Avalanche Snowshoeing

The weather broke last night and today, Sunday 9th, we woke to 4 inches of snow outside with more falling all the time, just as forecast.

We had planned for a snowshoe day so the weather was fine for this.

From a book I bought in Boulder before we started this years road trip I picked out the Avalanche Creek Trail as our snowshoe trek for the day. It was 6 miles round trip.

It started about 12 miles south of our hotel in Carbondale. The snow was still falling heavily as we started at 10.40 am. The route follows a good track to a campground 3 miles up Avalanche Creek.

The weather brightened a bit, the snow stopped and I went into the stream bed to see what photos I could create.

It was magical, the stream was partly frozen with thick ice and snow lining the sides. I was walking on the ice to take my photos, fortunately it supported my weight! The trees all had fresh snow on the branches and I set to work.

There wasn’t much light so it needed about 1/4 second exposures with f22 for maximum depth of field but this would enhance the water (giving streaky water). There were lots of angles to try but maybe the best were those of the snow covered conifers on the other bank of the Creek with snow in the foreground and streaky water in between. An interesting mix of static and motion.

This evening we visited the local brew pub, the Beer Works in Carbondale, for the third night running. The beer was still fine but we were pleased to continue our testing programme here!

Tomorrow sounds like it will clear late morning so we plan to ski Snowmass (next to Aspen).