Last Light on Crestone Peak. Colorado, 2015
On a return flight from Tucson to Denver, we happened to be at the just the right place over Colorado (and I happened to have a window seat on the correct side of the plane!) to make the above image right at sunset. It’s not often you get good views like this of the big peaks. Usually, even if I do get the window seat and see the mountains through the clouds, I have a hard time picking out specific 14ers because of the more unusual perspective of 30,000+ feet.
In this photograph, the most obvious pyramid-shaped peak painted by the brightest bit of fading sunlight is Crestone Peak. Challenger Point and Kit Carson Peak are to the left of Crestone Peak, and Crestone Needle might be obscured just behind the Peak. Humboldt is in shadow now, just behind (left).
You’d think this would fire up the old 14er desire inside me since it has been a while, but…I have already climbed most of the easier 14ers, so a winter ascent of one that I haven’t yet summited will likely not happen. Too uncomfortably cold, and quite possibly too scary and dangerous–and very often the best/closest trailheads are inaccessible due to the snowpack. So, the ones I have remaining will probably have to wait until next spring-summer-fall.
Well…I might, however, get out to one of the easier 14ers I have already done–most likely Quandary due to the low avy hazard and short round trip hike–for a sunrise or sunset photo session. That is, as long as the temps aren’t below zero and the wind isn’t howling at 90 per!
NOTE: For a list of tips on how best to take pictures through an airliner window, see my blog post, Aconcagua (and shooting through airplane windows), April 16, 2014.
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