Mt. Evans
Time for a photodump! Most of these were taken on Mt. Evans, Coloradao, but a few are not.
The trip started with meeting hbruton and dark_natasha at a lovely Vietnemese restaurant called New Saigon. I highly recommend it if you are in the Denver area! After a much needed and filling meal, we were off up the mountain, Zoom! I can't seem to remember most of the drive up, though I know it was filled with lots of nice conversation interspersed with me reading Alla Prima. The drive was lovely, I love mountains. Cliffs faces and jutting rocks, aspens mixed with ponderosa pines. Gorgeous!
Our first stop was a lovely lake. There were lots of american black ducks and white crowned sparrows (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), baby trouts, damsel flies, and some butterflies and dragonflies, which made Heather happy.
Bad photo is bad.
Better photo of each.
And a dead baby fish on Natasha's finger. Sorry I am posting photos of you without permission, Natasha. :C
After our quick walk and swift realization that the air was getting thinner, we continues our merry (I think the car would protest this) way up and up. The vegetation began to thin out into twisty bristlecones. I haven't spent too much time around bristlecone pine trees, so it's always a treat. There were several wildflowers in bloom.
I adore the warm colors of the twisty living trees and the sun bleached whale bones of the dead.
Eventually we got closer to the top and hit the many switchbacks. It seems that along most of these switchbacks there were marmots.
And THEN, almost at the very top, we came across GOATS. Heather counted 41, I think. It was my first time seeing mountain goats, I think ever!
They have such funny little ears!
Well, it was windy, cold, and it was hard to breath, but it was so cool to see the goaties.
The road didn't go all the way to the top of the mountain, but stops at an old husk of what used to be a restaurant now converted into a vista observation station. The view was wonderful of course, but my camera really can't capture the epic heights we were experiencing. I was, however, able to capture some shots of rabbit hamsters on speed...the pika. Barely.
So this was my first time experiencing over 14,000 feet of elevation. I could certainly feel the altitude. Every breath felt too shallow and I felt a bit light headed, as they say you will feel. It wasn't terrible though I wouldn't want to run a mile up there. I also burned, instantly. Oh well.
The way back down we stopped at a beautiful mountain meadow dotted with hundreds of small pools reflecting the blue of the sky. I wanted to run splash around in them so I ran off. The water took what breath I had left away! It was very cold. The water looked like this from an angle, reflecting the wonderful blueness of the sky that my camera didn't capture.
And from above it glowed rusty brown.
I was having a hard time both hopping around and being steady enough to take decent photos.
But that didn't stop me from crouching down to take macros, which was the hardest of all. Wheeeeeze!
MOSS I LOVE YOU MOSS you grow everywhere including in my heart. <3
Ahem. So. Natasha, Heather and I make one final stop at the mountain gift shop, where they have PIE. We feast on pie and as we do, it rains. We got in just in time! We watch the rain go through along with the hummingbirds at a feeder right by the window. The rain passes quickly and the sun comes out and sure enough...
*sigh* It was lovely and followed us the rest of the way down the mountain.
AND NOW for some random photos of RANDOM.
Baby junco.
Motmot says "GTFO of my internets"
This barbet knew he was to cool for school. I mean holy shit look at his BEAK and rictal bristles. LOOK at them!
"Son I am disappoint"
THAT'S ALL BYE