Colorado Summits: Twin Sisters at Sunrise

Dawn. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

Yesterday, a look at the weather forecast, along with with casting my hairy eyeball out the window at the observable conditions, led me to some conclusions…

1. The latest cold front (OK, cool front) storm was on its way out.
2. With some good precipitation up in the high mountains over the past couple of days, there was the  possibility of a light snow dusting up in them thar hills.
3. There was still plenty of humidity and a low cloud layer, that probably wasn’t too thick, blanketing the foothills and it looked to stay there overnight.
4. The next day (which is now today) was to be “sunny”.
5. There was a moon scheduled to hang high in the west at sunrise.

When I see these conditions align, I start thinking of what nearby summit I can zip off to so as to photograph the following imagined sunrise scene:

Some interesting mountain on the Continental Divide with a light dusting of snow, a moon above, and the rising sun turning an undercast of clouds into a sea of fiery orange.

It was with that objective in mind that I hoisted my fanny perpendicular at 1a.m. and headed off to the 11,428-foot Twin Sisters, up near Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. Enroute entertainment was a BBC radio program about John Muir–amazingly apropos. By 2:40a.m. I was headed up the trail by the light of my headlamp through fog and a very light misty drizzle.

However…my imagined scene never really appeared–the low clouds started dissipating even before sunrise, there was no light dusting of snow on Longs, no lacy high cirrus to enhance the Colorado blue, and Mother Moon was too pie-high in the sky to work well in any composition.

Oh, well. You never really know unless you try…you can’t win the race unless you enter…and so on.

Still, a few images were worth recording…

With my Trudge-O-Meter set to “Medium”, I made it to the Twin Sisters saddle just before 5a.m., right at first light, with the constellation Orion and some chilly temperatures for company. I had broken out of the drizzle and fog almost 1,000 vertical feet below:

Orion Over Denver, #2. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

A view of Fort Collins (or Loveland?) through the antenna mast of the communications site atop the peak:

Fort Collins View. From Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

If you are interested in the names of the peaks in the Mummy Range on that far horizon, you can reference another image that I have labeled appropriately from a winter hike up Twin Sisters. In the marmot-overpopulated scree field below, you can see a few of the switchbacks on the trail. The rock on the summit is tortured and beautiful and makes for good foreground material:

The Mummy Range in Summer. From Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

I like the blue and gold of the color palette here:

Island in the Sky. From Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

Apparently, this is a relay station for search-and-rescue communications. If you search about, you can find remains of the anchor points for the old fire lookout that used to be here. On the very far right is the rocky ridge leading to the highest of the many high points atop Twin Sisters. Go there if you feel you must stand atop the very tippy top:

Communications Shack. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

The clouds begin to scurry away and melt into the atmosphere even before sunrise:

Dawn. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

“Here comes the sun, little darlin’…”. The contrail up and left helped balance the image:

Plasmic Meatball, #2. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

I made very few images of the Meeker-Longs massif on this morning. The scene just wasn’t very appealing to my photographer’s eyeball–no interesting clouds, the snow has almost disappeared, and the moon was too high in the sky and in the wrong position to build it into a decent composition. The orange glow of sunrise only made it mildly interesting for a few minutes before the light changed:

Dawn on the Diamond. From Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

With the sun rising higher and the preferred light for photographic endeavors fading away, it was time to head down:

Sunburst. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

You’ll see and hear plenty of these fat little gals and guys as you move through the rocky scree above treeline. Keep your eyes skinned for deer, elk, and mountain goats as well:

Fat Marmot. Twin Sisters, Colorado, 2016

Here is my one and only Longs-Meeker-Moon shot…and a great view looking down the gigantic mudslide that cut loose during those biblical rains back in September of 2013. Several switchbacks were taken out (just follow the new cairns now) when this unleashed itself–lucky it didn’t also take out the dude ranch down near Highway 7:

The 2013 Mud Slide. Twin Sisters Trail, Colorado, 2016