Aspen viewing, 2008

Rick and I went on our annual aspen-viewing trip on Friday, and though the picture taking wasn't quite up to usual par, the actual viewing itself was the most spectacular ever--it just wasn't particularly photogenic! We decided we'd done the Squaw Pass route from Evergreen to Idaho Springs just a couple of months ago, and we hadn't been on Fall River Road in a few years since we'd started doing Squaw Pass, so it was time.

It was sprinkling by the time we got to Idaho Springs and Fall River Road, which is just beyond it a couple of miles, but that only managed to make the leaves seem even more gorgeous. It's a really beautiful route, with plenty of aspen in view both close to the road, and on the mountainsides rising from either side.

At almost the top of the road is the trail up to St. Mary's Glacier, which we hiked about 9 years ago--knees can't do that anymore--and just beyond that is a lovely pond (pictured above) with a few nice cabins, some (frankly) depressed-looking condos from the 80s (strange, and hard to imagine looking at this gorgeous photo), and a few defunct businesses, their log buildings now sporting commercial realty signs. (I don't hold out much hope for leasing them! That is one long, steep, windy road, and it is hard to imagine sustaining too many businesses at the top of it.) One business that is gone is what used to look like such a great B&B just up the hill from there in a big log house that overlooked another big pond. We drove by it and saw that, not only was it closed and for sale, the front door had been bashed in. Pretty sad.

On a somewhat humorous note, though I'm doing my best to not be overly political on this blog, the yard signs we saw all the way up the road were McCain/Palin signs (Denver is very liberal; rural Colorado--not so much!). We saw only one Obama/Biden sign and a bunch for local politicians. All other signs were for realtors--lots of homes for sale. Why is that humorous? Because of the economically depressed situation so in evidence, juxtaposed with a show of loyalty to the party that got us in this mess. How is it that so many people are seeming not to be able to make the connection? Fortunately, I believe enough are...Anyway...

Rick got a nice panorama of the pond, as you can see, with lots of gold in it, and I got a couple of decent leaf shots (below), even if they weren't extraordinary. I don't know how well you can tell it from these shots, but there was a lot more orange in the leaves this year than we remembered seeing before--aspen leaves are generally green, yellow and gold only. I did take video, and maybe I'll manage to upload some, but don't hold your breath!