The San Juan mountains of Colorado are well-known among nature photographers for being prime locations to photograph wildflowers in the mountains. Typically, two of the best spots are Yankee Boy Basin (located near Ouray) and American Basin (located between Silverton and Lake City). In most years, the peak of the wildflower bloom in these spots occurs around the third week of July.
This May, I made my decision that I wanted to see these areas firsthand and try my luck at capturing the wildflower bloom in my photographs. I made all the necessary travel arrangements and scheduled vacation time-off from work beginning the week of July 16. You can imagine my concern when I began to read reports in the nature photography forums around July 1 that the flowers at these locations were already at peak, and fading fast. My travel plans were already made, and so I resolved to live with them and see if I could manage to get some decent photos, even if it meant changing exactly what I shot and where.
It is the network of abandoned mining trails in the San Juans that make many of these high elevations relatively accessible to visitors and photographers. Few of these trails can be negotiated in a regular passenger car; most have some very narrow one-lane sections and hairpin curves which require experience and caution, even in high-clearance four wheel drive vehicles. Since I was unfamiliar with the area, I decided to take a couple of tours to the spots that are covered by local 4x4 tour companies before I rented a Jeep to get to the areas where tour companies don't go.
I'd seen photos taken by others in previous years which showed thick, dense, carpets of wildflowers in Yankee Boy Basin. By the time of my arrival at this spot (July 19, 2012), all the flowers that remained were small, isolated patches located close to streams.
Despite the limited quantity of flowers left at Yankee boy Basin, our driver and tour guide, Dave, (with Switzerland of America in Ouray) managed to surpass my expectations by taking us on a slight detour into Governor Basin on the return.
The trail to Governor Basin splits off the Camp Bird Road which goes to Yankee Boy Basin, and climbs through a series of switchbacks along narrow ledges with steep drop-offs, over a rough and rocky trail. Most of the local Jeep rental companies forbid taking their rental Jeeps into Governor Basin. Governor Basin is also at higher elevation than Yankee Boy. This year, I found the wildflowers at Governor Basin to be much more prolific and in better shape.
Although I have many more locations and photos to add to this blog, I am going to split it into several separate posts, so that it will not take viewers an excessively long time to open the post for viewing. Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment