The Drive North in Search of Fall
My father and I left Alpine Texas in early september on a quest to find and photograph the fall colors of the changing leafs in the Rocky mountains. Dads plan was to drive from the Texas Mexico border where I live all the way up into Canada, following the Rocky Mountains, then once we find the fall colors, to following the changing of the leaves back along the Rocky mountains, from central Canada, back down to Texas.
This is a selection of a few of the things we saw on the first part of our journey, the search for fall color.
We did not make it far out of Alpine Texas, before we had a mechanical problem with Dad's new motorhome. The van lost most of its power and was limited to 20Mph uphill's, 50Mph on Flat lands, and 65Mph (103Kph) down hills. This problem arose in the Davis Mountains just North of Ft. Davis Texas, so we headed to the nearest Dodge Dealership in Carlsbad NM The Carlsbad Dodge Dealership was not able to work on a Mercedes Built Sprinter Van, so the sent us onward to Albuquerque NM.. The Dealer in Albuquerque fixed us up, and we drove onward through Gallup, and then turned north to Shiprock NM, and Cortez Colorado.
The first chance we had to take some pictures was in South Eastern Utah just south of Moab, where we took a few pictures of Wilson Arch.
Click on this image or any other for a larger view... Remember to scroll for PanoRamas---->
We drove on to Park City Utah, but the smoky haze from distant wildfires plagued the scenery. The next day we met up with my buddy Al and his son Logan in Logan Utah and went for a hike to see some caves there.
You can see Logan Barnes (Al's Son) in the Cave
Logan showing off his formidable rock climbing skills
We left Logan Utah heading north east and drove around Bear Lake which crosses the state line between Utah and Idaho.
Here we had a few Yellowing leaves, but true consistent fall colors were still not here yet.
Next we headed for Pinedale Wyoming to see the Wind River Range of Utah
This Lake was over 10,000 ft in elevation and Sport the Dog had fun swimming here.
Smoky haze was an issue for photography, but at any rate, the view from photographers point in the Wind River mountains is an impressive site. This is a long Panorama, remember to Scroll --->
The Wind Rivers are the least accessible range in the Rocky's, there was a 10+ mile hike to get to where this photo was taken.
Next we Drove on up the Road to Grand Teton National Park, and the smoke and haze grew worse. I decided that my Images of the Teton's look better in Black and White than they do in color, Due to the Haze.
We Continued up through the East Side of Yellowstone National Park, where Yellowstone Falls is a Must See
Sport the dog gets to play a good game of fetch the ball in Cooke City Montana along the north edge of Yellowstone Park.
Bear Tooth Pass in Southern Montana is a very impressive piece of American Highway. Unfortunately there was wildfires nearby making lots of smoke and haze; therefore this picture is not too impressive. But Bear Tooth is a very impressive place so I had to include this picture, also this image documents why I do not have more images of northern Wyoming and southern Montana from this leg of the journey.
The haze began to lift to acceptable levels as we pulled into Glacier National park in northern Montana. We entered the park from the west side, and the first thing we stopped to take photos of was McDonald lake.
The ranger at the front gate of Glacier measured our 23ft van and determined that we were over the legal length limit of 21ft to drive the "Going to the Sun" road. Being the renegades we are, we drove the road anyway, I have to admit that the curves were tight, and there was not a lot of room for error on the drive, but it was still fun. Below is an image from near the top of the "Going to the Sun" road,
Remember to Scroll --->
This is an Image of Dads van at Glacier Park. We do get a lot of people who ask us about the van and want to look inside, specially Germans who see the Mercedes logo. The van is a Turbo Diesel and does a good job pulling the hills, even at high altitude. It also sleeps both of us and the dog comfortably, it has AC Heat, hot water, a very useable shower, a generator, toilet, refrigerator. stove, microwave, television, a large retractable skylight, and it goes 20 miles on a gallon of diesel.
We camped on the east side of Glacier park at St. Mary's Lake. Below is an image of the last light of day on a peak to the north east of the lake.
This image was taken just after dark along the shore line of St. Mary's lake. I found the wind molded vegatation around the lake to be fascinating.
The Search for Fall continues in Canada.
Click Here to See the Search for Fall Continued in Canada