September 23, 2013 - Now THIS is Fall Colors Weather

Sunrise on Beartooth Plateu

Morning came way too quickly.  After a good night's sleep at Parkside Campground next to Wyoming Creek just south of Red Lodge, we got up at 5:30, oh so stiffly, to see if we could capture sunrise on Beartooth Pass.  As we progressed our way up the pass, Rick was getting more excited as we watched the temperature drop from 55 to 45 to 35 to 28 -  YES! This is fall colors weather.  Found a good spot (good being a relative term in that it was good for photographic composition, freakin' bad for maintaining human body temperature as the wind was fierce) and was able to get a couple of decent shots looking down into Rock Creek Valley and over to the Beartooths before my fingertips froze and I lost all feeling in my face.   My husband, on the other hand, was in heaven.  He gets in the truck after being out in this weather for 40 minutes and simply says "breezy".

Hauser Lake on Beartooth Plateau

Toured about the Beartooth for photographraphic scenes and then headed back into Red Lodge  for breakfast given that it was pretty impossible to make coffee over a butane stove in 40 mph winds.  Our first choice, Cafe Regis was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, our second choice, the bakery, was closed until October 1 (at least) and so finally we scored with our third choice, Red Lodge Cafe, which served good diner food and had excellent service (they kept the coffee coming). 

Fall Colors in Rock Creek Canyon

After breakfast we headed out of town to the south, again, to check out Rock Creek Road where we some some aspen stands changing color.  Nothing terribly exciting going on there so we headed  back up to the plateau.    It was nice to be  back in our old stomping grounds and see that not much has changed.  Rick's and my favorite lake right by the road is stilll there as is the Top of the World Store.   Some improvements have been made to the road (actually as  part of one of my projects when I worked in Central Federal Lands Highway Division of the Federal HIghway Administration) and it is nice to see them turn out well.  The willows and the grasses were changing to reds and yellows and browns so there were a few pretty photos to be had during our wanderings. 

Speaking of colors, for whatever reason, the colors are slow to change this year.  At 11,000 to 12,000 feet the colors are changing but at the lower elevations, particularly where the aspen are located on Colorado, reports have been only 10-15 percent change in color as of today.

Fall tundra colors

Rick providing a sense of scale

By mid-day we were feeling stiff, achy, and beat from yesterday's hike so we parked at the Pilot and Index Peaks Overlook for a snooze . . . well Rick snoozed and I worked on the journal.  Afterwards, we began to get into serious photography mode and began to scout for good sunrise spots west of the Pass down in the Clark's Fork Valley.  It took a couple of days but we began to get into the photography zone where we begin to see our surroundings through a photographers lens and give consideration to the direct and angle of a view.  Is this a sunrise or sunset spot?  Will this get morning light or will it be blocked by that mountain over there?  Will the sky get washed out by the time the foreground catches light?  In some ways this is the most fun part of our photography trips because it involves exploring the beauty of new places with an intellectual intent and purpose.  Perhaps it is because both sides of my brain are being use that leaves me so content?

Rick's and My Favorite Lake

The Place of Rick's and My First Date

In addition to finding a sunrise spot we scoped out some possible campsites for the evening and then headed down to Cooke City to have dinner at the Beartooth Cafe where Rick and I had our first date.  Decent food, rustic surroundings, and serious conversation made for a fulfilling experience.  Then after much vascillating (Should we freeze to death and camp on top of Beartooth Pass in hopes of capturing sunrise or do we take a risk and camp lower (on Lily Lake) in more humane conditions and test out a new sunrise spot?) Rick opted for the alternative that would least likely result in my waking him, in tears, because I'm freezing to death :)  So we headed back to a nice little campground we had scoped out earlier, complete with fire ring and picnic table and had a fire, drank some wine, bemoaned our soar bodies (that damn hike) and took in the clear sky of stars and milky ways.  As if on cue, as we were packing up for the night, we saw a shooting star.