Road Trip Continues; Still In Colorado

Along Colorado Route 550 between Ouray and Silverton. Aspens backlit by the high altitude sun. (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 61mm; 1/400th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

This day was the most spectacular day for photography that we so far have experienced.  We left Montrose, Colorado heading south.  It was a short drive to Ridgway, a very small, but quaint town about 15 or so miles south on Colorado Route 550.  At Ridgway, we turned right (west) onto Rt. 24 to make the 9 mile drive to what is called The Dallas Divide.  The Dallas Divide is well known among photographers and is a destination for many photographic workshops.  Unfortunately, the color was not quite peak, but nonetheless, it was a beautiful sight just to stand before the majestic mountains and various colors of the vegetation.  I made a few images, including a few panoramas with both my Fujifilm X-T2 and my Olympus E-M1 Mark II using my Neewer Tripod Leveling Base With Offset Bubble Level, which you can read about from this post.  It worked perfectly. I'm glad I had it.

Next we drove back through Ridgway, resumed heading south on Rt. 550 toward the town of Ouray.  Ouray is a small town located in a box canyon exhibiting typical western U.S. architecture and many very friendly people.  We stopped at a wonderful little bakery, The Artisan Bakery, in town and purchased some delicious pastries which we would eat later that evening as a nice snack.

Dallas Divide 5 image panorama (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 55mm; 1/550th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200

Driving south out of Ouray on Route 550 which is known as the Million Dollar Highway is quite a treat. It received its moniker due to its cost when originally constructed.  I'm told that there are more avalanches along this piece of road than anywhere else in the country.  

Right at the very edge of the roadway are cliffs hundreds of feet high with no guardrail to keep you from driving off if you have a small lapse of judgement!  Needless to say, with me driving and near the center of the two-lane highway, I was much more comfortable than my wife who was looking down over the edge from the passenger's side.  I tried to keep more toward the middle of the road than near the edge, just to be kind.

Crystal Lake, Route 550 between Ouray and Silverton, Colorado (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 16mm; 1/450th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

This 23 mile (37 km) drive between Ouray and Silverton is undoubtedly the most spectacular drive I have ever made. Not only was the road scary but the aspen trees, with their yellows, oranges and golds, coupled with the stature of the mountains was beyond description (but that is what I just did, didn't I?  Hmmm.)  In any case, the beauty was stunning.  Two years ago, my wife and I spent a few weeks in New England and we thought the New England fall foliage colors were the best we had ever seen and couldn't be topped. We were wrong.  The aspens, mountains, cobalt blue skies and even a couple of lightly snow capped mountain peaks out did the New England landscapes.  

I must have gotten out of my vehicle 30 times during that 23 mile trip.  Each time I thought that it was impossible to be more beautiful, I would round a bend and it was more beautiful.  There were also some old homes and old silver mines that complimented the colors.  The locals told us that not only was the color early this year, but it was the best they had seen in a long time.  I'm very lucky to happen upon it on this road trip.

Route 550 between Ouray and Silverton Colorado. Notice the old silver mine. (click to enlarge)

The bad thing about showing these few images to you is that no photograph can reproduce what my wife and I saw and how we felt while standing before this grandeur.  

We then proceed to Silverton, still stopping to make images of the mountains.  In Silverton, I walked over to the old railroad station and photographed the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train that was taking on coal and water before its return trip to Durango that afternoon.

Abandoned building, Route 550 between Ouray and Silverton Colorado (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 @ 55mm; 1/280th sec. @ f/6.4; ISO 200

As we again proceeded south on Rt. 550, the colors and spectacular scenery resumed and I continued to stop and make some additional images.  By this time I was in overload.  The beauty was so intense and in 360 degrees around me, that I just stopped photographing it and just enjoyed it on the rest of our drive to Durango.

Durango And Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad with Locomotive #476 taking on water and coal before its
return trip to Durango. (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 49mm; 1/340th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

I used both the X-T2 and the E-M1 Mark II for this part of our journey. When I return home, my plan is to make a few of these images into really large prints to a) hand on a wall in my photo editing room and b) to see for myself if I prefer either camera for these types and sizes of images.  I will report back on that after I have the prints made.

More from the western town of Durango, Colorado on Wednesday.  Stay tuned.
Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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