In the fall of 2018, Chris and I made our first road trip to Colorado without kids since our honeymoon in 1991. This was a ten day trip, which was really like an eternity for us. The plan was to start shooting nature and landscapes for our soon to be launched photography business, as well as exploring some areas for fun and the future. To start the adventure, we decided to do a fly by of Estes Park for a couple of days and just be tourists. You know bump elbows with the millions of folks who visit Rocky Mountain National Park in the fall. Do a couple of hikes, visit a gallery or two, enjoy a brewery or three. See some dumb tourists get too close to the Bull Elk during the Rut. You know, the usual.
But our real goal for that trip was to head southwest and explore the little town of Buena Vista, Co. We had always heard great things about Buena Vista. The town is right along the Arkansas River, and just east of the mountain range known as the Collegiate Peaks. That range includes several of Colorado’s famed 14ers, which are 14 thousand foot peaks in case you were wondering, and are some of the tallest peaks in Colorado. With names like Harvard, Princeton and Yale, I was only slightly intimidated that my lack of an Ivy league education would prohibit me from enjoying those beauties. Fortunately no one asked for our education history as we rolled into town.
Being the picky yet budget conscious travelers we are, we settled on a cool little cabin about 25 minutes east of BV, off of highway 24, which leads to the town of Hartsel, Co. This place was called “The Artists Cabin” on Airbnb. Still not sure why exactly. We really liked it though. It was cozy and had all the stuff you need for a comfortable stay including decent enough internet, which is not always a given in our experience. It was fairly secluded in a Colorado, spaced out sub division in the hills sort of way. It was however about a ten minute drive off of highway 24 through this spaced out subdivision, over very dusty gravel roads to get to the cabin.
As a side note about our cabin fun, I did enjoy catching the endless stream of mice that were invading the cabin in the fall. I kept a head count for our “host” to let him know of my good deeds and left him a note with the final tally when we left. Funny, he never replied, or I guess he didn’t really understand my sense of humor. We did end up getting a thumbs up review as guests. Chris didn’t mention the mice in her review.
On the photography side of things, we were able to capture one of my favorite shots of the trip right off of that long dusty road between the cabin and the main highway. See upper right, “Layers of Layers”. I’m a sucker for barren landscape shots. We shot that shortly after sunrise one morning as we were heading out. It is looking to the east and towards the valley where the elusive Hartselites can be found.
At first we really didn’t mind the long drive to and from Buena Vista, but by the end of the trip it was like we really need to be closer to town next time. Besides tooling around BV, which we loved, all of the hikes and most of the landscape shooting we wanted to do was either in the mountains to the west of Buena Vista, or a couple hour drive somewhere in the mountains. Live and learn.
But there was a silver lining to our location. In between the cabin and BV, along highway 24, there were several little roads that shot off into the wilderness. Like moths to a flame, we just had to go explore those little roads, with absolutely no clue what we would find. Chris and I are weird like that.
We were in my trusty Ford F-150 and fortunately it had 4WD and fairly new tires. Can’t express the importance of those last two items enough. The first road we explored went to the south of the main highway, on this dusty dirt road, and we wound around on it for miles. At one point we came out into this elevated meadow with an incredible view of the Collegiate Peaks, although we were not quite sure which ones. We stuck that visual in our hip pocket for a sunrise shot later in the week, which turned into “Lone Elk at Sunrise”, conveniently located in the upper right of this story. Since it was fall, the aspens were doing their thing and we stopped and shot various images that turned out pretty cool. You guessed it it, off to the right is one of those images, “Baby Aspen Grove”.
As I mentioned earlier, we spent most of our time on the west side of BV exploring the mountains. There were many great hikes, lots of beautiful aspen groves, a trip to Twin Lakes. and the town of Aspen. Another day we traveled to Crested Butte, which I would move to in a minute if we had 5 million dollars to buy a one bedroom, one bath shack on the edge of town.
We also experienced our first ever drive across Kebler Pass, which is west of Crested Butte, probably the most beautiful aspen laden location we have ever found in Colorado. Yes, several of our favorite aspen shots are from Kebler Pass. There are two photos here from the drive, although there are more in our galleries. One is from our 2018 trip, and the other is from our trip and stay in Salida in 2019. But that’s a different story.
Speaking of stories;
Towards the end of the trip, Chris and I decided to try another one of the little roads off highway 24 between our cabin and Buena Vista. This time it was to the north. It was in the late afternoon on a very beautiful sunny day, and we were hoping to come across some more aspen scenes to photograph. The mountains were pretty far off to the west so we were not really expecting any great mountain landscapes. I think for the most part this was to be just a fun adventure into the backroads again.
The road was simply called Co Rd 311. It started out pretty normal as far as the backroads go. Wide enough for a couple of vehicles, might have been gravel to begin with, I don’t really remember much of the early parts other than we hit a fork in the road a mile of so in. We followed the road to the right. At first this road was pretty busy with folks buzzing around on their ATV’s, and dirt bikes. But eventually it got kind of weird. The road went into the woods and really narrowed. We came head to head with another vehicle and there was really no way to pass. It quickly became obvious these folks were not going to budge so in order to avoid any weird conflict, or becoming missing persons in the wilderness, we just put the truck in R and backed all the way out of there.
We eventually worked our way back to the Y and continued on Co Rd 311. Somewhere along the way 311 had turned into an all dirt road. Eventually we came around a bend and spotted the view that is the feature photo of this story. We could see the valley where Buena Vista was located with the Collegiate Peaks looming in the distance. it was really beautiful. You can also see 311 snaking it’s way westward. After shooting the photograph, I think most folks would probably say that was fun, let’s head back to The Artist Cabin and see what the mouse count is.
Not us.
So down that dusty little dirt road we went. About a mile or so in it became obvious we had made a mistake. The road really narrowed and it suddenly became a never ending series of steep ups and downs with very little distance between one up down, and the next. Think roller coaster without any straight aways. The F-150 suddenly felt as big as one of those stretch SUV’s. We were in full 4WD mode and my biggest concern was really high centering the F-150 on one of the “ups” and being stranded there until somebody came along, although I’m not sure what someone on an ATV could really do. We were driving through dry creek beds, and alternating between full on sun in our eyes or deep shadows. And it went on forever. If someone on an ATV or Jeep did come from the opposite direction, we were toast. There was no reversing this time and absolutely nowhere to turn around. We had to keep moving forward at about 5 miles per hour. It got to the point where Chris and I just started laughing, while our knuckles were pure white. At one point we came around a bend, and up on the hillside to our right was this beautiful mountain home. I was floored. Where the hell are we? Who the heck lives up there? How the hell did they get building materials up there? How many mice have we caught back at the cabin?
Eventually, the terrain flattened a bit. See the photo on your right? That is the flatter terrain. Shortly after that we started seeing more ATV’s and dirt bikes. Then we saw some actual vehicles. Cant remember exactly, but it was probably a variety of Subarus. Because every other car in Colorado seems to be a Subaru. We worked our way past a little campground and the next thing we knew we came out at a bridge over the Arkansas River. We were just north of Buena Vista. It was dusk. Exhale.
While double checking a few things as I wrote this story, I discovered that Co Rd 311 actually turns into “Trail 311” right about where we photographed “The Road to Nowhere”. I’m heading out to the garage when I finish this story to pat my trusty ol Ford F-150 on the fender once again. Trail Boss!
One thing we have discovered as Chris and I started our pursuit of landscape and nature photography, is when we get feedback or orders for prints, it’s always very interesting to find out which photos people are attracted to. It’s really one of the the beauties of doing all of this. While some shots are much more popular than others, “The Road To Nowhere” is really never mentioned, but it is hanging in our home. Every time I see it, I smile just a little, and remember our trip to Buena Vista in 2018, and especially that crazy afternoon drive down Trail 311.
Oh… and in case you were wondering, the final mouse count was 11. Squeak!