On Saturday the 4th of October two hours before dawn, I awoke and got ready to drive to Aspen, CO and from there up a canyon to Maroon Bells. I had been meaning to go for the last 2 weekends and was afraid that already I would be too late for the colors.
I was correct, almost. About half of the trees had already dropped their leaves from a storm earlier in the week. On the plus side the Maroon Bells had a great new layer of snow!
As you can see from this photograph, when I arrived and established my spot along the bank of the lake, the wind was blowing eliminating all reflections in the water.
About 20 minutes later as the sun crept down the mountain the wind stopped providing an awesome mirror for which the mountain could reflect.
The wind came on and off through out the morning, but there were opportunities for great reflection photographs.
Off to the left from where I was positioned on the shore, the lake had the most brilliant green algae along the floor of the lake. As the sun hit this water I took a wide angled shot to include this wonderful color into the composition.
This photograph is later on in the morning after many of the “hardcore” photographers had left. The shoreline was literally shoulder to shoulder and tripod to tripod with photographers.
If you plan to come and take photographs of Maroon Bells and are also planning on getting there at dawn, remember the sun will not be up over the mountain ridge behind you and the temperature will be in the 30s! I came prepared and was still cold! I wore a long sleeve shirt, a sweat shirt, a coat, gloves, an ear band and a knit hat. Even with all of that clothing, I was still a little on the cold side standing in one spot taking photographs from 7am to 930am.
I feel it was well worth the effort and the cold with the shots I was able to obtain. My only regret is I wish I would have come 2 weeks earlier. Oh well, Ce la vie.
This is a shot I took after I was finished with my main photographing. I walked up the side of the lake and was rewarded with a photograph of a beaver dam and lots of fall foliage to the right.
I think I have included all of the photographs from this gallery in the body of the post, but it would feel incomplete without adding them in a gallery!
