Today’s warm weather meant that I still had time to visit Rocky Mountain National Park one more time this year in comfort.

I knew that most roads at higher elevations would already be closed because of snow and ice. But I figured on driving to the Upper Beaver Meadows Trailhead at 8400 feet and hiking up to Cub Lake at 8600. Too late; they had also closed that road for the season.

Anyway, the ranger at the entrance gate had told me that people had seen moose near Sprague Lake on the Bear Lake Road. The sightings were a week ago, “but they are still in the area,” he said.

That was enough for me to change my plans. Moose are rare in the eastern part of the park. I had seen moose only in the northern section near the Cache la Poudre River, west of Fort Collins.

While I didn’t have great hopes of seeing moose today, I like hiking around Sprague Lake and decided to give it a shot. It’s even higher than Cub Lake and part of the trail was icy. And no moose were hanging around in plain view for me to see.

No matter. This view of the mostly frozen lake with the Continental Divide as a background was my first reward.

Sprague Lake at 8,700 Feet with Hallett's Peak at 12,700 Feet (Right of Center)

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I hiked back to my SUV along the brook that feeds the lake and marveled at how clear the stream was. Just then I spotted a school of brook trout and got my second reward.

Brook Trout in a Brook

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How’s that for clarity!

Black swans may be improbable. Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Black Swan Theory” concerns high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events beyond the realm of normal expectations.

But improbable isn’t impossible. While all my life I hadn’t seen any black swans, I saw two of them yesterday. Even white swans aren’t all that common. But I saw three of them.

All five of these beautiful birds were swimming gracefully in Cheyenne Lake near Colorado Springs. The Broadmoor Hotel surrounds the lake. I went there yesterday afternoon between my first and second visits to the Garden of the Gods.

At the time I didn’t know about the improbable black swans there nor even that the Broadmoor had a lake. I just knew that the Broadmoor was one of the great hotels of the world. I remember visiting it once with my parents and my sister, but that was more than half a century ago.

The lake is just one of the hotel’s many amenities. It has 744 rooms in 30 buildings on 3000 acres of Cheyenne Mountain. The Broadmoor has 18 restaurants and cafes, seven tennis courts, three golf courses, three swimming or lap pools, three outdoor hot tubs, a fitness center, horseback riding, a movie theater, and a world-class spa.

It also has 24 speciality retail shops. Long ago in one of those shops my mother shocked me by buying a small figurine of a nude woman. No longer shocked by the beauty of the female form, I now keep it on my desk.

I thought about spending the night at the Broadmoor. But then I check the rates in my AAA TourBook. Rooms rent for $290 up — all the way up to $2500. For one person, one night.

Instead, I chose a motel. I could afford its rate, $29.99.

The Broadmoor's Main Buildings from Cheyenne Lake

Gracefully Pedaling Fast, this Swan Makes Reflections in the Lake

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Stretching Her Wings

An Improbable Black Swan and a Probable Mallard Duck

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Susan DeWind is an intrepid hiker I met in August when we hiked 132 miles together on a Sierra Club trek through the High Sierra in California. A few days ago she sent me great photos of herself and of me from that memorable journey:

Susan and Hawksbeak

An Impish Guy at Stella Lake

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[Read more →]

This afternoon I got out for a leisurely walk along the South Boulder Creek Trail. While no one else was walking the trail, plenty of people ran past me or raced by on their bicycles.

The afternoon was warm, and I was in a better mood that the past few cold days when I shut myself into my apartment. I loved the peaceful feeling of being out in nature.

As I set up my camera on a tripod and sat down to compose my pictures, I reflected that the careful photography that I have moved into is more like fishing that the other outdoor activities I see. Both photographers and fishermen take their time to soak in the environment. I certainly did today.

Using only my new 300 mm telephoto lens on my Gitzo tripod, I took 50 pictures of the three scenes below and picked the sharpest images.

Close Up of a Prairie Dog

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The Berries of Fall

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Seeding Plant Along South Boulder Creek

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My new lens is wonderful, but not enough. I realized today that I need a another prime lens to handle closer distances. Doug Goodin, a professional nature photographer who is a friend and mentor, recommends a 50mm lens. Maybe when I get this one I will be satisfied!

I’ve bought two photos of Colorado scenes and both of them grace my living room. Doug took one of them, and another professional nature photographer in Boulder, Peter Steele, took the other one. He calls it “Horse Crossing” and a low resolution version of it is online. Peter told me that he found this scene near the town of Marble, and since the road I was taking today went close to Marble I drove there to see if I could find the setting.

Here is a copy of the online version of Peter’s photo. The print that I have is a lot sharper:

"Horse Crossing" by Peter Steele

While Peter was there in spring and I got there in the fall, this is same place:

More Horses

I was headed toward the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, the only national park in Colorado that I hadn’t experienced before. The National Parks attract me. We have 58 of them in this country now, and I have experienced just over half of them. [Read more →]

Sometimes even the best lens isn’t good enough. I needed both my 18-200mm zoom and my 300mm telephoto lens to capture spectacular Mt. Sopris on Friday.

Not until after 1 p.m. did I get away on my unplanned road trip to southwestern Colorado. First, Nancy, my friend and neighbor, and I went out for breakfast and then took a hike together. Then, I needed to pack.

Even though I got a late start I didn’t feel rushed — not until I got to Glenwood Springs, near the end of the high rent district. All the way west on Interstate 70 I passed one upscale ski resort after another, including the most famous, Vail. I took a good look around Vail, which again struck me like a chic wide spot in the road. Colorado’s other top end ski resort, Aspen, which I visited with my friend Mark a few months ago, still attracts me much more.

The pricy resorts stop at Carbondale, just south of Glenwood Springs and west of Aspen. On Friday when I got to Glenwood Springs about 6 p.m. I realized that I needed to step on it in order to catch the last light on foot Mt. Sopris. This 13,000 foot mountain towers 7,000 feet over the Crystal River Resort about six miles south of Carbondale, where I had a reservation to spend the night in a charming cabin. It lacked wifi, but places — like lenses — can’t have everything.

My timing to capture Mt. Sopris was perfect. I got to the resort about 6:30, took my first shot at 6:38 and my last one at 7:01 just after the light faded. I used my best tripod with each lens to get the sharpest photos I could.

When I bought my new 300mm telephoto lens I knew that its fixed focal length lacked the flexibility of my zoom lens. So I needed this shot with my zoom lens turned to a 35mm focal length to set the scene:

Mt. Sopris and the Crystal River at the Crystal River Resort

Six minutes earlier I got this close up of the mountain with my brand new 300mm lens. What a difference! [Read more →]

Photographs can never be too sharp. Many of mine haven’t been sharp enough to please me.

For months I’ve been thinking about upgrading my camera equipment, and I finally did it. This afternoon my new lens arrived.

As soon as UPS delivered it, I hit the trail. I couldn’t wait to get out and put my new lens through its paces, even though I got caught in a rain storm. No matter. My new lens worked fine.

Just half a mile from my apartment is a prairie dog colony. Since it was wet and after 6, most of the prairie dogs had already gone to bed. But this one posed nicely for me:

Neighborhood Prairie Dog

My new lens is superior in three ways to my three other lenses. First, it is a Canon “L-series” lens, which is the company’s designation for the best ones that it makes. Unofficially, the “L” stands for luxury, and I guess that it is. [Read more →]

With a prediction of sunny skies everywhere here in north central Colorado, plus a temperature forecast of 80 degrees in Boulder and 60 degrees at the top of the Rocky Mountain National Park, today was a great day to get back to the high country. The weatherman was almost right.

Except for a snowstorm during the last hour of my hike along the Old Ute Trail from the Alpine Visitor Center at the top of Trail Ridge Road to Milner Pass on the Continental Divide, the weather was perfect. And the first person I asked for a ride back to the visitor center took me right there.

This four-mile hike is one of favorites. You can see why:

Old Ute Trail Before the Snow (The Dark Cloud Was A Clue)

A Butterfly on One of the Last Flowers of Summer

That was my first hike today.

But last night I showed about a dozen of the best shots that I took this summer to the other members of the Colorado Nature Camera Club. This was a trial run to see how they would look on the club’s projector. I was most concerned whether they would be sharp and bright enough. They were. [Read more →]

The most famous native art of Alaska — which also has always interested me the most — is the carving of totem poles. Before I left Alaska yesterday I was able to see four wonderful totem poles.

One of the most interesting totem poles is in the sanctuary of my best friend’s church. John is the senior pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Anchorage. On my visit to Alaska I had the opportunity to see him leading worship services for the first time.

Pastor John and His Congregation This Sunday

On of the most interesting totem poles is at the right side of this photo. Carved from a 500-year-old cedar log by David Fison, one of John’s predecessors, this 17-foot “Easter Totem Pole” honors the people of the Tsimshian village of Metlakatla where he had served as interim pastor in 1965. [Read more →]

The longer I stay in Alaska the better the weather gets. This can’t last for long, but since last Wednesday all over Alaska, at least from Anchorage to Nome, we have had sunny weather.

We returned yesterday for a cruise around Prince William Sound. We had glorious sunshine, infinitely better than the heavy rain and blustery weather that forced the cancellation of our previous attempt several days ago.

We left from from the little town of Whittier, 60 miles southeast of Anchorage.

90 Percent of the Residents of Whittier Live in the Big Building

The Princess Diamond Was in Port

[Read more →]