It took nearly an hour to discover what was happening.

We had hiked up to this meadow just outside Zermatt, on the trail that eventually leads to Zmutt and the North Face of the Matterhorn. It was getting hot, and Varenna was inspecting the gravel on the trail, handing her best specimens to Mom, and then pushing her stroller like the big girl she was proclaiming to be (“bick guhr! bick gurh!). We were all content, and not planning to go too far. After all, this appeared to be it: the iconic view of the Matterhorn, the one that conjures visions of alpenhorns and men yodeling “Ri-co-la” into the crisp glacial air.

But as we turned to head back to town, the moon was suddenly quite noticeable and on a very interesting course.

(Click on image for a larger version)

And so, over the course of maybe 20 minutes, it swooped low, landed on the summit of the Matterhorn, and temporarily turned the world’s most famous mountain into a Santa hat.

It disappeared, then reemerged, like an arrow piercing the heart of Switzerland and coming out the other side. It was our second-to-last full day in the country, but it felt like an apt conclusion to the trip.

(Click on images for a larger view)

Go ahead. Ogle all you want.

Words often fail me. They fail me the most when it comes to mountains. Grandeur. Majesty. Magnificence. Please: those words are chumps when you are beneath the Jungfrau (above two images), a hulking mountain that towers over the Lauterbrunnen Valley like a glacier clad bully. It’s name (roughly translated as Young Girl in German) is hardly worth dissecting. It makes little sense. This peak is a beast.

It’s neighboring two peaks — the Mönch and the Eiger — fit into a little folktale. The Young Girl protected by the Monk from the frightening Ogre. How quaint. Our first full day in the area — in mid-June mind you — was spent underneath the Eiger’s legendary North Face watching mini-avalanches, snow plumes and chunks of ice fall off its sheer walls. The Eiger is less like Shrek, more like an assassin.

And then there is the Matterhorn, the world’s most recognizable mountain. On the approach to Zermatt via the train from Visp, not a seat is used by the passengers. They are all standing, dangling out the windows hoping for that first glimpse of its iconic, snowclad summit peaking over the shoulder of the hills.

So magnetic is the mountain’s pull, people travel across the world to its remote little corner of the Alps, drop $350 CHF a night at a Zermatt hotel, eat $40 CHF pizza, and simply stare at its broken-nose summit. Slipping under the radar are its equally grand neighbors, like the cut-glass peak of the Weisshorn (above left) or the hulking, glacier-clad eminence of Monte Rosa, the tallest peak in Switzerland. “Meh,” the tourists seem to say with the direction of their turned heads. “Just look at the Matterhorn!”

I’m an English major from The Colorado College, and I remember one particularly frustrating lecture that was devoted entirely to “the gaze.” The implications of a character gazing at another. What does it mean to gaze? To pine? To possess with the eyes? Yawn. Maybe it was because we were reading Wordsworth’s poetry, but I thought it was a rather dumb topic.

But if the lecture was on mountains, then I would have gotten it.

Yes, sitting by a lake and staring at a towering, rippled, snow-covered peak is a noteworthy action. You are possessing something with your eyes. The strength, the unflappability of a mountain that has stood there for eons. An undaunted thing that rules over its subjects. An unmoved mover.

What man doesn’t have some stupid, innate, overinflated sense of self worth that he wants to possess the character of a hulking mountain? I don’t know one.

On the Friday morning before Thanksgiving, I had a feeling my brother was trying to talk us out of going to Waimea Canyon. It was a long drive, he noted. Time on Kauai was precious, and Varenna — our 8-month-old daughter — would be facing backwards for the whole ride. Poipu had a baby beach.

But I acted like the typical younger brother: the more he discouraged it, the more determined I was to go. This was a verdant miniature Grand Canyon, and at the end of the road was a window to the Na Pali Coast. Yes, time on Kauai is precious. But for me, that meant not letting a week slip by without seeing this magnificent sight.

True to his prediction, Varenna had her cranky spells. Who could blame her? Two hours of driving in paradise, facing backwards, on windy roads? Yeah, we were asking a lot of her. And yes, my brother and his family were probably having an awesome time snorkeling with tangs, Moorish idols and sea turtles in Poipu. But fortunately, Varenna’s crying always had a remedy: fresh-air and time in our arms.

She slept from Kapa’a all the way to the State Park’s edge, where we couldn’t resist stopping the car (and therefore, the nap) at a surreal red-water cascade. The series of waterfalls was like a Zen garden on the surface of Mars. I’d never seen anything like it, and truthfully, it was the prettiest scenery of the whole Waimea Canyon area.

A little up the road, we came up the canyon’s main lookout, which we had to share with another 100 people or so. And while overlooks are frustrating for a photographer (little room for creativity, chain-link foregrounds, the same photo everyone else has taken), the gorge’s majesty wasn’t lost on me. Here on a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean was a mile-wide canyon. How arbitrary.

I had fun trying something new with a tilt-shift lens, and then we moved on.

It had been uncharacteristically dry on Kauai leading up to and during our visit, which unfortunately meant that Waipoo Falls was dry and not even visible.

Beyond the Waipoo Falls turnout, views of the canyon come to an end, and the road climbs up into Kokee State Park. We stopped at a gift shop/restaurant, chased some roosters in the big field across the parking lot, and then made the final push to the two lookouts that gaze down at the Na Pali Coast from a cloud forest ridge.

When we got there, we were greeted by a wall of white. A gauzy mist hung in the air, obstructing the entire view of the Kalalau Valley. Fortunately, we’d read that this was the norm in the afternoon, and that to turn around and head back would be a mistake, as conditions are quick to change.

We spied a bright red songbird flying by, most likely an apapane, a species that only lives in the Hawaiian Island chain and which is critically endangered. It was a reminder that this wasn’t just some brochure paradise. It was a rare and fragile island ecosystem hanging by a thread.

The gauze began to separate within five minutes of our arrival, revealing the most vibrant blue I’ve ever seen in nature — the Pacific Ocean beneath the Na Pali Cliffs. Undulating green and red walls emerged, their sinewy shapes more reminiscent of muscles than mountains. And at last, a full view of the Kalalau Valley, one of the most famous sights in the Pacific.

We lingered for almost an hour, just quietly observing nature in motion. Smokey mist evaporating, then condensing, then lifting, then drifting over the tree tops. It reminded me more of Monteverde, Costa Rica than any other place in Hawaii, with one major difference: in place of distant monkeys calling, I heard the thumping rotors of tourist helicopters.

Oh well. You can’t claim Kauai is perfect, but its a pretty awesome island to behold.

While on Kauai, Hailey and I took a 90-minute helicopter tour of the island with Jack Harter Helicopters. The tour was billed as a photographer’s tour because it went slower and took its time with each section of the trip. Because of this alone, I highly recommend it. Kauai’s interior and much of its coastline is inaccessible (to most of us) and seeing it by air is really the only way to truly get a sense for the island as a whole.

However, don’t kid yourself. Just because its labeled a “photographer’s tour” doesn’t mean you’ll get great shots. In fact, its very hard work to get semi-pro to professional quality shots from these kinds of tours. I’d even go so far as to say you can’t get professional grade images unless you go on a windowless/doorless flight, and risk getting wet (which you will, when the tour heads to Mount Waialeale, the wettest spot on Earth).

Obviously, my No. 1 reason to do the helicopter tour was to get amazing images of the Garden Isle. We dropped a lot of money, and learned a lot along the way. I figured it was worth it to do a photographer’s scouting report for those of you considering a similar trip. Here are six tips to make the most of it:

1.) Try to minimize switching lenses and bring two cameras if you have to – Jack Harter (and probably all other helicopter tours) don’t allow bags, and once you are on the chopper, its easy to see why. Space is tight, and between the straps, life preservers and headphone cords, a bag would be a tangled-up nightmare. So, without a bag, you have to be judicial with what you take. Your chief camera should have a zoom lens (24mm–105mm is ideal). The second camera can have a longer telephoto range or an experimental lens. I had good luck with a prime 200mm f/2.8 lens, but I’d imagine a 300mm would be too close to be practical. Hailey had the second camera and was trying to rock a 45mm tilt-shift, which was incredibly difficult under the conditions, but when it worked, it was amazing (upper right). Also, keep in mind that things happen fast on these tours (and I was on the 90-minute flight), so always stay one step ahead of the pilot in terms of what’s coming up and be prepared to have the right settings ahead of time. The last thing you’d want is to see Weeping Wall, frame the shot, and decide to switch lenses for a better focal length. The view will be gone by the time you’re set.

2.) Don’t fight glare. You can’t win. Just enjoy the views for a moment – Unless your tour is windowless, glare is inevitable, and can be frustrating if you let it bother you (see two examples above … and for the record, that is not a butt crack). They tell passengers on this tour to wear dark clothing to minimize glare, but that didn’t help us: our pilot wore shorts and his thighs were the leading contributors to glare from our angle. My advice? If the glare is bad, put the camera down and just enjoy the moment. You can’t fight it, but you can quickly fail to register just how spectacular that waterfall on the other side of pilot’s thigh-glare is.

3.) Be prepared for any seat in the house – The tour company will seat you specifically based on weigh distribution on the helicopter, so calling shotgun will do you no good. I was seated in the back row middle, which I thought would be the worst seat in the helicopter. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t horrible. I had good luck with the long lenses (24mm–105mm and my 200mm prime) from this spot, but glare was exaggerated from here, especially at wider than 50mm. Hailey was on the left side, back seat, and had less glare, but a whole different problem: the warped glass. Front center and front right would have probably been the best seats for shooting, but they also may have had significant glare. Hard to tell without sitting in that spot.

4.) Best light for the Na Pali Coast is evening light – Our departure was at 9:30am, and by 10:15am we were circling over the highlight of Kauai, the Na Pali Coast. Problem was, we were looking back into the light, which would have been fine if I could maneuver to harness the light. But buckled in, and with lots of glare out the right side of the helicopter, it was difficult to compose shots without major drawbacks. My point is this: it may be worth taking the risk to fly in the afternoon. The weather may set in, the crater may be extra cloudy and wet … heck, the flight might even be cancelled. But if you get sunny conditions in the late afternoon, the Na Pali would be a freaking photographic jackpot. Your call.

5.) Be prepared for darker conditions in the craters and inland valleys – This caught up with me at the Weeping Wall (above right) at the end of the tour, the one cloudy spot we encountered on our extraordinarily sunny trip. After firing a few frames, I realized my shutter speed was teetering around 1/60 second, way too slow to be shooting from a moving vehicle. Sure enough, a lot of the images from inland were throw-aways. It’s easy to just keep the camera on one setting the whole trip and forget about it, but the waterfalls of the interior are one of the most stellar sights on Earth. Best not to miss a shot of them because of complacency.

6.) Embrace post-production – While initially flipping through the 449 images we took while airborne, I had a bit of a sinking feeling. It didn’t appear I had much to show for my efforts. But back home, and after loading everything into Lightroom, it became clear I had a lot of good images. Most of this was just contrast adjustment, some of it was just cloning out a minor glare here and there. Nothing too technical, and nothing that altered the reality of what we saw. In the end, I’m just glad I kept shooting.

So remember how a few posts ago, I said that I wasn’t much of a beach person?

Well, I’m back from Kauai, and you can consider me converted: I love beaches … if by “beaches” you mean the stunning, drop-yer-jaw, how-could-God-design-such-a-perfect-thing beaches that seem to be nestled into every corner of the Garden Isle. In fact, after visiting Kauai for eight days, it may be safe to say I’m forever spoiled. The bar will be high for any future strips of sand I encounter (sorry, Chatfield Reservoir).

View Larger Map

We spent so much time discovering new beaches, I’m still picking sand out of my hair. Here are the 10 best I visited, with a few challengers we didn’t have enough time to see.

1. Ke’e Beach (near Haena) – It’s one thing to feel like you are driving to the end of the earth. It’s another thing to see a fiery sunset when you get there. Still another thing to have a rainbow hanging in the sky from where you just came from. Such was the majesty of Ke’e Beach on our final night on the island. Situated at the end of the road on the rugged North Shore, Ke’e Beach is the jumping off point for the Kalalau Trail along the Na Pali Coast, and it beholds a stellar view of the sea cliffs, especially in the evening hour. A ringed reef gives the illusion of safe swimming, but this being winter, the currents were brutal, and swimming was off limits. That was fine: watching the pyramids of rolling water pound the reef was just as thrilling as the misty explosion of light caressing the Na Pali.

2. Kauapea Beach (near Kilauea) – This gorgeous beach is often referred to as “Secret Beach” — “Misnomer Beach” might be more appropriate, especially when its located off of, I kid you not, “Secret Beach Road.” But while it has been discovered, it is still pristine, expansive, and filled with so many intimate coves, tide pools and empty strips of sand, you could spend day after day going back. We trekked down the 1/4-mile-long trail and promptly found a private platform of fine sand — elevated from the rough surf and ringed by black volcanic rock — for our 8-month-old daughter to dig into. A mile down the beach (after passing my brother and his family playing wave chase) we discovered sand-bottom tide pools replenished by the surf. This is how beaches should be … endless, vast and full of treasures.

3. Kalihiwai Beach (near Kilaeua) – To the west of Kauapea Beach lies this local fave on Kalihiwai Bay. My 7-year-old and 4-year-old nephews loved it for boogie-boarding, and I loved it for the curtains of mist that flooded the cove and created incredible light conditions … and seemingly endless creative possibilities for photography. Kalihiwai Stream feeds into the beach, and next time, I’d like to take a kayak up this beautiful river to Kalihiwai Falls.

4. Black Pot Beach/Hanalei Bay (Hanalei) – Here’s what I recommend: go to Java Kai in Hanalei before sunrise and get a cup of coffee and a surfer sandwich (bacon and eggs on an English muffin), and take it to Black Pot Beach where the Hanalei River meets the sea. Try to time it so that you witness the full moon set and the sun rise simultaneously, followed by a long stroll around the bay for as long as your legs can take you. Repeat every morning you’re there.

5. Haena Beach Park/Tunnels (Haena) – If for no other reason than to stare at powerful waves for an hour. This was the second beach we saw on the trip, and for a Kauai newbie like me, it was gripping. By late November, the waves get enormous in the Hawaiian Islands, and the breakers pounding the reef off of adjacent Tunnels Beach were easily 20-feet high. Nearby is Maniniholo Dry Cave, which is apparently where Puff the Magic Dragon lives (or where his inspired creators got massively baked and creatively mispronounced the nearest town Hon-uh-LEE!).

6. ‘Anini Beach Park (near Kilauea) – We stayed across the street from ‘Anini Beach, which was a shrewd move with four kids in tow. Nowhere else on the North Shore (or the rest of the island, from what I saw) has calmer waters than ‘Anini. A lengthy reef nearly a mile offshore protects this lagoon, and harbors the perfect habitat for green sea turtles (I swam with four of them in a 20-minute span). It’s not a particularly photogenic beach, but to really have it work its full effect on you, I recommend you go for a swim just after dawn. Do breaststroke, and use the distant Kilauea Lighthouse as your beacon. It will be one of most memorable swims you ever take.

7. Poipu Beach Park (Poipu) – What? A beach on the South Shore? I know: I’m not showing much love for the drier side of the island in this post. We made it down this way thrice: once to drive up Waimea Canyon, once we flew over it, and on the third visit, we actually went in the water. Where we dabbled in the sea and snorkeled with parrotfish was at Poipu Beach, easily the most crowded scene we would encounter all week, but not in a way that inhibited the magic of the place. In addition to the best snorkeling of our trip, we witnessed a magnificent sunset over the tidepools down the road, on the other side of Brennecke Beach.

8. Kalapaki Beach (Lihue) – After three or four visits to Kauai, this might not make the top 10, but it makes my list for nostalgic reasons. We departed on Thanksgiving night, and Kalapaki Beach is where we hung out before our 8pm flight (we also ate at Duke’s, but I’ll leave that for the food post later on). A ukelele duet provided the soundtrack, while the girls danced and the boys rolled on the perfectly manicured grass. It was a place where our family showed just happy and content we all are with life right now.

9. Kealia Beach (near Kapaa) – It’s impossible to miss Kealia en route to the North Shore. Stretching like a lazy hammock under a grove of trees twisted by the wind, this surf-pounded beach is as inviting as they come. It’s also a big surfing and boogie-boarding spot.

10. Larsen’s Beach (near Anahola) – This was the beach that made me realize just how different in character every beach on Kauai is. Located on the northeast corner of the island, Larsen’s feels arid and empty. This is what I imagine Lanai feeling like. Of course, like nearly every beach on this trip, the surf was up and going in the water would have been foolish. So instead my baby daughter tried to eat coral bits on the beach and my nephew discovered a mammoth, grotesque-but-totally-awesome blue lobster head on the beach.

So I was there for only eight days and will admit that I can’t call this the definitive list of Kauai beaches until I visit Honopu Beach, Lumahai Beach, Hideaway’s Beach, Lydgate Beach Park, Mahaulepu Beach, Shipwreck Beach and Polihale Beach. What other beaches do I need to visit next time? Comment below.

More Kauai-oriented posts to come in the next few weeks.

I’ve struggled to photograph the Maroon Bells in the past. Struggled because of two things: (1) everybody has photographed them and an original angle is getting more and more rare, and (2) they perfectly face to the east and, as a result, are often 2 stops more bright than their surroundings, making an even exposure especially tricky.

But then my wife took our daughter there for a day trip this past October (I was attending the Colorado Governor’s Conference on Tourism in nearby Snowmass) and she returned with a series of astonishingly original photos of the Bells. How did she overcome my two stumbling blocks?

Solution #1: visit the Maroon Bells with an adorable baby and let her eat the dirt on the shore of Maroon Lake — original photos abound — and …

Solution #2: visit in the fall when the sunlight is slanted and the exposure is more even.

Our daughter’s middle name is Autumn, and this being her first fall, well, it was especially meaningful to have the two of them join me in Snowmass for the conference. After the day’s sessions, I’d take Varenna off of Mom’s hands for a little bit, and go for a short jaunt through the aspens with her near the hotel. She’d squeal and kick with delight at being outside, at facing forward in the Baby Bjorn carrier, and at the sights and sounds and smells of the woods. She’s a Coloradan by birth, and already she is acting like one.

So when the conference ended and I had a little freedom to wander, we returned to Maroon Bells as a family and spent a few hours in the aspen glades and along the lake shore, watching a blizzard of leaves flutter over the lake as autumn had one last gasp before winter.

Since 2007, Hailey and I have made a special long-weekend trip in the fall to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Yep, the same Steamboat Springs that seems to grace every other post on this blog. I know. We go there a lot. However, it just keeps revealing itself to me in new ways, each time.

Each time we go there, whether its in July, the dead of winter, or even mud season at the tail end of April, this wholesome little cow-town with a massive ski resort glued to its hip seems to get more and more nuanced for us. With all due respect, I don’t think many other Colorado towns would stay fresh after so many visits.

This trip, however, had a different complexion to it, and that’s because of three ingredients: 1) our six-month-old daughter Varenna (now eight months old); 2) our good friends Tim, Lexi and their 19-month-old daughter Cora; and 3) our friend Jenny, who is expecting her first in March with her husband Matt, my best friend. This made September’s trip — dare I say it — a “family friendly adventure.” God, what a hideous cliche, but that’s the new reality. We get excited about places where our rambunctious little girl can be her most rambunctious, and playmates are an added bonus.

For the previous two falls, we’ve done this fall color trip with the Jordayzerton crew — the aforementioned folks, plus Stu and Shannon Kilzer. Unfortunately, this year, it didn’t quite work out that we could get everyone to come. Matt had a fencing tournament, and Stu and Shannon had a family emergency. Even the Lambertons had to head back early, but all was not lost. By Saturday afternoon, we did our traditional drive up Buffalo Pass to drink in the endless expanse of golden aspens that drape across the Zirkel Mountains.

We’ve had better years for color, in particular, the 2008 trip when every tree was 100% vibrant yellow, gold and red all at the same time (must have something to do with the dry spell we’ve had since July). But whatever we lacked for in this trip was made up for by our two girls, Varenna and Cora.

Their curiosity and enthusiasm for being outside was infectious. Varenna even figured out what my camera does. At one point while she was in the Baby Bjorn carrier, we ran down a road while I held the camera out and fired shots back at the two of us (third from top). She quickly picked up on how her face appeared on the camera back, which inspired only more giggles. Daddy’s little girl …

Tim and Lexi parted ways with us from Buffalo Pass, with their Saturday night of driving back to Denver in front of them. Through Monday, it was just us and Jenny, hanging out at the condo, going for walks, and letting Varenna explore things like aspen leaves with her fingers … until they ended up in her mouth. Such is travel with an infant, but if this weekend was any indication of the future — of seeking out other kids, other new parents, and laid back activities like going to the bookstore for two hours — that’s fine with me.

The last day in Mesa Verde began with our last breakfast at the ARAMARK cafeteria. After this day, we’d at least have options for food, but up on the mesa, it was compromise, compromise, compromise. The day before we tried the “world-famous” Navajo Taco for lunch. It was an utter joke. For ARAMARK, fossilized shammy = flat bread. And I won’t even go into the toppings…

Despite the bleak food situation in the national park, we weren’t looking to skadaddle too quickly. The dwelling tours were captivating, and we had to complete the trifecta with a morning climb/jaunt/crawl/tour of Balcony House.

While Cliff Palace overwhelms you with its grandeur, Balcony House moves you with its intimacy. There is no easy overlook off the road, no dramatic viewpoint on approach — just a nestled little community that you don’t really see until you’ve entered it via a 32-foot ladder. In fact, to leave the dwelling you have to crawl on your hands and knees through a narrow dusty passage before ascending two dramatic ladders back up to the mesa top. Not once do you have a stand-back-and-survey-the-whole-dwelling moment. It’s pretty cool because of it.

Upon entrance, to the right of the landing where the first ladder delivers you, is a small stone arch enclosing a pen of some kind (above). Archaeologists believe that the Ancestral Puebloans kept their turkeys in these pens, an ingenious construction that was part meat locker and part ADT security alarm. Spend any time among live turkeys and you quickly understand how frantic and nuts they are. If anything or anyone approached Balcony House, the turkeys would let the whole community know.

The dwelling takes its name from a 30-foot balcony attached to the second floor of one of the structures. You can see it in the middle left side of the top left photo of this blog post. Our ranger speculated that residents of the structure used the balcony as a hallway between rooms more than anything. Standing there, seeing 5-foot-9 tourists standing next to this balcony, you quickly begin to realize just how short the Ancestral Puebloans were. I asked the ranger about this, and sure enough, they averaged anywhere from 5-foot to 5-foot-3 in height, but then again, she noted, so did most people in 1300 AD.

I’ll be honest: I’m not one for tour guides in any scenario. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that they show you a place in the way they want you to see a place. The focus of a tour is never in sync with my eye, and 75% of the information goes in one ear and out the other. It’s just how I’m wired.

Plus, I think there is something lost when your questions are answered. I know very little about Siena’s Duomo, about the history of the Pantheon, and about the symbolism of the Good Friday Parade in San Miguel de Allende — but I understand them in a very different way that is visceral, emotional and full of curiosity. That’s because I approached them through the lens rather than through a tour guide. I’m not saying my way is better than their way. Not at all. I’m just saying their approach doesn’t suit me.

At one point, the ranger scolded me for moving five feet to the right to take a photo while she was talking. She said it threw off her concentration. My first instinct was to feel bad, but in hindsight, I think it was a bullshit thing to do. Bullshit because the only way to see Balcony House is by guided tour. The least the guides can do is allow for silent periods of five minutes here and there so that you can process the mystery of a place, or see it with your own eyes. But in the end, they have 45 minutes to tell you everything there is to know about the Ancestral Puebloan people, and like I said, with me, a lot of that goes in one ear and out the other.

Three days to see Mesa Verde was plenty, but considering that the main cliff dwellings are in canyons, where shadow and sunlight conspire for extreme contrast, we had to carefully plan which sites to visit when for fear of getting the wrong lighting conditions. This meant that we’d save the biggest and best cliff dwelling — Cliff Palace —  for the end of our second day.

This massive complex — North America’s largest cliff dwelling — hangs in an alcove tucked above Cliff Canyon, where evidence of the Ancestral Puebloan people is everywhere. Our first view of Cliff Palace was from the opposite side of the canyon rim, at a place called Sun Point View. Overlooking two forks in the canyon, the vantage is the one place in Mesa Verde where the whole of the Ancestral Puebloan civilization comes into view. Dwellings, ruins, and jumbled-up archaeological sites emerge from the walls and forest … the longer you look, the more you see.

Ultimately, a network appears — a civilization that was once interconnected and thriving. My imagination went wild standing there on that sun-baked overlook, visualizing the Puebloans as they traveled from dwelling to dwelling.

(Click on panorama for larger view)

The castle of this fiefdom is Cliff Palace (above center). Tucked in its protected corner of the canyon, it is massive in size — 150 rooms, 23 underground chambers (kivas) and an estimated population of 100. Considering that most dwellings from this era consist of 2 or 3 rooms, its an especially significant site.

Our ranger tour guide was more like a drill sergeant than a docent — his narrative on Ancestral Puebloan family life was barked more than recited, but he was fantastic, devoting extra attention to the infant mortality rate and day-to-day challenges of children (malnutrition, etc.).

From the main overlook next to the dwelling (photo above) he led us down a series of stairs, than down a ladder, and onto a trail that delivered us to the foot of the dwelling. In evening light, the walls and towers of Cliff Palace were absolutely radiant. Despite being in a group of 40 people, it wasn’t hard to imagine what this, the most magnificent dwelling in the park, must have looked like when first discovered by European descendants in 1891.

The tour went quickly, and 45 minutes after setting eyes on Cliff Palace, we ascended a series of ladders through a rocky crevice, climbing our way back to the car, where we tucked our tired little girl back into her car seat. Despite our better judgment (i.e. “get dinner, get girl to bed”) we made a run for Square Tower House before the sun set. Back around and across to the opposite mesa we rushed, reaching the overlook just in time to capture the three-story structure before it submerged into shade (above left).

The next morning we’d tour Balcony House and then leave for Pagosa Springs to conclude our trip. As much as I was enjoying the guided cliff-dwelling tours and short nature hikes, they paled in comparison to the joy of watching how well our five-month old girl was doing. This little one travels well.

I knew of one good vantage point — Sunshine Campground, located just off Highway 149. But from that angle, the peak is a bit tucked back and not nearly as dramatic. So, I decided to head to the Telluride Regional Airport, which is situated on a plateau across from the peak. As light crested the San Juan Mountains, I headed up the winding road, passing one drool-worthy/scorn-inducing estate after another.

My only problem was that the foreground was still obscured in a long shadow, which limited me to my long telephoto lens, a fixed 200mm. And while I got some great shots — like the second image in this post as well as this one of Wilson Peak — my composition opportunities were limited. So, off the plateau, and up to Sunshine Campground, a good 20 minute drive. By the time I got there, my coffee was gone and that rush hour into Telluride from points south was in full force. I’d shoot some and then return to the airport road … I’d seen some awesome barns along the route that I wanted to work with.

In 2002, Hailey and I camped at Sunshine Campground in the middle of Colorado’s worst wildfire season on record. Two weeks earlier, we had unwittingly rafted into the out-of-control Coal Seam Fire in Glenwood Springs with my parents just as it roared over a ridge and down toward the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers. Stranded, the four of us spent the night at a family friend’s place in Carbondale before heading over Independence Pass the next day, only to see the volcanic-like plume of smoke coming from the Hayman Fire, which was on its second and most destructive day. That evening, my parents’ house in southwest Denver was put on notice for possible evacuation.

Their status was in limbo for five weeks as the Hayman Fire advanced, retreated, spread, double-backed, exploded, and played tricks on fire forecasters. To this day it was the most unsettling summer I’ve experienced.

By the time our Telluride camping trip arrived, the Missionary Ridge Fire in Durango had flared up, casting haze all over Southwest Colorado. Governor Bill Owens got flack for saying that “all of Colorado is burning,” but there was some truth to it at the time. No matter where you went in the Rockies that summer, you found smoke.

On a personal note, something was burning a hole in my pocket on that trip — an engagement ring. I’d saved for it, I’d asked Hailey’s parents for permission, and I was going to pop the question regardless of the haze and smoke, probably on our hike into the Mount Sneffels Wilderness. But I didn’t quite get that far — on a short 1-hour hike to Cornet Falls (above and below), I popped the question.

So after I shot a bunch of images of the barns and Wilson Peak, I returned to the New Sheridan to meet Hailey and Varenna for the journey to Cornet Falls — a nostalgic must for us. We set Varenna in the Baby Bjorn and made the steep but short climb to the burgundy box canyon falls. Varenna giggled, flailed her arms and kicked repeatedly, as she usually does on hikes. But I took it as a sign of something more cosmic. Here we were, returning to the falls for the first time since that amazing moment, and we were bringing our child — and she was thrilled to be there.

Moments after reaching the falls, Renna fell asleep. It was a very sweet sight … curled up on Hailey’s lap, with blue socks on her hands to keep them warm. Eight years had passed since the proposal — a lifetime it had seemed — and now things were advancing even faster with the trajectory of Varenna’s life and development. We hiked back out, and she awoke with smiles as we passed the creek.

We wrapped up the Telluride portion of our trip with a ride up the gondola to Mountain Village for pizza in an empty piazza. American ski resorts and their phony European charm are rather hilarious places to be. However, I must say, on this day, the San Juan Mountains surrounding Telluride and Mountain Village looked a little like the Dolomites. With the gondola speeding over the piazza, with our waiter actually being Italian, with a glass of cold red wine on a warm day, could it be?

Nah….