Colorado Camp 9,033' remote cam August 31 - not much of a SUPER moonrise here last night, but the clouds put on a nice show. HAPPY THURSSDAY TO YOU!

Order 2024 calendar from UA Press HERE. Or pickup a copy at our gallery.

08/02/23 Cool and damp at dawn with light breezes made doing a lap or two through the forest quite refreshing! Had to carry a dead limb in front of me the entire way though to keep from having to eat spider webs - I already had a smoothie for breakfast that included about 50 units of protein so I didn't need any more. Should be warm enough this afternoon to cook eggs and toast on the rocks!

08/03/23 Moonset early today and much warmer (81) - maybe hit 100+ later today, but 'tis usually cooler than in town out here in the woods. Two miles hiking before work this morning - been wearing a headnet now instead of waving a branch in front of me to keep from eating spiders. LOTS of deer about also - including the first spotted fawn we've seen this year.

08/05/25 Our first visitors arrived early at the gallery this morning...

08/06/23 A VERY rare rainbow BEFORE sunrise - not sure I've ever seen one! Cool and damp this morning, no rain yesterday, maybe a litte later today?

08/07/23 We had another odd and spectacular 30 minutes before and just after sunrise today (actually the sun only shown for a few minutes). As a giant storm passed just to our south we were treated with a colorful light snow with lot of lightning - AND not one but TWO different rainbows, in two different drainages, both as we were looking to the southwest from the back deck of our cabin.

08/10/23 Round after round of boomiing thunderstorms rolled through during the night, with QUITE a light show to go along with them. Most of the storms tracked north of us and we only got an inch of rain. The Buffalo came up a few inches but is also dropping back down this mornimulti colors of leaves have begun dropping from our black gum trees along the trail - that's a sure sign we're going to have a SPECTACULAR fall color season in a couple of months - yea!ng.

08/11/23 Multi colors of leaves have begun dropping from our black gum trees along the trail - that's a sure sign we're going to have a SPECTACULAR fall color season in a couple of months - yea!

08/13/23 There was no sunrise today but just a burst of light in the distance, with a thick covering of dark gray interesting clouds. We'd had about an inch of rain overnight with blistering winds thunderr boomers, which have become the norm each night this month. Yesterday evening is the warmest I've felt all summer - ya just knew something was going to happen during the night, and it did - producing a beautiful scene at dawn. This is just a phone photo - after I snapped it I ran to the garage to get a real camera out of the van but was too late - the clouds closed off the scene and it never returned.

08/14/23 Mushrooms/fungi/lichens seem to love this cool/wet weather we've had this week are popping up all over the forest...

08/16/23 Another cool day yesterday (two in a row with CLEAR SKIES and no storms all night!) - I found this beautiful evening scene just upstream from Steele Creek - it's Bee Bluff on the Buffalo River.

08/17/23 My lovely bride is NUTS! (and also very talented) She's getting ready to begin work on this GIANT quilt (still waiting for a bit of material to arrive). I worked until after midnight last night trying to get a single Black and White canvas print done correctly - the older I get the LONGER it takes me to do anything! Thank goodness I don't do QUILTS, haha!

And the quilting begins...

08/18/23 Last night was one of more than 60 nights I've spent this year out in the woods, mountaintops, lakes, backyards, or in this case - standing right beside a highway. I've not even looked at 99% of those photos yet (that's what WINTER is for - to look at the many thousands of photos taken during the night in summer). Seems to be a LOT more airplaines then I've ever seen these night, but in this photo I also got photo-bombed by a GIANT lightning bug! (actually I think she was really close to the front of the lens) I'm hoping to come away with four or five good Milky Way or other nighttinme photos for the 2025 Arkansas Wall Calendar (all the rest are just for fun and PRACTICE!).

08/23/23 44 degrees at dawn (sorry!) - The pups and I scampered across the Oklahoma FRYING pan on Monday (105 -110 degrees most of the way), spent the night in New Mexico (62 degrees overnight), and arrived yesterday at our campsite at 9,000' in the San Juan Mountains in south-central Colorado. They say once you acclimate to altitude that you can retain that state for up to 30 days if you head down to lower elevations and then come back up again. I've been gone about three weeks and am happy to report after the pups and I made a four-mile trek UP to the top of our neighborhood and on around one of our hiking loops that none of us seemed to have missed a step or were effected by the altitude at all - yea! Unfortunately my appetite has surged and I'm reaching for anything I can find to munch on - it didn't help much that I had to transfer all food items from the van across the campsite and into the shed - so there was always food items in my hand.

08/25/23 51 degrees with some spectacular light this morning - after very powerful thunderstorms moved through yesterday - in fact we had to take shelter in the van for more than an hour. Normally I could use this downtime to nap, but as my lovely bride can tell you, it's tough to doze with more than 100 pounds of DOGS sitting on your head - they are not fond of these types of storms. (Pam doesn't nap, but that's what the dogs do during nights of heavy thunder and lightning - climb on top of her for refuge while she's trying to sleep.)

08/26/23 Cool, wet, and BEAUTIFUL on our hike this norning - this spot near our campsite is along our regular hike route and about 1,000' feet above the valley floor (someone's new log cabin is about half-way completed).

08/27/23 GIANT thunderheads this evening, but not a drop of rain...

08/30/23 Hummm, it's getting to look and feel a little bit like fall is on the way here in the mountains - yea! (39 degrees at dawn) A few aspen leaves are breaking loose and fluttering to the ground where a raindrop or two come to rest.