This morning’s hike took me from Inspiration to Realization.

Driving up Flagstaff Mountain Road, I saw divergent views. I stopped first at Inspiration Point to watch the sunrise over Boulder.

Here, at 6:53 a.m. the sun rose over the Denver-Boulder Turnpike. Notice how many more cars are coming to Boulder than going to Denver!
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As I drove up Magnolia Road this afternoon for my hike I was in a hurry to get to the trailhead. But that didn’t stop me when I noticed this view of icy Giggey Lake in a meadow backed up by trees and mountains and cloudy sky:
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A few days remain in Colorado’s prime hiking season. Today was one of the best.

And not only because of the weather, which was glorious. But mostly because of the company.

I hiked with Janice Bailey on a blind date. Mutual friends introduced us by giving me her phone number.

I called her a couple of days ago, and we arranged to meet for lunch and then to hike together. We lunched at Murphy’s Grill in north Boulder, about midway between where I live in south Boulder and where Janice lives in Longmont.

One of her favorite hikes is the Boulder Valley Ranch Open Space, just a couple of miles north of where we ate. While I have hiked there at least twice, I had never hiked the 2.5 mile loop that we took today from the Boulder Valley Ranch Trailhead to the Eagle Trail and back on the Sage Trail.
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Today’s hike was much more about fitness than photography.

Hiking at midday, when the light is harder, I knew from the get go that I would take few pictures. I wasn’t able to hike this morning because of my yoga class, which in fact I missed because I wasn’t able to find my keys until well after the class started. And I wasn’t able to go late this afternoon because I had an appointment to get a haircut — something I really needed because I have a blind date tomorrow morning.

In my continual quest for new experiences I found a new trail today that I have been trying to find for months. My maps show that the Front Range Trailhead is in in Roosevelt National Forest and starts near Magnolia Road at about 8,500 feet a few miles south of Nederland. But I never could find it.
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After visiting Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge yesterday, I said I would soon be visiting one of the other wildlife refuges in Colorado that I hadn’t visited before. I went as soon as possible.

This morning was out because of an appointment. So I went this evening to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge for the first time.

This wildlife refuge was a chemical weapons manufacturing facility during World War II, and then Shell used it to make pesticides and herbicides until 1982, when they began to clean it up. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took it over in 1992.
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This evening as I was listening to my car radio I heard someone say that we can’t have a second Indian summer. Maybe she doesn’t have another one where she lives, but we sure do here in northeastern Colorado.

The temperature reached 71 degrees in Boulder this afternoon. I took advantage of it with another sunset hike.

For the first time I visited Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge and hiked all of its open trails. This is one of five wildlife refuges that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has open to the public in Colorado. They say that it is home to more than 113 species of birds as well as deer, turtles, foxes, ducks, and voles.
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For the past two evenings I searched in vain for a sunset. Last night when I went back to Barker Meadow Reservoir, I didn’t even find any clouds in the sky.

But for half an hour this evening I found one of the most beautiful sunsets ever.

I am taking more pictures of fewer scenes. Using a tripod means carefully considering the scene and then testing different camera settings, like aperture, focal length, and whether to use a polarizer or not. At the suggestion of Doug Goodin, a professional photographer who is mentoring me, I also made every shot in both RAW and JPG formats to see what sharpness and saturation settings that my editing program, Aperture, saw in each format. This evening made 159 exposures of just three scenes.
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Lately my exercise on Friday is the hour and one-half that I do yoga. That morning class, however, can conflict with hiking opportunities.

This Friday morning was a good example. I woke up to the first snow of the season. But instead of going out to capture it with my camera, I had to get ready for class. And after class, the snow was gone.

This experience, however, left me with a pent up urge to hit the trail. As a budding landscape photographer I know that the hours just before and after sunrise and sunset have the most beautiful light. So I planned another sunset hike.
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Today would have been a good day to do nothing more strenuous than to kick back and write an article that I have due at 3 p.m. this afternoon and then to read a book. The weather prediction was for clouds and wind.

But the winter seems to be finally over. The morning defied the weatherman with brilliant sun, just a slight breeze, and warmth.

So I walked to the market.
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We still have neither snow nor sun in Boulder. But that didn’t stop me on my rounds of fitness and photography for fun this morning.

The temperature was literally freezing. But in the absence of wind and in the presence of my hand warmers, I was comfortable.

I got to the trailhead before sunrise. Wasn’t hard to do, considering that in theory at least the sun rose at 6:42 a.m. this morning. But I looked in vain for sunshine.

The trailhead was the same parking lot that I use when I visit the main Boulder Public Library. The Boulder Creek Trail is an oasis in the city, nestled right between downtown Boulder’s two major east-west streets, Arapahoe Avenue and Canyon Boulevard.
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