The plan for today was Owl Creek Pass, but after looking at the position of the sun in the early morning, it appeared that this would be a better afternoon road. We were getting a fairly early start so we decided to switch plans and do Crystal Lake and Silverton today.
The "secret" of Crystal Lake is out. As we approached the lake, we could see lines of cars parked
along the road. Crystal Lake is now part of Gunnison National Forest and
is no longer private land. That will keep it protected, but it has also
made it a very popular place for photographers. We thought maybe there was
a workshop there because of all the photographers. There was snow on the
top of Red Mountain and the aspens along the west edge of the lake
provided the perfect reflections in the lake. Even though it wasn't
sunrise light, it was still a gorgeous photo, and the weather was
relatively warm. We shot all around the north end of the lake until we ran
out of lenses and new vantage points to try. We must have shot for at
least 90 minutes.
From Crystal Lake, it was south on the Million Dollar Highway to Silverton. It didn't take long for me to appreciate the fact that we didn't drive the motorhome over this route. In many places, the road had no shoulder and a portion of the lane was missing on the cliff side. Not my kind of road for a wide vehicle like the motorhome. We crossed Red Mountain Pass and dropped down into Silverton a little after noon.
We played tourist in Silverton: buying t-shirts, looking at the brightly painted Victorian houses, eating ice cream, and just walking around town. Eventually, hunger won out and we drove south to Molas Pass to eat lunch and enjoy the view.
 |
 |
| Silverton Stores | Silverton Train |
As we returned north and had passed Silverton, we stopped to shoot a mine shaft building high on the ridge and near a stand of golden aspens. It was a beautiful shot with a very difficult exposure situation with the white clouds and snow on the top of the mountain. We were both shooting away when I looked at the tiny meadow below the Explorer. There was a buck nonchalantly eating the tall grasses just a few yards away. We both grabbed long lenses and started photographing the deer, who didn't seem to care anything about us. He moved along the ridge and then started heading down towards the stream. That ruined the angle for our shots, so I walked down into the meadow where I could get a good close shot of him. He seemed curious about what I was doing, but certainly wasn't spooked by my presence. I continued to photograph him as he kept an eye on me. Eventually something spooked him and he bounded back across the meadow, crossed the stream, and returned to the forest on the other side. I tried to shoot him as he bounded across the meadow. Twice, I got him while he was off the ground. Unfortunately, I only got part of his body as he was jumping.
 |
 |
| Emma Mine | I'm Watching You! |
Following the path of the deer, I saw a small waterfall down along the stream. It had very little water, but had this bright green moss growing all across the face of the rock. I returned to the car to get the correct lens and told Carol about the waterfall. We both shot the waterfall and the stream, until we noticed the time was getting away from us. There seemed to be great promise for a spectacular sunset because of all the high cirrus clouds.
We drove Dallas Divide Creek to the point overlooking the meadow and Mt. Sneffels, but discovered we were too late. We missed the great light on the peaks and the surrounding aspens, but we were hopeful the cirrus clouds would light up around the peaks after sunset. Didn't happen. We missed the golden light before sunset, and the sunset was a complete flop.
Previous Day
Return to Trip Page