The Cabin & The Aspens 2018

I wish I could bring you the whole of it. The smell of the trees, the sounds of the birds and the silence in between the rush of the wind through the leaves, the coolness of the air on your skin, the way the light sparkles so vibrantly through the yellows, the feel of the tires on the dirt roads and the pull of the curves as the next surprise of light and green and rock waits to greet you. 

But this will have to do, for now. 

Thursday after work, I headed up to Victor and Mom & Dad's cabin for a couple of night to try and squeeze in a bit more aspen viewing. They haven't reached their peak here, but the weekend they likely will is the end of the month, so that's out.

The drive takes about 2.5 hours without any slow-downs. Of course, leaving at 5:00 meant the first part of the trek was backed up with commuter traffic, at least until I could get off the main road and start cutting through mountains. I thought I was going to be even more delayed as I sat in traffic and watched the coal train heading in the same direction as me, knowing I needed to get across the tracks ahead of it to keep from another 15 minute standstill at the crossing. Luckily, the traffic let up just enough that I could make tracks down to my turn and over the tracks ahead of the signal bars dropping.

One part of the bridge near Deckers was out, and under construction, so there a stop there as there was only one lane and it went around a blind curve, so they'd installed a light, which felt really weird in the middle of nowhere, next to a river, but it worked. Nobody got smushed waiting their turns.

Passed a number of deer from Deckers to Woodland Park, where I picked back up with the highway and the very fierce and low setting sun before I could turn away from direct west at Divide. But then I got stuck behind a Jeep who thought 20 miles an hour was a good idea on these mountain curves, so we had a whole train of people, with no passing zones, for miles, backed up behind him. Did allow me to snap the long shadows on one of the curves, though.

All of this meant, by the time I got free of that log jam and all the way to Victor and up the county road, it was getting pretty dark. And country dark is DARK. 

There was some spectacular purples in the sky after the sun had set and I was on the last road to the cabin, so I slowed down and enjoyed the shadows and silhouettes. 

You can see Jupiter, there near the waning moon sliver, and brighter Venus down closer to the skyline, right at the top of one of the empty tree limbs

Better one of Venus here

Mom & Dad are having a portico build outside the house gate so they can park the car under some protection from the hail storms that like to visit. Other than that, things are pretty much all done, after a year of final details. We shared a meal of Dad's homemade pimento cheese and fresh tomatoes before tucking in for the night. 

Dad's blueberry pancakes for breakfast!

The birdfeeder I'd given them back at Mother's Dad & Dad's birthday has been in heavy use all summer. Every time they go up, it needs refilling. They'd refilled it on Thursday and here it is on Friday...

This was my view for a good part of the day, since I was still working, just remotely. 

And I had some help

We did manage a lunchtime drive and then went back out again after work was done for another round.

  

back to the cabin for lunch

and chores.. (and work)

Post work photos

the dust from a passing car was dancing on the sunbeams here

appropriate leggings

in the "heat of the afternoon"

Back to the cabin in time to grab a light supper and then Dad and I drove back to the gate in time to catch the same light as the evening before, only with my wide-angle lens instead of the phone camera.

I did go back in and change the ISO setting mistake I made that caused so much noise on my photos today. It's always something.

Waited until close to 9:00 to get as much light gone as possible and set up the f2.8 wide angle with my remote shutter to see how well it did with astral photography. I had played around with some settings early this morning, off the porch in the dark, only to discover the lens is SO wide, it still picked up (and focused on) the eaves of the cabin. So this time, moving to the side where the waning moon was not, and way out near the fence, it did much better. 

  

On each of these (I did about half a dozen) I would hit the stopwatch on my phone and hold the remote shutter button down watching the clock. Only on the very last one, holding it down I felt something slip out from underneath my thumb, which, surprise! locked the button open. So now I know I can set it up and just let it run for minutes at a time. Like I said, it's always something.

I had no clue when I chose a spot as far from the "moon side" of the cabin I was aiming directly up at the Milky Way. Beginner's luck.

So I played around with a number of the exposures more, the luminescence and the temperature especially,  and was pretty pleased with some of the results. The 66sec:

the 86sec

Looking forward to trying this again on another visit, this time in the midst of trees if possible, to get an interesting frame, and some much longer exposures.

Saturday morning I headed out with plans to take the long road home to 285, through Kenosha Pass and over Guanella Pass to hit I-70. 

Just past the gate was mama and her two babies along the tree line. 

and further down the road...

I had tried yesterday several times to get any of the horses positioned with the aspens in the background and not directly facing the sun, and no luck. This morning, in the shadows as the sun was just rising over the ridge, there she was.

  

I took a back route up 77 through Tarryall, which turned out to be absolutely delightful. There was practically no one the entire way up to 285, with all kinds of old cabins and barns and valleys and water.

 

 

The ones above were after I'd hooked the right onto 285 and pulled over at a scenic outlook this side of Kenosha. It was busy, but not terrible. That's because, another mile up the highway, the rest of Colorado was trying to park. Kenosha Pass was a veritable madhouse. This is a 65 MPH highway and there had to be hundreds of cars up and down the shoulders all around the entry to the completely full parking lot at the trailheads. People with dogs and bikes and kids and packs and cameras in between every vehicle, looking to cross here and there. 

At that point, I decided I'd prefer a quiet drive to attempting Guanella Pass, which was sure to be the same, except on rocky steep dirt roads and blind curves. Plus, 285 to Denver is much more scenic that Interstate 70. So thus endeth the aspen photos for the day. 

I stopped in at a shady spot beside the roaring river before the last hour back home.