The girls and I went to the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness to photograph this waterfall that pours into Lower Willow Lake from Upper Willow Lake.  Actually, I was the one who went to see the waterfall..  They went because they are into following me around because I keep giving them food.  

So, if you took high school spanish, or are just wikked smaat to begin with, you know that Sangre de Cristo translates into 'Blood of Christ'..  One version of the story is that the range got its name because the alpenglow there trends toward the reddish end of the spectrum.  Maybe the flat expanse of the San Luis Valley west of the Sangres (which is bigger than Connecticut) causes the relative angle of the setting sun to be lower, making it pass through more atmosphere by the time it hits the peaks, causing it to trend toward the red end of the light spectrum...  (my theory)  The other story is that some Spanish Priest got shot by an arrow in the mountains there and like in some Monty Python movie, exclaimed 'Sangre de Cristo!' (Im not dead yet...) as he lay there dying...  Whatever you want to believe, man..  I trend toward the alpenglow story myself.  Especially after seeing the rosy tones cast upon the lake and waterfall on what would become another stormy night in Colorado.                  

Cascade below lower Willow Lake.

I've been dragging this giant coffee table book of John Fielder's Colorado photography around for years.  My favorite shot in the whole book is of Cathedral Peak, and I have wanted to go there since I first saw it.  I've stared at that picture for hours.  Not kidding.  If I drop the book, it automatically opens to the two page shot of Cathedral with a fresh dusting of snow.  The other day I hiked up there in the dark, and slept in the pouring rain so I could see it at first light.  It was worth it.  The stormy weather started breaking at dawn and the light was constantly changing.  Great photography weather.               

Angles in Cathedral Lake

Was in a black and white mood when I was taking these flower pictures.

Ghost Flowers.  Or sea anemones?  Looks like the petals are moving in that slow eerie way that hair slides around under water.  

Early light on Cathedral.

Glassy pond drives your eye down over and over.  lol.

Clouds were moving fast.

Sunset from my office chair at home.

I love how this shot came out.  I might mess with it a little after I let it settle and digest it a while, but its good for now...     

This was a difficult shot, and it didnt really work out the way I hoped it would, but here is the gist of what was happening during the sunrise.  Its one of those examples where the visible light exceeds the camera's ability to record it, so i just picked a middle ground, and let the darks and lights clip on either end of the histogram.

Some HDR shots of the Jeep (and Lily)

Marsh Marigolds 

Looking South down North Fork Basin

There needs to be at least one shot of Moose, even if its sort of a flat picture.   

Marsh Marigolds

Twin Lakes

Sun cups and rills

Heres a first attempt at some high dynamic range photography.  As I understand it so far, HDR photography allows the final image to more closely represent what the eye actually sees vs. what the camera actually sees.  Normally when you look at a scene like this where the sun is falling brightly on the peaks, and the trees in the foreground are in shadow, your eyes can still make out detail in the foreground even though it is darker.  When you try to photograph a scene like this, you have a few options on how to get the correct exposure.  You can use filters, try and tweak things during post processing, or shoot multiple exposures and combine them later like in HDR photography.  

Normally with aperture remaining constant, if you expose for the light hitting the peaks, the shutter speed will be fast, and the foreground shadows will approach black.  If you try to expose for the shadows in the foreground, the shutter speed will be slower causing the peaks to be washed out and approaching white.  If you are just taking a single shot of a high contrast scene and want to have the whole scene evenly exposed this can be a problem.     

With HDR photography you take anywhere from 3 to 9 or more exposures of the same scene and combine them all during post processing.  One shot has the peaks exposed properly, one with the dark trees exposed correctly, and other shots for exposing all things in between.  When all these images are combined later, interesting things can happen, ranging from fairly realistic representations to pretty creative interpretations of a scene.  

Anyway, so these next two pictures are a slightly tinted black and white version and a color version of the same scene.  The foreground exposure could be better, but what the hell, im still figuring out the best way to bracket these kinds of shots.  Also a scene with greater contrast would show the effect better.  Stuff like shiny chrome, and cityscapes at night are made for HDR.  Both of these images were made from 6 different exposures.           

After the trail emerges from a narrow wooded valley and passes this sign, it heads over a bridge spanning Pine Creek, and suddenly dumps out into the open valley you can see in the next pic.       

I took this picture as I was standing in the middle of Pine Creek.  It was thigh deep, frigid, and flowing fast.  Sure enough, just after I took this pic, I turned to head back to the bank and went down, lol.  The camera was about the only thing that remained dry.

Looking toward Elkhead Pass in Missouri Basin from Twin Lakes

Pretty sure this is Emerald Peak with the edge of Silver King Lake in the foreground.  I hung out here for a while, made a hot strawberry oatmeal breakfast, and dried my feet.   Breakfast at 12,700'.   About as good as it gets.    

Door to an old mining cabin on the way up to Missouri Basin.    

Heading up Pine Creek toward Emerald Peak and Missouri Basin

Pine Creek

Old corral at the mining cabin.

The descent from Silver King Lake down to Twin Lakes was made fun and easy by glissading.   Glissading = sliding downhill using your ice axe as a brake hoping you maintain enough control not to smash into the rocks below.   lol.  The following pics show my tracks.  Tracks in the first pic can be seen in the center descending to the rock nubbin above the lake.  Second pic is a closer look at the tracks.  Depending on the steepness of the slope, glissading can be pretty fun.  

I took a picture or two from the rocks on top of this snowfield just before I slid down, and dropped my lens cap.  It bounced a few times and landed in a shallow sun cup at the very top of this slope.  Lucked out.  

Unnamed peak seen from the approach in the Pine Creek valley