Skiing Purgatory

Today, Monday 3rd, was a ski day so we headed to the Durango Mountain Resort, previously called Purgatory Ski Area. Looks like they recruited a marketing man who spotted the obvious drawback with such a name!

It was still cold but with quite a few clouds over the mountains. Lots of runs but not many lifts. Didn’t matter though as there weren’t many people!

The mountains looked good in the background, snow covered and cloud shadows moving over them. Lots of trees though, and mostly conifers. Had to use the conifers to frame the picture and include the odd skier (as in not many rather than doing something strange).

It was a good ski area. We enjoyed the variety and empty spaces.

It was difficult to set up the tripod securely, as usual when skiing. The snow was very soft with no base so I either used a cable release, or the self-timer and waited 8 seconds for the shutter to fire. Pressing the shutter button risks moving the camera.

We are staying in the Strater Hotel in Durango, an old stylish hotel dating back to the 1800’s. It looks better at night, very imposing, so I was out at dusk taking some pictures of it and the Main Street. This allowed me to show the hotel with Christmas lights picking out the roof line as well as the dark faces of the hotel. Any later and the faces would have been black, no detail.

Tomorrow we drive to Telluride over the Lizard Head Pass. Hope the light is good.