ASPENS IN COLOR IN SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS PART 1

  On Oct. 1 we drove up Ouray Co. road 5 from Ridgway to the base of Mt. Sneffels for nice views of the aspens and San Juan Mountains. Snow capped peaks added to the great scenery. These pictures were taken in my Canon A1100 IS 12 mp camera.

The dry lake bed at the right is part of the Ridgway State Park where we are parked. Our destination for the day trip is at the foot of the mountains shown on the horizon.

As we started up Ouray Co. road 5 ,other species of trees showed us that they were not going to be outdone by the aspens.

As the road took us closer to the mountains they began to show the details of their ruggedness.

 

The road at the right in the valley probably is Dallas Creek Road.  The mosaic of color shows up nicely  here.

A grove of aspens shares a common root system, yet all of the trees do not turn yellow uniformly.

But this grove is of almost uniform color.

Views like this are awesome!

This is the view to the left of the last one.

What a peaceful scene!

 

And here are more multiple hues.

The road entered the Uncompahgre National Forest and continued for a few miles, but the aspens were less dramatic than those shown above, so we called it a day to return the way we came. A breeze then was causing yellow leaves to begin to drop. When we drove through the general area on Oct. 4 wind had blown leaves off all the aspens in many groves, moreso as we traveled farther south.

ASPENS IN COLOR IN SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS PART 2

On October 2 we picked up Jerry Wedlake (an elementary school classmate of mine in Beloit WI) at his Ridgway “cabin”, and after a trip to Subway for sandwiches, we headed up Owl Creek Pass road to the high country for spectacular color and mountain scenery. The John Wayne movie True Grit was filmed in Ridgway and in the vicinity of the Owl Creek Pass road.

The pictures speak for themselves, so I will not put captions on all of them.

 

 

Cimarron Ridge is the backdrop for the fall color.

This one shows some of the different colors of aspens in the fall.

I think that this aspen gold color is now my favorite color1

 

More variable colors.

 

Here is a better view of the rugged Cimarron Ridge.

We took the West Fork Road from the Owl Creek Road to explore the country, It deteriorated to an easy 4 wd road and we continued to the area where the road forded the West Fork of  the Cimarron River for our lunch stop. There is an occupied beaver pond to the left of this shot. The elevation here is about 11,000 ft.

  

After crossing the creek the road continued for a mile or so to a trailhead for those wanting to go farther by foot or horseback.

A group of 5 ladies rode up here in a 2 door Wrangler and was having lunch at the trailhead. Jo is on the far right and Jerry is left of her.

 

Chimney rock peeks through the foliage.

We were greeted with this view as we  returned from the high country.

On the horizon is part of the San Juan range, and Hy 550 is in the foreground.