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Staying at the William Allen White cabin at Rocky Mountain you could almost think you were living in the early 20^th century. Built in 1887, it was the summer home for the famous Kansas newspaper editor and writer. In present day form it had a few modern conveniences—running water, electricity, lights. No phone, no internet, no real cell phone service. The beautiful view of Moraine Park was occasionally interrupted by the noise of internal combustion engines from Bear Lake Road, which was below the cabin. Best of all was the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet (“Saves Steps”). It really looked like an original from the 1910s or 20s. It was a multipurpose device where many things related to meals could be kept or worked on. Click here for some fascinating information on the Hoosier.

The Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet with door open (Click on photo to enlarge)

The tall wood cabinet had two large top shelves, drawers and storage and possibly a zinc workspace. What looked like a flour mill was integrated into the two top shelves. Inside each door were detailed directions, instructions and places to put things like your cook book or ice book. Mrs. Christine Frederick had her “Housekeeper’s Food Guide”, “Suggesting Perfectly Balanced Meals According to Healthful Food Combinations”. Click on each photo to see the detailed suggestions and instructions. Mrs. Frederick has your complete diet planned and an explanation of the elements that make up food, what those elements are and what your body requires.

Mrs. Christine Frederick’s “Housekeeper’s Food Guide”

Moveable hands on the Hoosier Want List covered most everything you’ll need, as long as you only need six items at a time.

Hoosier Want List

Door for Flavoring Extracts, etc.

The White cabin and the view of Moraine Park

One door had racks for small bottles or Flavoring Extracts. Below those you put your ice book, which I found was a book of tickets for blocks of ice, bought from an ice company, of course. And a milk lid pick (not in the picture), which looks to be a device to open up the old glass bottles of milk. They really thought of everything. We hated to leave the cabin and the park, but early on Aug. 4 we set out on the road for our journey south through Colorado.

Next post: Mesa Verde

Moraine Park, July 28, 2016  (Click to enlarge photos)

One evening, I think as I was going to eat dinner out on the front porch at the Rocky cabin, I see this amazing scene across the Moraine Park meadow. I mentioned before the atmosphere is constantly changing so it’s possible to see amazing things everyday. But this was really amazing, the scene appearing like an Albert Bierstadt painting with dramatic lighting and everything! The real spectacular clouds/light only lasted a few minutes before the scene became just an ordinary amazing sight. It’s interesting to click on the photo to see the enlarged version and see the different cloud formations and the streams of light.

Coming back at 6:00 am from shooting the moon rising at the Tundra area I saw this scene of Longs Peak lit by the rising sun and a bank of fog lurking in the meadow below. Individual clouds of fog dotted the meadow, this one looking like the wash from a watercolor brush. It was incredible to see the peak, at 14,259 feet, catching the first rays of the rising sun, well before the lower mountains and the surrounding valley.

Sunrise, Longs Peak, July 29, 2016

For a few days there was smoke from fires north and west of the park that created an orange haze on the horizon. It was especially heavy one evening, before I gave the artists evening program talk at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center. I got out of my car and saw this orange sun low in the sky surrounded by the smoke.

An orange sun from the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center

A female moose

We’re back home after an extended trip from the mountains to the high desert. I’ll post a few updates from Rocky, Colorado and New Mexico over the next few days.

Ann arrived at Rocky on Monday, Aug. 1, via the Estes Park Shuttle van from the Denver airport that dropped her off right at the visitor center in the park. We had a few more days in the White cabin before heading off on a southwest adventure. Tuesday we set off to the west side of the park in search of moose. They like aquatic  vegetation and riparian areas and lakes. As we drive Highway 34 in the Kawuneeche Valley we see several cars pulled over on each side of the road. Moosejam! The Colorado River meanders through this area and comes very close to the road at points. We see a female moose feeding on the ground cover and bushes near a bend in the river. Through binoculars in the bright sun we see details of the large mammal. I forgot to bring my Nikon with the longer telephoto lens, but I have my small Sony camera with a short focal length zoom. I get a few interesting semi-close ups and a nice wider shot showing our moose under the towering lodgepole pines and the mountains in the distance. We end up seeing two more moose in the area. (Click to enlarge photos)

Moose feeding on the Colorado River

Early morning Milky Way at Upper Beaver Meadows Trailhead

Double rainbow over Moraine Park. (Click on images to enlarge)

Monday

The atmosphere is changing constantly at Rocky providing sublime to spectacular landscapes. As the late afternoon rain continued Sunday, the sun peaked through some clouds. Going down the hill to check on something in my car, I looked to the east to see part of a brilliant, almost fluorescent rainbow and a second, lighter rainbow. I ran back up to the cabin to grab my camera and ran back down the hill to see almost the whole arc over the trees and mountains. The clouds behind it were very dark and the contrast was stunning. The rainbow lasted quite a long time and it seemed to be almost a solid beam. After a while it began to fade so I headed back to the cabin. Looking out a few minutes later I see again a small slice of color in the sky and run back out with my camera. Only part of the arc is seen but it’s as bright at the first sighting. It’s an amazing sight against the deep green trees and the dramatic lighting on the background mountains.

I had a couple of busy evenings as part of the Night Sky Festival. Friday I gave a talk about the night sky photos at the Moraine Park campground amphitheater and a hands-on photo workshop Saturday at the Glacier Basin campground. Both outdoor amphitheaters are a real experience as the sky darkens during the program. At Glacier Basin we went out to a meadow in the campground to photograph the Milky Way and the distant mountains.

My friend Richard Haro from Ft. Collins visited Saturday. After the workshop we drove to Sprague Lake, he wanted more practice at the night sky photography. We were surprised to see several cars in the parking lot at around 10:45 p.m. People on the trail around the lake turned out to be “students” from the workshop who apparently took my advice to shoot from Sprague, one of my favorite spots in Rocky.

Touches down just beyond the cabin.

Another picture from the alpine adventure on the tundra. Giant rocks illuminated by the rising moon.

Saturday

Thursday night (or rather 1:00 a.m. Friday morning) was completely overcast at the cabin. Driving up to the Tundra Communities trail I wasn’t sure if I’d see any sky. I was hoping at 12,000 feet in altitude at the trail I would maybe be above the clouds, which looked very low from the 8,000 feet level of the cabin. On Trail Ridge Road it seemed like a drive through heavy fog. This must be the cloud layer, I thought. Approaching the Rock Cut turnout where the Tundra trail starts, all of a sudden I saw stars. Most of the sky was clear! I was amazed. I was also cold, the temperature dropping to around 42 degrees from the mild 62 at the cabin. I put on several layers and headed out the short trail along the tundra. This area is above the tree line so plants are low to the ground and the main landscape features are huge rocks and the surrounding mountains.

I had planned to be there for the 2:05 a.m. moonrise and found the spots I had scouted out earlier in the daylight. An orange moon started to peak out between distant thin clouds in the east and lit up clouds that were below the ridge I sat on. It was a sight to be above a cloud layer that surrounded the lower elevations. The combination of the moonrise, wispy clouds above, the bright stars, a cloud layer below and the dramatic mountains made for an unforgettable scene.

Many daytime activities for the Night Sky Festival happen at the nearby Moraine Park Discovery Center. I met up with “Dark Sky” Ranger Cynthia Langguth who was helping children make sun clocks, simple sundials to see how to tell time by the sun. A group of amateur astronomers from the area set up solar telescopes to view the sun.

Moonrise above the clouds. (Click to enlarge photos)

Amazing rock formations on the tundra. If you look closely, above and to the left of the center of the image is the Andromeda Galaxy.

Ranger Cynthia Langguth helps a junior ranger with the sun clock.

Thursday

Small, fat, furry animals are irresistible to humans and this photographer. Me and many visitors saw this very cute marmot crawling around the rocks at the Tundra Communities trail Thursday morning. The yellow-bellied marmots live in the alpine ecosystem, in this case at over 12,000 feet.

So far every night has been clear and the sky here is pretty remarkable. Monday I saw that the International Space Station was to fly over Rocky just before 10 p.m. I headed to Sprague Lake to get a clear view of the south-southeast horizon. This 2 minute, 41 second exposure starts just below an orange Mars on the right as the ISS cuts through Scorpius, grazes the top of Saturn, heads  across the Milky Way through the constellations Ophiuchus, Scutum, Aquilla and goes just below the star Altair where the shutter closes.

The second night photo was taken right when I heard the splashing of an animal in the lake, as I described in the previous post. I asked some rangers and the theories varied that maybe I heard an elk, moose, coyote, mountain lion or even a human. Aside from that, the rising moon provided beautiful light on the lake.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

A yellow-bellied marmot

A time exposure of the ISS flying over Rocky

Moonlight illuminates Sprague Lake

July 27, Wednesday

I’m here at Rocky Mountain National Park for the next week for their 2^nd annual Night Sky Festival. The rangers invited me back to give a talk and a night sky photography workshop. It’s a chance to come back to the park where I was an artist-in-residence in 2013. The interpretive rangers have generously allowed me to stay in the William Allen White cabin, where the artists stay, since it is vacant for a couple of weeks.

It’s hard to beat the views from the cabin, either from the large main room window looking west towards the mountains or from the expansive covered porch looking south towards more mountains and Longs Peak. We’re in the Moraine Park section and there is a vast meadow at the base of the mountains.

This stay will allow me to re-visit some of the locations I was at in 2013 and shoot more of the incredible night sky here. I arrived Monday and both night so far have been clear. I had a mild scare last night at Sprague Lake around 1:30 a.m. as the moon was rising. I heard something running a few steps by the shore and then a huge splash in the water. Some splashing around, almost like someone swimming. It seemed to be right in front of where I was photographing a dead log and the lake. The splashing continued off and on with a few grunts. I shot one more picture and decided to head out, not wanting to see what kind of animal was taking a midnight swim.

View from the cabin’s main room. The dining table is here, so you get this great view at all meals.

They made a nice flyer on display in the Beaver Meadows visitor center where I’ll be giving talks each Wednesday as part of the scheduled Art in the Park series.

The Big Dipper pointing to the north star Polaris in the Little Dipper. (Click on images to enlarge).

April 3

I’m back home after the incredible experience of working at Chaco for a whole month. Thanks to all the rangers, volunteers and staff for their help and advice. And thanks to the landscape and the great houses for being great subjects. I’ve done some rough editing of images during the past few weeks, which have been posted here. At some point I’ll gather all the good ones up and make a separate page on the website.  

Meanwhile, here’s some of the close-ups of plants and well-known constellations.

Orion dominated the south sky in March, with the bright stars Sirius (lower left), Procyon (upper left), orange Aldebaran (above plant) and The Pleiades (upper right).

Scorpius and its tail, the central Milky Way and Sagittarius (at left).

Cassiopeia (on the right) and Perseus (at top).

Cliff at work at Pueblo del Arroyo, an airplane trail intruding on the photo. (Click to enlarge photo)

March 29, Tuesday

I’ve gotten to know Cliff and Jane, a very nice couple from northern California, who have been volunteers at Chaco for several years. They are our neighbors in the next duplex and arrived a couple of weeks ago. Cliff does a really informative tour of Chetro Ketl and Jane has been assessing the park ‘app’ for tablets and smartphones. They’ve been very helpful with tips about Chaco and shopping and eating in Farmington. Cliff is a photographer as well and came out with me for two nights in the canyon. I was setting up a shot and got one of him in action at Pueblo del Arroyo.

On Sunday I told Jim, who is chief of natural resources here, I was interested in photographing Pueblo Alto, which is on top of the mesa on the north side of the canyon. He had also been interested in going up there at night and asked if he could come along. Normally it’s a steep hike to the mesa top then a relatively flat trail to the site. Jim said there is an access road for rangers and preservation crews so he got his heavy duty four wheel drive truck and we drove up to Alto. After a really rough road, we parked and hiked in the last ½ mile or so. At alto, it’s really alto. It’s one of the highest parts in the park and you can see 360 degrees from the pueblo site. The bad news is the glow of the towns is seen but also lights, many fairly bright, of drilling operations outside the park. In the past few years oil and  gas drilling has increased with many wells burning off excess gas. At night these flames are bright lights that can be seen for miles. Or some of the drill sites are lit, much brighter than an outdoor house light.

I photographed the ‘new’ Alto site, a structure built after what’s called ‘old’ Alto, looking north. You can see the Big Dipper and the two stars in the ‘dipper’ pointing to Polaris the North Star. Pueblo Alto was a junction of several prehistoric roads, some aligned due north/south. Wonder what the ancient Chacoans would think of the string of lights along the 21^st century horizon?

Today is my last full day at Chaco and it’s been an incredible experience. I’ll continue the blog for several more installments with the work from the canyon.

The moon lights up “New” Alto, at the Pueblo Alto site looking north with a view of lights on the horizon. (Click to enlarge photo.)

Inside a moonlit New Alto.

Dramatic clouds over Fajada Butte.

The environment around Chaco Canyon is fairly stunning on its own. During the day I often do scouting trips to the various sites or small hikes to check out locations that would make good photos at night. Sometimes the hikes take longer than usual since I stop often to take a picture of something that looks interesting. Here’s a few of these photos, converted into black and white since many of the sights look nice done that way.

One more Chaco mystery: Thursday night my headlamp vanished. I believe I had it with me coming back from the canyon that night, but then couldn’t find it the next day. I don’t think an animal took it from my head, sometimes I’ll put it in my pocket when driving out of the canyon. Well, a good reason to go to REI to get another one.

This plant looked almost silvery against the sand.

A great curling plant, which I must find the name of.

There are many of these small ‘caves’ of eroded sandstone on the way to Peñasco Blanco.