So it’s onward to the latter half of my trip, where I’ll be exploring the backroads and highway passes of the San Juan Mountains, focusing most of my time on Ouray County and the north front of the Sneffels Range, just outside of Ridgway. On Wednesday morning, my main objective is to drive the Million Dollar Highway, the stretch of US 550 that heads south from Ridgway, winds into Red Mountain Pass between Ouray and Silverton, and then to the top of Molas Pass, sitting high at 10,910 feet above sea level in the San Juan National Forest. In hindsight, it might have been better to start the week’s trip here for better foliage conditions, as many of the aspen groves surrounding Ouray and Ridgway have already become barren and windblown; however, it’s all a fair deal in the end, as I would not have traded anything in the world for the past few days of glorious shooting around Crested Butte and Kebler Pass.
In the morning, before sunrise, I set off southward out of town, passing through Ouray’s sleepy main street and climbing up toward Red Mountain Pass. At the roadside overlook for Bear Creek Falls, I briefly stop to admire the waterfall and photograph the view up Uncompahgre Gorge. A few miles down the road, I stop by Crystal Lake, where the faint colors of sunrise on Red Mountain and the placid movement of waterfowl upon the lake’s surface exist totally in contrast to the firing squad of a photography workshop (the first of several I’ll encounter in the coming few days) gathered upon the lakeshore, and the rumble and drill of the construction crews hard at work across the road. I stick around long enough to photograph first light on the mountaintop, then stroll briefly to the western shore of the lake, where I frame some nice telephoto compositions involving Red Mountain, Darley Mountain, and the pencil-smudged aspen groves on their hillsides.
Down the road, the highway climbs into a series of hairpin turns near the famous Red Mountain Pass. Although reportedly treacherous in rain or winter conditions, the pass is eminently driveable on this calm, breezy (and yet again totally cloudless) autumn day. Near the top of the hairpins, I stop for a look back down the valley, and some lovely shots of morning light breaking over the wall of the mountains to the east. Then, it’s further south to the other end of the pass, where the road descends into another valley as it makes its way toward Silverton. I decide not to stop in Silverton, continuing onward to Molas Pass, where I stop at a few overlooks to photograph the forest, the mountains, and a distant cabin on a plateau, which acts as an object of interest.
At Molas Pass, I reach my turnaround point for the morning. The overlook here is a stunning panorama ranging from the north to the east and south, covering alpine plateaus, rugged mountain peaks, and glistening, jewel-like lakes studding the landscape. If it were earlier in the trip (if my legs were fresher) and the sun weren’t so glaring and oppressive, I would have loved to wander down the plateau and take a walk into this idyllic landscape. However, achy and sore as I am from yesterday’s wilderness hell-climb atop Owl Creek Pass, I settle for quick detour to the shore of nearby Little Molas Lake, before making the drive back to Ridgway. The return drive is mostly uneventful, save for spotting a tall moose buck moseying along the highway just outside of Silverton. At the hotel, I get a takeout lunch from the Million Dollar Roadhouse restaurant downstairs (a smoked beef brisket sandwich with fried shallots, au jus dip, and fries - yum!) and settle in for a mid-day rest. Television and a nap to escape from the sun — yep, it’s that part of the vacation week, already.
In the afternoon, I head out west from Ridgway, planning to scout some of the dirt roads that branch off of CO-62 into the Mt. Sneffels Wilderness. To my disappointment, I find that much of the area, similar to the mountains around Ouray, is quite patchy in color - the mountainous roadside vista at the Dallas Divide, gazing toward the Sneffels Range, appears scattered, and while there are groves of colorful oak and aspen on the hillsides, many of the treetops are barren and the scene looks mostly windblown at best. Undeterred, I continue onward to Last Dollar Road, a long gravel drive that cuts through the mountains southward to Telluride. Only the first six or seven miles of the north side of Last Dollar Road are passable in my rental car, but these include some beautiful open landscapes, airy views toward the mountains, and working ranches which provide foreground and midground interest. I spend the hour or two before sunset casually scouting along the road, getting out of the car a few times to document the beautiful scenery and the autumn foliage.
At the start of golden hour, I make my way back to a spot just a few miles from the highway, at the edge of a large meadow near a ranch’s fenceline. Here, there is a broad sweeping view of the mountains to the south, and the play of sunset on the distant hillsides makes for wonderful light conditions. I set my tripod up just behind the fence, and it fires off a timelapse while I pace about with my main camera (including accidentally walking into the timelapse for a handful of seconds before I notice my stupidity…). With the long lens, I capture many things over the subsequent hour: a Cooper’s hawk that swoops down and perches in a nearby tree. A trio of whitetail bucks browsing in the nearby scrub oak, stopping once in awhile to stare in my direction. Reflected sunset light from the window of a distant cabin. A panorama of the ranch road leading into the mountains. Then, from a hillside to the west comes the bark of an Rocky Mountain elk; using my camera, I spot an entire herd, which gradually makes its way down to the nearby meadow. With my long lens propped up against a fence post for stability, I take one of my surprisingly favorite images of the entire trip - a photograph of the elk herd grazing beneath a rainbow hillside of scrub oak, with a small grove of barren white aspen trunks forming the central interest in the scene.
As the sun sinks lower toward the horizon, I eventually pack up the tripod and head back eastward into town. It’ll be a full day of exploring the Sneffels Wilderness tomorrow - largely, but not only, from the comfort of the inside of my car.
