Colorado Camp 9,033' cam September 24 - bright and sunny today, 42 degrees. I've been on a couple of road trips to find color in the Mt. Elbert area near Leadville, Colorado, and also up to the high country near Lake City, which included a day of shooting in 4-6 inches of fresh snow -YIPPIE! I'm probably headed out again later today or tomorrow, in search of more color, this time farther north, maybe even up into Wyoming and the Tetons - I don't have plans, will just travel where the wind and color take me. In the meantime I bid farewell to our camper, Hazel, that's going to be stored nearby for the winter. To quote Apollo 13 - "SHE SURE WAS A GOOD SHIP!" It was our very best summer here yet... (that's a forklift moving Hazel from our camping pad out to the road - they hooked it up to a pickup there for travel to the storage lot)

2025 ARKANSAS CALENDAR here

09/01/24 Cool and beautiful early this morning when I took the pups to the top and back for our morning hike. We're having an EXPLOSION of "rose hips" everywhere around our place - literally thousands of them. The deep red color is the richest we've ever seen - and normally about the size of a marble, but this year so many are the size of LARGE marbles! Deer LOVE to munch on them - and with some rose bushes having hundreds of hips on each, and hundreds of rose bushes, there are lots of deer around getting fat!

Speaking of wildlife, there have now been more than a dozen sightings (videos or game cam photos) of mountain lions in our neighborhood - some really close to us. I've curtailed late-evening hikes with the pups, and even when we step our for last call and it's very dark I flood the area with bright light - just to be sure. I don't want the pups to become dinner for a big cat!

BEARS are also being seen almost everywhere here except for at our camping spot. One big bear that's blonde on top of his entire body has been seen and photographed many times - one series of photos/videos showed him near us one evening, and later the same night three miles away, then back near us the next morning - he had to climb a tall ridge between twice, and still he was on the move. These big bears feed more than 90% of the day and night in the fall - fattening up for hibernation. SO SAR, no bears have come to our place yet...

09/02/24 a wee bit chilly this morning but five minutes into an UPhill hike and I'm sweating - so great to be in the mountains!

This big dead tree (with a live blue spruce) is a photo I took last week while on a quick photo trip into the high country with great photographer, Ray Scott, of Little Rock - took the same tree's photo last year - still looks as nice as ever.

09/05/24 - a few snapshots from a recent trip up to the Ellwood Pass area:

09/19/24 A couple of days ago I escorted my bride and pups to a campsite in a National Grassland near the New Mexico/Oklahoma border. It was 88 degrees when we arrived - YIKES! But the wind was blowing and it felt pretty good. And we were treated with a beautiful moonrise. Next day they drove on home to Arkansas and I headed back into the high country - hoping to find some fall color in the Rockies before I head home for good.