Colorado Camp 9,033' cam August 15 - we dipped into the high 30's this morning at first light, but it didn't take long to work up a sweat with the pups as we charged up the hill leaving camp for the first hike of the day. Golden sunshine spread across the landscape and we hiked in silence as the mountain was coming alive all around us. ONE of the critters we saw was a GIANT bull - his harem of 40 cows (with 40 calves) were a ways off but he still guarded their "liquid protein" tub as if it was all they had to eat. I ushered the pups on past quickly and they never even saw him.

Yesterday my lovely bride and I welcomed our good friends from Little Rock, Ray and Susan, who will be camping with us for a few days or weeks. We all piled into Pam's Subaru and drove up into the high country to show them a part of the world that few people ever see - or ever want to. We drove about 20 miles through one of the largest wildfires that happend in 2013 - the West Fork Fire Complex. Not many folks would be able to find beauty in a burned-out-forest (as far as we could see in all directions, but really it was quite scenic. We only stoped for photos a couple of times as our time was short (and the light was terrible), but where the road ended we all got out and wandered through this stunning landscape - a fairytale forest that was. I only made a couple of snapshots - I need to return some day with a real camera and spend a day or two or three.

We only allow our pups to run free while at campwhere we have an ace of the forest and meadow surrounding us fenced off - to keep dogs IN and cows OUT. When we hike on the ranch they are always on a leash (15' long so they can explore a little bit). And on a shorter leash anywhere else. But at the end of this road, with zero traffic, and no cows around, we tuurned the pups loose to romp and play and explore the amazing landscape. OOPS - that was NOT A GOOD IDEA! Our little Miss Mia - who never gets into trouble - came running back to us with a new fur coat - TOTALLY covered and dripping with FRESH, nasty, GREEN, cow poop! We couuld smell her ten feet away.

With no running water nearby to dip her in (we were on top of a ridge), I took her to a nearby meadow that had a small mudpuddle - the water was also green, most likely it was a cow puddle. No matter, about 15 minutes later we returned to the group, and while Mia was mostly back to her normal black and white fun, it was obvious the essence of the fresh cow pup had penetrated every fiber of her being - even from 20 feet away she STUNK to high heaven! The ride back to camp was not too pleasant for anyone - even with all windows and sunroof open. Luckily the road was not dusty so everyone could stick their heads out the window when needed.

Journal Updated from Colorado Camp August 10

MY new ARKANSAS 2025 SCENIIC WALL CALENDAR IS NOW AVAILABBLE! Mail order direct from our distributer here - 2025 ARKANSAS CALENDAR - or check with your local store where our guidebooks and pictures boks are sold (it may take them a while to stock them, BUT we know that BUBBA'S BUFFALO RIVER STORE on the square in Jasper already has a them!

08/01/24 After a quick week back home in Arkansas it was time to head back to camp in Colorado. Not wanting to spend the first day of two driving in 100+ heat, I waited until almost the end of the day to leave home. That logic worked, kinda. Temps remained in the upper 90’s until sunset in Oklahoma. I’d planned to keep driving until the temp got down to about 80, but as midnight rolled around the temp was till 91 and so I bailed out at a picnic table at the entrance to Gloss Mountain State Park. Hwy. 412 across Oklahoma has several roadside tables where you can stop and park for the night, which I do frequently (THANKS Oklahoma!).

As I took the pups our for one last pee before bedtime I realized the Milky Way was literally just right there on the other side of the highway, and skies were clear and quite dark (no moon, not much light pollution). Time to get my camera out! Not much traffic on this highway at midnight (one of the reasons it is so pleasant to drive at night), which was great - UNTIL one truck came wizzing by and lit up one of the redrock “gloss mountains” - OH MAY, that glowing RED rock really complemented the dark blue tones of the night sky. My composition was not a great location to include the mountain though, so I quickly moved on down the highway a bit and set up again, this time waiting and READY for another truck to come by. Took about fifteen minutes of pacing back and forth but another truck did arrive, and I got a photo I never expected to see out there in the middle of the Oklahoma badlands!

The temp only ever got down to 80 inside the camper and I was back up and rolling by 5am. It reached 99 a time or two during the day as I crossed the panhandle area, but as soon as I hit the New Mexico border it started dropping until it reached a rather pleasant 86 degrees at the Colorado border, and it was 77 as we arrived back at camp 9,033’. Cool temps and almost no humidity - YIPPIE COYOTE! (and NO ticks!!!)

A couple of nights later I loaded up the pups and we drove to the top of the Ranch property here at midnight for a couple hours of Milky Way photography. ’Tis the time of summer when the galactic core of the Milky Way (the brightest and most interesting and colorful part) is sinking into the horizon (it first rises above the horizon back in February). It was a beautiful night though and since I was doing very long exposures (several minutes) I got to wander around in the darkness constantly amazed at the night sky - AND trying NOT to think about that big mountain lion that continues to lurk out there in the silent night.

There are always many camp chores that need doing here, and my lovely bride is not with me this trip (coming out in a few days) to get them all done (while I nap in a nearby grove of aspen trees). So I spend a good bit of my day now going through my list of chores - and figuring out what ELSE I can be doing instead! Today I found a perfect diversion - wildflowers are still blooming like crazy, and so I dug out my big camera and the ancient macro lens I’ve been testing to see if I could take any photos. Problem was that the wind was blowing - which is usually GREAT on a hot summer day. (Even if the temp is only 75 here, exposed skin to direct sunlight at this altitude can burn to a crisp quickly - it is king of like radiant heat - I usually always wear long pants and shirts when out in the sun. Stepping into a shade and the temp seems to drop 20 degrees, especially with a nice breeze.

Anyway, as the afternoon drifted on into evening the light softened and the breezes stopped. PERFECT wildflower macro conditions! I dug out my knee pads so I could get low to the ground and get right in the face of flowers. I ended up spending a couple of hours doing just that - SO much RICH COLOR here still! I’ve not done much macro work in a long while (didn’t have a proper lens), and it’s a chore to use this particular lens since all the controls are manual. But once I got into the rhythm any barriers between me and the flowers seemed to melt away and I got into a special zone of work that I really enjoy. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes I seem to crawl into the camera viewfinder and am right there in the scene and am one with the subject. And even though I know I’ll probably never sell any of these photos (folks simply don’t buy my out-of-state photos), I kept shooting, tweaking the lens and shooting more and more. Sometimes I would crawl back out of the camera to sit on my knees and rest - but then the light would change and I’d be back up inside the camera again taking another several dozen photos.

While down on my knees looking up across a patch of asters, I noticed a GIANT dandelion that had gone to seed. You know, the ones that fill the yard with bright yellow flowers in summer and then turn into puff-balls that you pick and blow all the seeds away into the wind? This was one of those only a GIANT VERSION. I only see these out West, and never really knew how what seemed like the exact same small yellow flowers can turn into such a GIANT puffball? (later I discovered they are not dandelions at all, but rather a different species of wildflower - “a salsify” - thanks Google)

Anyway, I got focused on this one puffball that was backlit by the setting sun that was being filtered through aspen trees - with a few colorful and out-of-focus asters thrown in for good measure. Getting up close I could actually see inside the puffball - in fact it filled up my entire camera screen - there were so many layers of delicate plant material - I was mentally floating inside of it all - AND the wind was STILL and so I was capturing all of this with the camera! The time I spent with this puffball got pretty darn close to being a religious experience. I know that can never transfer to anyone else just looking at it on a screen or a print, but if you look close I’m hoping some of that will please your visual palette!

Overall it was a magical hour or two of macro wildflower work. The old lens did GREAT - color, sharpness, and clarity were exceptional! I can’t WAIT to make a big print of two!

*I'll post a couple of photos here later today...

I JUST NOW realized that it’s AUGUST! Must be the altitude...

08/07/24 Look what I got fresh out of the woods to add to my morning smoothie - Wild Raspberries! I've been waiting for them to get ripe and thought I'd missed them this summer - other patches along the road were ripe a month ago but too dusty for my "taste." Yesterday while trying out an old macro lens I wandered into one of our aspen groves at the campsite and WOW - largest ones I've ever seen here, and there were 100's - all RED and ripe and oh so SWEET! I rushed around trying to find a perfect composition to captuure, but funny thing - every tiime I got things in focus I ended up grabbing the berries and eating them first! As darkness approached I managed to resist the urge long enouugh to get a photo of these three berries. (the background was so busy that I held a white cloth behind the berries to be able to see the details, sorry) This morning I foraged like a hungry bear and collected almost a full cup - how did I manage to save so many for my smoothie - I left the camera and cell phone in the shed!

During the same macro-lens testing afternoon, while down on my knees in one of our wildflower meadows shooting colorful asters, I got startled by a TINY garter snake and knocked my camera and tripod over during a long exposure. Silly me - there are no venomous snakes up at our altitude - it was just a reflex that I'm told is in my bones left over from caveman days. No photo of the little lady snake, but here is my artsy-fartsy photo during the encounter

Later that evening I drove on up to an overlook at higher altitude to test a different lens - a potential Milky Way lens. Turns out the clouds moved in before I could get a good photo - but sometimes I love how a camera can capture what we really can't see...

08/09/24 49 degrees with rain this morning - it has rained every night so far this month (rare for here). The mountains remain lush and green, with lots of wildflowers. The photo of the pups was taken yesterday before the rain - they are pretty much wet from head to toe today, especially after we've been on two hikes this morning before lunch - one was up to the top of the ranch where we flushed FOUR grouse - almost stepped right on them! The only birds these pups have a keen sense of smell for is rotisserie chicken from Wal Mart!

08/10/15 Kinda chilly this morning but we had a great hike at dawn through a saturated landscape that had been beat up with storms all night. We hiked all the way to the top - no grouse this time.

Here is another giant dandlelion bloom at camp that I noticed just before dark yesterday. It was the perfect subject to test one last, old, used macro lens I had just received. For this image I needed absolute stillness, and I ended up standing around waiting for almost 30 minutes for that to happen (eventually down on my knees). I think the wait was worth it, and also that this will be the macro lens that I keep.

We had some good rian showers during the day and loud thunder-boomers last night with more rain. I kept the pups outside most of the day since they were so wet and dirty. I spent much of my day chopping down more than 600 musk thistle plants - some of them taller than me and requuiring a chain saw to cut down! Originally from Central Asia and North Africa, this "pasture" plant is an invasive species in the USA and had taken over a large corner of our meadow.

When you look up close the bloom is quite beautiful. But a half acre of the above photo is just too much!

It wasn't until late last night that I realized it was actually FRIDAY and not Saturday. In the mountains you can forget to count the days...