A fox popped out and ran across the road, by the time I got the camera turned on it was already down by the lake.

It followed the shore then popped out onto the thin ice between to open areas of water.

I wondered for a minute if I might see a fox fall through the ice, but I guess it had a soft touch and easily made it to the other side.

From the road

from up on the hill on McManus

Panorama to the north nice views from this spot to the east though as well.

Bottom of the hill back to Piedra road

The sunset started out slow then gradually got better

These are the peaks of the La Plata range over by Durango they are quite a ways off and we can barely see them from up here on the ridge.

The Blanco River

Panoramas

on the way home I stopped at the lake along 160 and tool this one

Pagosa Peak on the way up along Piedra Road

There was a little coyote in the field

Williams Lake

I took the forest service road into the Weminuche Valley past the Williams Lake cutoff.  It is  a steep climb and a skinny road it was getting late and I was wondering if I would get some views as the trees next to the road were pretty thick.  When you first come into the valley you see this falling down building.

From the Valley floor

First view from up the hill

Up top as far as I went was a real panoramic view this photo doesn’t do it justice.  I’m not sure what the elevation was there but high enough to really get my heart pumping when I wander up a little path to get this photo

Coming back down the hill the sun was hitting this lighter stripe of rock in this mountain and it really caught my eye

Looking out over the valley again as the sun is getting really low in the sky

When I got back down to the valley this cow was outside her fence, the night before there had been a who bunch outside the fence along Piedra on the way home.

There was a group of very orange trees that were so beautiful against the blue sky.

It was getting late as I headed toward the falls so some areas were difficult to photograph.

I finally got down to the river (the Middle Fork of the Piedra River)

along the trail to the falls there is this interesting tree

When I was almost to the falls an older couple was headed out the man says to me “you’re running out of light”  I though yep I sure am!  The sun was hitting a rock cliff above the river and falls and making the water a beautiful amber color so after taking some photos of the falls themselves I set up my tripod and focused on the river.

When I got home and put the photos onto the computer the amber was this amazing liquid gold!

This one is my favorite because the pool of water looks like molten gold not water.

This is from when I headed down the street to see if there was snow up there

A little snow and a little aspen color

From Cloman Blvd.

from Piedra road

On the way home a hawk landed on a tree in front of me about 1/2 mile from the house

Panoramas

I think this was on scenic drive

Cloman blvd. Damn power lines there is no way to avoid them

Steven’s Lake Road

Piedra Road 

There were nasty chemtrails all day but I headed out anyway and asked for some piece of the sky to be cleared and trusted my intuition to tell me where to go.  I did get some blue skies at the beginning the slowed faded to the discusting chemtrail haze.

first you start going around square top

You go up over a big hill then start to come down into the basin this one is part way down.

When you get into the basin you meet the Blanco River

There were lots of trees in the area that had not turned yet which surprised me based on how the colors were in the upper Piedra and Wolf Creek areas.

I can upon this ranch entrance that I thought was interesting

A nice little pond, this place I notices was actually for sale.  Just a mere 1.3 million, it has river frontage though and 40 acres or so.

After going up to the end of the valley I went back and cut off on a forest service road.  There was a  fox there waiting for me but he didn’t hang out long enough to get his photo taken.  The aspens up there were brilliant, but the sky was whiting out! 

Panoramas

Square Top

The Divide

The Blanco river

The river valley

Here is a close up of one of the hills

The Bootjack

Treasure falls was almost non existent we haven’t had much rain the last few weeks.

up to the overlook

I always have to get a shot of this tree for some reason it just calls to me with the  rock with a hole in it.

The was a crow hanging out on the cliff making some noise and he kind of makes an interesting silhouette.

On to Lobo overlook at around 11,000 feet it is 3 miles of dirt road of the main highway at the top of the pass.

You can see there were hills full of aspen but at this time of the day they were in the shade that combines with the clouds makes them pretty dull.

Here you can see the parking lot of the Wolf Creek Ski area

Coming back down the pass I stopped in on the west fork road

Took a little deer by surprise

West Fork of the San Juan River

Panorama’s for the day

bootjack

lobo overlook

This lobo overlook view has all of the Ski Area

The viewpoint above treasure falls  

These were pretty much the first aspen I came upon

Here you can see how many are still green, still I love the contrast that they offer to the yellow and the dark green pines.

This is the first good view spot of Cimarrona Peak in the Weminuche wilderness area.

Williams Lake

trees reflected in the lake

Looks like a pretty great place to be a cow

The sun was fading but this hillside was lit up

The sun went down as I pass a little pond on the way home

Then it lit up the other side of the sky high above Pagosa Peak

Oh I almost forgot here is a panorama by the lake taken from the boat launch area.

Here is one of the bigger oak in the area

These grasses had turned orange and the sun was hitting them and lighting them up.

Here is the hillside from the car

I loved the way the light was hitting these yellow leaves

This little bugger was on the ground I am not sure what kind of tree it came from

Caught this on the 19th

Here are a few of the last flowers, these were on September 12  this butterfly bush is supposed to bloom in spring but it looked dead in spring then in mid summer all of a sudden it came a live and bloomed in September.  It has been a bizarre year in general for all the plants here.

the yard was full of these

Going to seed this looked like fur from a stuffed animal

A panorama

This cloud to the south really caught my attention

When I was taking pictures of the swans the reflections on the lake were very pretty

I zoomed in on the red area

then decided to crop it an see if i liked it better, which I do, i think the ripples were distracting

here are some reflected trees

When I got home the sun was setting

Here is their little one, last time I saw it in July it is was  tiny little white thing

This little duck got too close and got chased away

Here they are swimming together

Then all three of them were in the water

Eventually they all swam across the lake

These were kind of two sunset this first aspect faded before the other half of the sky lit up

Phase two

You can’t barely tell chimney rock is in this one it is so dark in the foreground

So I zoomed in

Then this kind of stripe of a shadow showed up across the sky that was interesting

The guys came out from tough shed to put up our new shed on the 26th and they we fast wow it was amazing!   This is what happened to the old shed over the winter.

And here is the new shed, the old one was metal and this is a wood one that has been painted since they were out to match the house

Some of the clouds were all bubbly and looked cool

The colors of these flowers were really intense in that early light

After the sunset I walked back into the driveway and the raindrops earlier had made interesting patterns in the dirt on the back window of the car.