Ypsilon and Fairchild Mountains, Clouds, Rocky Mountain National Park 2008

Toward the end of my one full day in the Rocky Mountain National Park, the weight of the day-long drive was getting the best of me. Still, I made my way back down from the top of Trail Ridge Road reluctantly, having just taken what I thought was a fanstastic photograph. I missed taking some interesting photographs because there were no pullouts or because the sun intruded too greatly into the photo. I came to that part of the road above Hanging Valley where the light and the pulloffs converged to permit this photograph.

I have to admit I did not know the names of the peaks at the time, and tonight, spent several hours pouring over topographic maps and photographs of others (relying heavily on the wonderful photographic index of the Rockies prepared by Gordon S. Novak Jr.) before seeing two peaks Ypsilon (left) and Fairchild (right) that looked familiar. I look forward to returning with more time and a detailed map.

In this digital age, we no longer have only one or two images of a subject, the way it was when sheet-film photograph negatives were the only means of capturing images of light. I have many images of this view but none balance the light on the lower left part of the photo without losing the definition in the clouds. Even digital photographs have limits, in some ways, more limits than good black and white negatives. While I think the image would profit from more illumination in the lower left, but on the whole, the image demonstrates the emotion I experienced at the time. I took a few more images as I made my way down the mountain toward Estes Park but the setting sun was low enough to make the shadows photographically prohibitive.

I took a few snapshots of rentals along Fall River (to stay in future trips), stopped for dinner and made my way back to Denver, knowing I should not wait another 7 years before again returning to the Rockies.