Just Our Nature: Estes Park

Showing posts with label Estes Park. Show all posts

Perseids in Rocky Mountain National Park

It's really fun to be outside at night under the stars, especially when skies are dark, and the Perseids come out to play!

This year's Perseids meteor show was hyped up to be unusually good, with a closer approach of comet Swift-Tuttle's tail debris passing through Earth's orbit.

We went to Walden, Colorado in 2013 to observe and photograph the Perseids, but this year stayed close to home. The sky in Rocky Mountain National Park isn't as dark as Walden, but once the moon set, it was dark enough to get a good show.

At about 11:30pm on Aug 11, I drove up Trail Ridge Road, stopping at Many Parks Curve, Rainbow Curve, Forest Canyon Overlook, and Milner Pass before turning around to head home and get some sleep.

As always, click on an image for a larger version.

View from Many Parks Curve, looking east towards Estes Park and the plains. Deer Mountain center, YMCA far right

Here are some of the night shots I got during my outing.

Looking northwest from Many Parks Curve

Even with the bright moonlight, you could still see Andromeda (top center in above photo).

From Many Parks Curve. YMCA of the Rockies at lower left

The moon was illuminating the clouds as the passed overhead going east. I went west from here. Rainbow Curve was very crowded, so I drove on up the road, climbing higher and deeper into the park.

At the Forest Canyon Overlook, I found several cars in the parking lot, with a couple sitting in lawn chairs near their car. I decided to stop and walk out to the overlook. The moon was almost bright enough that I didn't need my headlamp. When I got to the end of the paved path, I found I had it all to myself!

Me and my moonlight shadow (bottom right) near the Forest Canyon Overlook

A meteor streaks by at far right center of frame

Looking east from Forest Canyon; Longs Peak with moon shadows, too!

After I bit I went on down the road, finding Rock Cut to be too busy, so I drove on to the Lava Cliffs overlook. It was busy too, but I want to be here as the moon set.

Another meteor at left

Finally, the moon went down and began to get a lot darker, making the Milky "pop" quite a bit more.

My car with the Milky Way over it

Meteor at left; Ypsilon, Chiquita, Chapin peaks at far right

Some of the people at the Lava Cliffs parking were walking around with their headlamps, so I decided to move on. I skipped the Alpine Visitors Center which had about 20 cars in the lot, and also drove on past Medicine Bow Curve.

The Milky Way over the parking lot at Milner Pass

I stopped at Milner Pass, where I had the whole place to myself. It was very dark here, now, with only starlight illuminating my path. I used my red headlamp to preserve my night vision.

I decided to setup to shoot some pictures with Poudre Lake in the foreground and was soon rewarded with a meteor reflecting on the lake.

Meteor over Poudre Lake

At one point, just as I had finished re-adjusting the framing of the camera on the tripod, I saw an incredible bright meteor flash by, but I didn't have an exposure going. I tripped the shutter release, and was still able to capture the "smoke" that still hung in the atmosphere!

Meteor "smoke" at top center; it hung there for over 4 minutes!

Soon, I realized that the moisture evaporating off Poudre Lake was fogging my lens, so I packed up at about 1:30am and headed east. Again, I skipped Medicine Bow Curve and the AVC, and didn't stop again until Rainbow Curve, where I joined the still active party of observers and photographers.

Looking east from Rainbow Curve; light curves are cars on Trail Ridge Road at 2am!

As I had done earlier, I setup my gear to shoot continuously, hoping to catch a big meteor, and it wasn't long before I was rewarded with this shot, the best one I captured of the night.

This huge meteor streak left it's own little smoke cloud for several seconds

I was getting pretty tired, so at about 3:30am I packed up and drove back home, but couldn't resist taking a shot of our house before I went inside to hit the sack!

It was a very fun night!

Twin Sisters landslide

Yesterday I took a short hike up the Twin Sisters trail. It's 1.5 miles and a few hundred feet of gain to the landslide caused by the 2013 Colorado Flood.

Left to right: Mt Meeker (13,916'), Longs Peak (14,259'), Mt Lady Washington (13,281'), Battle Mountain (12,041'), Estes Cone (11,006').

Longs Peak, 5.2 mi away (105mm focal length)

This photo was taken standing in the middle of the landslide (the trail crosses it) and shows the devastation that almost reached Aspen Lodge. To get a sense of scale, try to spot the pickup truck at the edge of the trees where the debris field forks to the right (about 4 o'clock from Aspen Lodge).

iPhone panorama shot from the landslide debris field

The other photo shows the Twin Sisters landslide I was standing on, viewed from the summit of Estes Cone, 1.93 miles away. This shot was taken on a hike to Estes Cone with Tim Morse.

The third image is the aerial view of the hike and landslide, courtesy of Google Maps satellite view. As you can see from the GPS track, I went a little beyond the landslide. The hike was just over 3.5 miles with about 900 feet of gain/loss.

Here's another photo looking up at the landslide debris field.

Pop goes the weasel!

Susan and I have seen our fair share of Colorado wildlife, but one little mammal has mostly eluded us until recently.

A few years ago in the alpine tundra, near the Tundra World Nature Trail near Rock Cut in Rocky Mountain National Park, we caught fleeting glimpses of a long-tailed weasel. But it moved too fast in and out of the rocks for us to get a very good look at it and it was impossible to photograph it.

One morning, Susan was looking out the window and caught some motion in our front yard and when she zeroed in on it, she saw it was a long-tailed weasel, the first one either of us had ever observed in our yard. But this one too was on the move and it quickly disappeared from our yard and crossed the street and into the tall grass. I didn't get to see it.

Long-tailed Weasel in the yard

Fading Light and Active Clouds (May 25, 2015)

As the light began to fade today, Susan said, as she often does, "you should take a picture of that."

She is usually right, so I did. :-)

Here are a few pictures taken as the light faded on the mountains around our house.

Twin Sisters

Detail of the rocks and trees to the southeast

Rocks and trees to the east

Detail of some formations to the south

Twin Sisters. Can you see the antenna on the right snow-covered (actual) summit?

Mule deer passing through after the sun had gone down

Deer Mountain Winter Hike (Feb 8, 2015)

Susan and I had been talking for awhile about going up to Deer Mountain in the winter, so when this Sunday morning began with clear skies, we decided to grab our gear and head for the trailhead.

We didn't expect a lot of snow on the trail, and figured what there was would be well-packed by other hikers.

As we began the hike at 10:30am, we found the first part of the trail was patchy with snow and ice, and soon we both had our MicroSpikes on.

Horseshoe Park with Chapin, Chiquita and Ypsilon summits

The trail was pretty much what we expected until we got to the top of the all the switchbacks on the northwest side of the mountain. Then the "social" trail veered off the normal summer trail and for some reason took us more to the north. We decided to correct and had to bushwhack through the snow to head back to the normal summer trail leading to the summit.

Susan on the trail

The going got a lot harder, as there was 12-18" of snow on the unblazed trail, and we were not only post-holing a lot, but finding it hard to spot the actual unmarked trail.

As the snow got deeper we began to talk about whether we should just turn around. As we stopped to discuss, another couple about our age caught up with us by following our tracks, and they seemed to be confident of being able to reach the summit.

Susan decided that if they could do it, so could we, so we took a bearing on the summit and headed mostly towards it, tromping through the deep snow and weaving around trees and rocks.

Us, apparently happy with our decision to go on to the summit :-)

We leap-frogged with the other couple for maybe a quarter mile until they decided they'd had enough and they turned around to head down. We decided to keep going, as we were only about a thousand feet from the summit.

But with no trail, almost 2 feet of snow, steep terrain, and no snowshoes (or gaiters), we were post-holing on almost every step and were getting a lot of snow in our boots.

Finally, we reached the summit just before 2pm, and had it completely to ourselves!

Pano from the summit

We took off our boots and socks to try to dry them out a little, but the damage was done, and we'd be hiking down with wet feet. Not a big deal, as it was a very warm day, but a good lesson about always having gaiters -- and maybe snowshoes -- when we do a winter summit hike!

Mike on the "trail"

The hike down was somewhat easier, as we could avoid post-holing a little by walking in our tracks, and we got back down to the trailhead about 4:15pm.

Susan on the trail on the way down

Along the trail

Here's a hike map and elevation/speed profile.

The red line shows how much we slowed down as we approached the summit!

All the snow and post-holing, especially near the summit took a lot out of us, but we were very happy we summitted. As you may know, Deer Mountain is very special to us, as we got married on the summit in 2005. We have a new goal of hiking Deer Mountain in every month of the year, and this wonderful February winter hike takes care of one of those months!

We've now done the hike in February, April, May, June, July, and August. We'd better get busy on those other months! :-)

Morning panorama from Deer Mountain summit (Aug 2011)

Dream Lake Hike (Jan 27, 2015)

We had our heads down "working" at home when we learned that Tim and Karen, recent transplants to Colorado, were heading up to Rocky the next day, and asked if we wanted to join them on a winter hike.

We happily accepted their invitation, and recommended they purchase MicroSpikes for traction on the ice and snow. We also suggested a hike from Bear Lake, to Nymph, Dream, and Emerald Lakes. This hike is fairly easy, and has a lot of bang for the buck!

Somewhere above Dream Lake we lost the main trail to Emerald, and though we were very close, we can't quite claim we made it all the way. But at least we got them up above 10,000 feet, a hiking first for Karen (though not for Tim, as he and I had hiked Estes Cone recently).

Here are some photos from the hike.