New Paintings - Winter 2023/24

Flatirons in Winter - Prints Available

Embracing the cold this winter, I did a painting of the Boulder Flatirons caked in snow.  Funny thing is that this photo I used for reference was take in MAY after a mid spring snowstorm a few years ago!

We also spent a weekend recently in Colorado Springs and I took a stab at doing a 1 hour plein air painting in the cold.  Wow!  That was revealing.  I now see how slowly I normally paint.  I definitely left wishing I had another hour or two.  Below is a comparison of a one hour painting of Pike Peak and a 20 hour painting of the same peak done years ago:

Pikes Peak - 1 hour plein air

 

1 hour

20 hours

Snowshoeing Lake Isabelle - Winter 2023

 

Tim and I went on a snowshoe up to one of our favorite local winter spots.  The Brainard Lake portal is closed in winter so you have to park a few miles away at the Gateway Trail.  I'd done this same hike about a decade ago, but I'd forgotten how far it was.  I was thinking about 8 miles round trip, but with the whole thing including a few detours, we ended up snowshoeing over 13 miles or something like that.  I always like hiking with Tim as he, being an electrical engineer, naturally takes detailed stats of our hikes including time spent hiking, average pace, distance traveled, calories burned, and years added to our lives due to exercise.  

Sunrise on the Indian Peaks on the drive in

Brainard Lake

The hike to Brainard is all on a snow packed road and pretty eventless.   Once we reached Brainard we decided to skip Isabelle and go hike up a ridge and hike a 12er called Niwot Ridge.  It didn't look too far from where we were anyway.  So we left the trail around Long Lake and started ascending up the hill. Soon the trail disappeared and we started trudging through thick powder.  Woah!  This was taking a lot of time and energy.  Oh also I forgot to mention that I forgot ALL my food.  I left it in the fridge back at home.  Tim is such an amazing guy that he just shared his rations with me throughout the day.  So as we're halfway up the hill toward the ridge, we realized we didn't have enough food or energy or time to attempt this summit.  We'd bitten off more than we could chew.  See what I did there?  Back to plan A... head to Lake Isabelle.  No problem there.  This is one of the most scenic lakes in the Indian Peaks wilderness and a worthy destination.   

Post holing

Lake Isabelle - Prints Available

sastrugi

There were a number of parties that day that brought ice fishing equipment up there.  One of the groups made it as far as Long Lake and were actually catching some trout.  That is definitely being added to my to-do list in the future!

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

Mountain Photography - Winter 2018/2019

Mt. Princeton Sunrise


This year, I'm working on a handful of four season photographs from Rocky Mountain National Park as well as the Collegiate Peaks area near Buena Vista/Leadville.  This is kind of a cool new experience for me in that I get to visit these locations four times (or more) in one single year and get to explore a little deeper and see the different moods of the landscapes.  It is amazing how drastic a mountain scene can change over the course of two or three months!  Totally looking forward to putting all these photographs together side by side at the end of this summer.  Winter is my least favorite experience wise.  Not a big fan of waiting for the sun to come up while standing outside in the -10 degree windchill factor, but the scenes themselves look awesome.  In my opinion, mountains look most majestic covered in a blanket of white.

Old Cabin in the Sawatch

Mt. Elbert (Tallest Peak in Colorado)

Sunrise - Indian Peaks Wilderness from the Front Range

Hallett Peak - RMNP

Snowshoeing to Lake Helene - March, 2018

We took a casual snowshoe below Notchtop Mountain in the park. The day started out beautiful and slowly became more and more windy and overcast. Fun to get into the mountains again, though technically Springtime, it will still be Winter up here for a few more months!

Winter Photography in Rocky Mountain National Park 2016/2017

Sunrise on the Mummy Range

Longs Peak from Hwy 7

Crags

Sunrise on Moraine Park with elk herd

Beaver Meadows area

Dream Lake - Before dawn

Dream Lake - Sunrise

Dream Lake - Morning

Time-lapse video of the sunrise

We also went for a snowshoe to the Loch Vale in Glacier Gorge in February.  A few photos from that trip:

Alberta Falls completely covered in snow.

The Loch

Super wide angle

Four Seasons Series - Rocky Mountain National Park

One year in the making! 

Just finished my second four seasons project featuring Longs Peak, the king of Rocky Mountain National Park.  This series of images was taken in the Moraine Park area with a view of the eastern face of the peak known as the "diamond".  There was a group of aspens standing alone right in front of the peak in an easily accessible area.  From left to right, the seasons represented are: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.  Each was taken at the exact same location at different times of day and different times of year capturing a lapse in time. 

Spring

This image was taken after one of the wettest seasons of the decade. Snow lingered on the mountain well into the month of July.  The fresh bright green growth of the trees and grass contrast with the white blanketed peak.  This photograph was captured mid afternoon.




Summer

 
The summer image looks a little hazy in the distance because of the smoke from the huge wildfires on the west coast caused by a severe drought.  The smoke and haze from these fires traveled all the way out to Colorado and created a soft pink glow on the peak this morning at sunrise. 




Fall

  
The Autumn sunset image took the most work to capture. I visited this same location more than 10 times during the fall color season waiting for this small group of aspen trees to turn to gold.  This specific little aspen stand must have been the last group in the whole park to change their colors!  It wasn't until the end of October that they began to show off their fiery colors. After the sun went behind the peak on this evening, it lit up the sky in warm hues that complimented the color in the trees.




Winter

  
This one was taken right after Christmas day on a frozen December morning before dawn. Just as the sun rose, it turned the sky a bright purple above the peak and bare trees. The winds were strong and I stood outside dancing around trying to stay warm next to my tripod.  Note to self, bring gloves next time.