Return to the Sand Dunes - Spring 2023

 The Great Sand Dunes are a special place.  It's a super unique national park that is in the middle of nowhere southern Colorado.  360 Sangre de Cristo mountain views and hundreds of miles of sand with no trails.  To get to the dunes, we started at the parking area and walked across Mediano Creek, which was cold on the first day and warm on the second day based on whether or not the sun was out.  

The kids have been to the dunes before, but Kolby was only a toddler and KD didn't even remember the experience being a 3 year old.   This time, we drove down there and didn't tell our kids that our family friends were going to meet us there.  It was a fun surprise when they showed up to our camping spot the first night.  The look on their face when they saw them was priceless.  We had a great time with the Coffins as we stayed at our parents "cabin" in the Spanish Peaks area the first night and then rented a cabin near the dunes on the second night. The kids (and adults) got to play in the creek and, believe it or not, all of the older kids made it to the top of High Dune, which was not an easy task!  The wind up there was intense.

Mediano Creek

 

Sunset on the Dunes

 

 

 

Four Seasons Mountain Photography

This past year, we visited specific scenic locations four different times throughout the year.  We chose easily accessible, yet scenic areas of Colorado to shoot all four seasons.  These photographs represent what I believe to be iconic views of our mountains with aspens or other foliage in the foreground to show the changing of the colors in the different seasons.  The first area is the Sawatch Range of central Colorado near the towns of Leadville and Buena Vista:

4 Seasons on Mt. Elbert - The tallest mountain in Colorado

4 Seasons - Cabin reflection

4 Seasons - Colorado 14er Mt. Yale

4 Seasons - Colorado 14er mt. Princeton

 The second location was close to home.  Rocky Mountain National Park and the Front Range are within an hour of our home, so naturally it works well for us to take day trips to get to these spots easier:

4 Seasons - Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

4 Seasons - Hallett and Flattop Mountain

4 Seasons - The Boulder Flatirons

4 Seasons - Longs Peak

Prints of each individual image in these collages is also available on it's own.  Check out my four seasons gallery link below for all the photographs:

4 Seasons Gallery

Fern and Odessa Lakes - RMNP

Thanks to Grandma for watching the kids so Cami and I could take a hike into Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was a perfect weather day and a treat to spend a day in a beautiful place with my beautiful wife!

Typical vagrants in Estes Park

Big Thompson River and Moraine Park at dawn - Prints available

The hike to Fern Lake (9,500ish ft.) was snow free on an easy trail.  At Fern Falls, we walked right up to a backpacker who was taking pictures of the waterfall.  The falls were so loud that he didn't hear our voices or footsteps.  It startled him and he jumped and accidentally dropped his smartphone in the water!  Just kidding.  He didn't drop his phone, but we did give him a good scare.  We wouldn't see another soul for the rest of the morning, which is rare for this part of the park. 

Fern Falls was violent from the spring snow melt

Fern Lake - Prints available

Fern Lake Panorama

The trail past Fern Lake was completely covered in snow.  The nice thing about spring hiking in the National Park is that all the snow on the trails has been packed down by the many visitors walking on them.  This makes for easy hiking on top without the dreaded postholing.  All we needed were microspikes on our boots. 

We had the lake all to ourselves for lunch.

Odessa Lake with Notchtop Mountain - Prints available

Odessa Lake vertical

Photography Trip - Silverthorne - Spring 2015

Gore Range Sunset

We realized this would be the last chance we'd have to take a vacation before the new baby boy Spong is born next month sometime.  Last minute, we decided on the Silverton area.  Beautiful scenery surrounds the towns of Frisco and Silverthorne.  The top of the Tenmile Range can be seen to the south.  The west side of the Front Range is to the east, and the bottom of the rugged Gore Range is to the north.  Here are a few photography samples from our trip:

Mt. Evans

Mt. Evans Summit Panorama

On our way down we decided to attempt to watch the sunset from the summit of Colorado 14er Mt. Evans.  The Mt. Evans road goes almost all the way up to the summit.  Once at the parking lot, Cami (8 months pregnant) and KD (2 years old) decided to hike the short road to the top with me.  There was quite a bit of snow still covering the road and it was cold and windy, but they braved the elements.

KD's first 14er!

Grays and Torreys

Clouds rolled in and covered us shortly after taking these shots. No sunset light tonight.  As we were driving back down the mountain, our daughter interrupted the silence said, "Mommy, Daddy, I made the truck louder!"

"Oh, how did you do that?"

"I yawned."

We laughed when we realized what she meant.  There is a lot of logic in a 2 year old mind.  Every few minutes for the rest of the drive down she would say, "Oh! Truck's louder again!".  

The Gore Range

Gore Range Sunrise - Fine art prints for sale

The next day we spent driving around to check out some photography locations and maybe do a little hike.  I found a couple spots with flowers overlooking the Eagles Nest Wilderness that Colorado photographer John Fielder has featured on his website.  It's very interesting to me to see how the big wig professionals find their spots.  A few of them are just off some county roads next to houses and subdivisions.  When I took the above photograph, I was actually standing on a dirt road.  It sure looks like wilderness though doesn't it?

Eagles Nest Peak

Panorama of the entire Gore Range - Click for larger view

Sightseeing

Dillon Reservoir

Top of the Tenmile Range

Peak 1

Mt. Guyot

Grays and Torreys sunset from Dillon