas Divide that I hear so much about. Not knowing exactly which spot was the right one, I did them all. They must all be popular, because all were full. I didn’t see anything better than the views I’d seen up Dallas Creek earlier, but I did shoot. Then I hiked around and looked for shots different than what others were taking. At one particularly secluded area, which I had to walk quite a way to access, I thought I’d done it. I’d found THE spot no one else knew about. And then I found an empty film canister on the ground. Oh well. At least I can clean up after the person who got my shot before me…
Then, because I’d been visually recharged, I was ready to do some more, even though light was waning. I wanted to head right to Telluride, remembering a couple of locations I’d shot during the Ride were going to be prime color and illuminated by golden sunset now. However, en route, I found yet another dirt road, and I took it, not knowing where I would wind up, not having time to look at the map if I wanted to make use of what available setting sunlight remained.
Turns out one of my photos everyone likes best, at a remote ranch , was along that country road. I found out by accident the road was actually a backroad nearly all the way into Telluride. It got me to where I was going via a lesser-traveled path. I thought it would make an excellent Ride the Rockies route, until the end. Descent would have been a killer; Ride organizer Paul B. says too many RTR riders don’t have the skill to descend a dirt road. That may be true. So I guess I’ll just do it on my own some day.
In Telluride, all the gas stations were closed. I stopped at the grocery store, assuming I would be able to at least get food and make a rest stop. Nada on the rest stop, and man was the film overpriced!
Oh, and did I mention I had run out of film? Too much gold, too much green, too happy on the trigger finger, but I couldn’t afford to run out of film again.
I then looked further for a restroom and a place to camp. By the time I finally found a decent rest stop, I was discouragingly halfway between Ridgway and Telluride, and it was close to midnight. I could go back and try to find a place to camp, on the other side of Lizard Head Pass. Or I could go back to Ridgway. I thought it was pointless to stay there, since I’d already shot the sunrise at Sneffels. If I was going to do sunrise there again, I’d rather do it from the Yankee Boy Basin approach, and I didn’t want to do that road again at night. Didn’t even know if I could stay awake long enough to get there.
Half asleep, I continued on to Montrose. In Montrose, there are no nearby forests, and no legal camp venues. So I pulled into the WalMart parking lot, fully intending to drop the film off in morning and then go to church.
I slept for about 20 minutes, then was awakened by a dream that someone had knocked on my car window. But there was no one around. Several cars remained in the parking lot. Every once in a while I heard someone get off work and leave. Sometimes employees honked goodbye to each other in passing. When I finally fell fast asleep, I slept through, but kept dreaming that someone from WalMart looked in my car and then called the police because they thought I was a dead body. Geesh.
So the next morning, I just wanted to get out of Montrose. I know that stinks and is totally unfair. But I drove on. I decided I would head straight to Marble.
Of course, I’d wanted to get a sunrise on something. Anything. But there really isn’t anything sunrise worthy in Montrose. The route I had to take to get to McClure Pass followed my Ride the Rockies route yet again. I left Montrose before sunrise, just as I did that Wednesday last June. It was dark. I was full of intimidation. The same feelings that nearly overpowered me last summer were back, only this time just as a memory. I remembered where I bought batteries for my dimming headlight. It was the only thing open for miles. I passed the rest stop where I had my bike practically rebuilt piece by piece. I passed the dirt road going off up a hill where I tested my new brakes before the mobile bike shop was forced to replace my cassette after my new chain kept grinding.
Those memories kept me driving until the sun actually did start climbing across the distant horizon while I passed through coal mining town after coal mining town. Got a couple of neat shots of mine equipment against the deep blue sky. Then I passed a sign that said Kebler Pass. I kept driving. But then I remembered Crested Butte. My tummy started twirling, then spinning, then tying itself in knots. I’d wanted to ride to Crested Butte from Gunnison during Ride the Rockies. But my knee was too sore after my first and only century. I turned back.
The Colorado Nature Photographer’s website had invited members to gather at Lost Lake, near Kebler Pass, which pointed the backway to Crested Butte. I’m not a member, and I didn’t have my bike, but I could drive there now and see what I missed in June and what other photographers like me would not be missing.
As the sun began painting the landscape with light, the foliage burst into a carpet of yellow, gold, orange, rust, green, brown and red. The foothills came alive. I saw a few deer, but I mostly just watched in awe as the hills rolled by in autumn splendor. I think I used up two more rolls of film on the 15-mile approach to the pass. I didn’t make it all the way to Crested Butte because I wanted to make sure I had enough time for Marble. But what I did see was spectacular.
Bikes everywhere. Photographers everywhere. One of the noticeable aspects was that now the photographers were sporting a lot more large-format cameras, not the tiny point and shoots I’d seen the day before.
Then I realized these were photography club members. I was in the same place as them, doing the same thing as them. That was a remarkable feeling.
It quickly faded though as I realized they all had their tripods aimed at the same things, from near the same angles, using the same kind of film, and clicking simultaneously. They would wait and shoot, wait and shoot, wait and shoot, never moving their cameras.
That’s not how I shoot. I realized that’s why I haven’t joined a photography club. I don’t want the same shot everyone else gets. I want something different. I want to see it from a different point of view. I want to capture a different emotion, a different atmosphere, a different world.
And I did. Just like Dallas Divide, I was pointing my camera in all different directions while they waited and socialized. I was climbing through willows and scrub oak . I was teetering on steep slopes and trying to maneuver around rangeland cattle. Oh, and I can handhold. I even had my shutter set to 30th of a second sometimes instead of my workhorse 250th to maximize depth of field.
When I got back to the McClure Pass road, I was greeted once again with hoards of bikes on cars and on roads. This was the perfect weather and the perfect scenery for a gorgeous ride. Or a magnificent climb. But I was driving. And driving. And driving...
I didn’t take many pictures until I got closer to Marble. My heart soared once again because this was one of my chosen destinations. This was off the beaten path. No doubt there would be throngs of people, but I was going to go where few go. I was aiming for the remote Crystal City. It was somewhere up the dirt road past Marble, and I was going to find it.
The scenery kept getting better and better, but the road kept getting worse and worse. One hunter passed me going down as I was going up. I knew it must be bad, or this road would be flooded with 4WDs and ATVs. It was next to deserted. On the biggest fall weekend of the year.
About three or four miles from Crystal City, according to my odometer, I was tempted to back down the road because I hadn’t found a place to turn around. The only reason I did not back down is that I didn’t have a spotter. I’d wanted to park and hike the rest of the way up since the meadow where I’d passed the hunter. I should have stopped in the meadow. There was plenty of room there. And the road before that wasn’t treacherous, just not necessarily suitable for automobiles.
That meadow was deceiving. I thought there would be more level spots somewhere. I thought the road would be worthy of an adventure.
Well, let me rephrase that — that road WAS an adventure.
I was alone, and that was not good. My cell phone might as well have been dead, and that was bad. No one knew where I was, and that could have been fatal. Everyone knew I was taking pictures in the mountains, and some even knew I was hoping to find the photogenic Crystal Mill. But I hadn’t told anyone when, because I didn’t know myself, and I’d told no one when to expect me home. All I knew is that I wanted to get my film done Sunday night, if possible. I had no specific plan other than that.
What I was doing was stupid, and I knew it. I had to turn back.
After about two and a half to three miles of wishing I hadn’t done this, wondering if I should back down, sliding off ruts, longing for the end of the road, I finally came upon a very steep and rocky section surrounded by thick forest but with just enough grass on the eroded road edges for me to attempt what I thought would be a three- or four-point turn. It was an eight-point turn. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it without bashing in the side of my car with a tree or a boulder. There just wasn’t enough room to turn my vehicle around. I’m still not quite sure how I managed it, especially without a spotter. But I did get turned around, and I immediately thanked God.
Now I just had to get back down the mountain.
Downhill traffic is supposed to yield to uphill traffic. I could end up backing back up the mountain if I encountered anyone in the next three miles. My stomach was absolutely tied in knots. I knew I could go down. I knew I could go back up if necessary. But backing wasn’t going to be fun. There was no place to pull over once I finished backing. Backing around the switchbacks would have been unthinkable.
I didn’t mention any of that in my prayer, but God granted me the blessing anyway. I didn’t encounter another life form until I’d crossed back over the river. And then, it was a winch-equipped Mog and his four-vehicle entourage.
I would have liked to have parked right there and hiked back up. Maybe the Mog would have given me a lift. But then again, no, I wouldn’t want to go up that road again in any vehicle. I have legs. They function well. I can walk. No, not walk. Climb! Crystal Road ain’t no hill walkin’!
But there was no time if I wanted to get my film done. If I hiked back up the six or so miles, I would have been back to my car in the dark. I would drive the I-70 corridor in the dark and miss Independence Pass altogether. I was getting very sleepy. So I stopped at the only sandwich shop in Marble for an avocado jack sandwich. Not a bad little $8 item. Kept me awake for the next two hours. And it was easy to digest.
I took more pictures en route to Carbondale , but not many. Then I took what I thought was the Snowmass exit. I wanted the same picture I took of Capitol with the spring aspen catkins, except now it would be golden aspens. But the Snowmass exit I took was Snowmass Creek. Wrong road. My sleepiness was beginning to tattle on me in a visible way. I unintentionally went four-wheeling again. It was nice in that I found another road I did not know existed. It think it was a Capitol trailhead. Wasn’t anything like the road to Crystal City, but it was decidedly four-wheel drive.
On the way back down, I turned at the junction I thought would take me back to the Snowmass road I’d meant to take. Instead, it took me to yet another four-wheel drive road, this one not as bad as the last two, but I was tired. I wanted to go home. I knew there would be no way to get my film done before work on Monday. I wasn’t taking any more pictures. My car was covered with three layers of different colors of dust from each of the dirt roads. I was hungry and thirsty. I was very tired of driving. I think I was rapidly approaching that ten-hour tolerance level, and oh, how I wanted my bike! Particularly after I passed swarms of individual or couple cyclists on this very road, which went up the Snowmass ski area the back way. My car, which in effect climbed four mountains this trip, climbed a ski slope. Wowie!
I skipped Maroon Bells, which was the plan all along, but it felt weird. This is the first time in many years I haven’t done the Bells, and it doesn’t feel like fall without them. I also skipped Castle Creek, which I had explored back in the spring. I wanted to bike it. But I was bikeless. If I’d had my bike, I wouldn’t have skipped it, even it meant getting home at 3 a.m.
Very early in this trip, I realized I was missing something very important. I wanted my bike SO bad. But it was back in the shop. I had no choice. So I couldn’t bring it.
All the way around my homemade alpine loop, I kept passing people with bikes, people on bikes, or just plain bikes. Plus, I was retracing a lot of my Ride the Rockies route. The weather was stupendous.
I wanted my bike. I wouldn’t have been able to see half the places I saw if I’d spent six or seven hours pedaling. I also wouldn’t have had to spend more than $100 getting my film processed. (You should have seen the lab’s reaction when I dropped off the exposed film…)
During this trip, I missed a couple of spots I’d planned to see. I picked up a couple of new favorites. This is the first year in about 13 years that I haven’t gone to see the Bells draped in gold. Not that I haven’t already spent plenty of time AND film there this year…
It doesn’t feel like fall without seeing the Bells. As I drove by the turnoff, my heart was pounding. I was already too late to drop off my film. Another couple of hours wouldn’t have mattered. I came within centimeters of turning....
But then the sign flashed. “Warning! Bells Road paving 9/28-9/29 – Expect Delays!” That was enough to keep me on route.
I took five or six pictures along the ascent of Independence Pass. But there were more bikers, and the road was too narrow for frequent scenic pullouts. I soon wished I was biking instead of driving and shooting again. And I was ready for my bed.
I had planned to drive to Buena Vista and come home via 285 to avoid the bottleneck at Georgetown on I-70. But by the time I reached the turnoff, I was too drained to do anything more than the shortest route home, no matter what. I stopped in Leadville for convenience store pizza, nasty by the way, just to keep myself awake. Then I headed home up Freemont Pass, yet another leg of my Ride the Rockies tour.
Another memorable location. I remembered sagging my camera. More than the road. More than the grade. More than the demo bike I hated at the time. I remembered climbing that pass and not having my camera to shoot the views. Now I had my camera, and it wasn’t totally dark, and I still wasn’t shooting the views.
The traffic got very bad east of Georgetown for about six miles, and then whizzed after. I dropped off my film before going to work to download the digital shots. The guy at the photo lab predictably reacted to my suitcase of film. He was glad he didn’t have to process it that night.
I put two quarters in the meter at work, intending to stay only 20 minutes or less, but ended up staying an hour. I don’t like the little digital camera, but WOW! If my print shots turned out as well as the digitals, which I instinctively knew they would, I was going to have the best selection of autumn photos I had ever captured.
I feel as if I went panning for gold. And I got it. Right now, I feel like the richest photographer in the world. Even though the bill at the photo lab after 338 shots and 13 CDs darn near left me penniless. I’ve got gold , and I’ve got lots of it. Gold!
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