4 posts tagged “mountains”

Here are yet more pictures from the train ride Mom and I took on the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.  These are from the trip back from Cascade Village, and they were taken through the soot-covered window of a moving train, so forgive the quality.

Much of the line runs right along the side of a mountain, so those who are afraid of heights might not want to look down.

Another Oh-My-God-We're-Gonna-Die shot.

Probably my favorite scenary shot from the trip.

A view of the steam engine ahead of us on a left turn curve.

A couple of more straight down into the river shots.

A similar left-hand turn allowed me to take this shot of the steam engine ahead of us, but this time with quite the sunburst.

This shot wasn't an artifact of the light or anything.  The white cloud to our left is steam from the engine, drifting away.

A rather pristine lake we passed.

And that's all!  Sorry to take so long to get them all posted.  Thank you for indulging me.

In conclusion, I'll say that it was a lot of fun!  Strix and I will definitely have to do this together sometime, preferably in the summer when we can stay in the open observation car longer and take prettier pictures.  I've heard that it's really nice to do when the leaves are changing, but that you have to book during those weeks well in advance.

So here are pics I took this weekend in Telluride, Colorado.  But first, here's a camera phone pic I took of myself because, well, I'm vain.  (Spelled it right that time, didn't I?)

I'm so vain, this blog is probably about me.  And yes, I am smiling.

Just a non-operational ski lift.  It's still the "off-season," though the "on-season" starts in just a couple weeks and everyone seemed rather nervous because it's unusually warm for this time of year and the outlook for snow is poor.  The pile of snow you can see at the bottom of the frame is from an artificial snow machine, but it was climbing into the fifties in the afternoon so they couldn't keep it out of its liquid form.

A couple shots of the mountains surrounding the town.

A couple shots of the San Miguel River.  Don't look directly into the second picture, or you'll go blind from the sun shot.

From Google Earth - what it looks like entering Telluride from an almost ground-level perspective.

Various shots taken from inside the free gondola ride to the top of the mountain.

Telluride from space.  No, I didn't take this one!  It's from Google Earth.

If you take the gondola all the way to the top, and refuse to get off, it goes back down the other slope and deposits you in a quaint little mountain village called... Mountain Village.  (Someone lost their marketing job over that one, I'm sure.)  It's not a real village, but a shopping and resort area built by the gnomes of Telluride to fleece the fleece-wearing tourists.

Some ski lifts in Mountain Village.

Here are some kids in Mountain Village doing some really down-scaled snowboarding on what little artificial snow had survived the warm afternoons of the last few days.  They were wearing shorts.

We can make snow.  We are as gods!

A statue of a Ute Warrior in Mountain Village.  The plaque could have read, alternately, "You stole the lands of my ancestors and all I got was this lousy statue," or "Ute all have a good time in Mountain Village, now, y'hear?"

A statue of a woman skiing, with Farah hair and seventies sunglasses.  The ski pole in her left hand is bent, presumably where somebody thought it would be fun to climb the statue, and to add insult to injury someone stuck a small pumpkin on the end of it.  Click on the picture for the large version - it's worth it.

The same statue from another angle, so you can see the pumpkin better.  I also, um, inadvertantly got a better shot of the skiier's backside.  I want to shake the sculptor's hand.

Between the woods and frozen... pond... on the coldest... warmest... okay, whatever.  Despite the temperatures being too warm for decent snow, it was cold enough, apparently, to make a thin layer of ice over this pond.

I got down on my butt to take a picture of these cat tails.  I hope it was worth it.

Rustic, ain't they?

An AED just out for anyone to use, which is a great idea.  This is for when the tourists realize how much they paid for a latte.

A climbing rock in the middle of the village.  All of the handholds had been removed, apparently to keep people off of it in the off season.

A sign outside in Mountain Village.  The sign within the sign (metaphysical!) says the following:

Skiers!

What to do if you encounter a snowboarder:

• Remain Calm
• Do Not make eye contact.
• Do Not make sudden or threatening movements.

We took the gondola back to the top of the mountain then got out to walk around a little and enjoy the view.  On the way out of the gondola shack, I had to stop and take a picture of this sign:

Do not touch indeed.

Various shots from the top of the mountain.

This was just a sign pointing to one of the ski slopes, but I found it interesting.  Just on the other side of the sign is a very, very steep drop.  Strapped to the front of the sign post is a big padded buffer.  All I can think of is it's there in case people lose control of their skis and hitting the sign is their only alternative to going straight down the mountainside.  Gee, I wonder why I've never wanted to take up skiing.

A view of the canyon/valley on the south side of the mountain.  Some of the buildings in Mountain Village can be seen, bottom left of the frame.

A paw print from something very large.  I don't know enough about animal tracks to tell what.

Another view of Telluride from the mountain.  I like this one because it's easy to see where the glacier had cut into the mountain slopes on the north side of the village.

A hole with a small bunch of flowers in it.  I've written a little story to explain why they are here, but it's long, so I'll post it tomorrow.

I have more pics, but it's getting late.  See ya.

On our way to Las Vegas, we took the route that takes you through the southern edge of Zion National Park.  I was unprepared for exactly how beautiful this drive would be, and we will definitely be going back to Zion for a longer visit sometime in the future.

I actually found myself feeling fortunate that we hit the park on a rainy day.  I don't think the clouds would have been as dramatically low as they were, otherwise, shrowding the mountain tops.

The park as seen from space in Google Earth.  The red lines are hiking trails.  Oh, the places I'll go!

Originally posted on my old blog on February 22nd, 2006:

After lunch, we went west on highway 380, then south on 54 to Three Rivers, and from there to the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site.  This is short mountain which has over 21,000 glyphs drawn on what seems like every sizeable rock all the way up the to the peak.  These glyphs were drawn by the Jornada Mogollon over 600 years ago.

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

No glyphs here, but I liked the way this outcropping looked.  The rocks here are so black that they shine, which is probably why the site was chosen by the Mogollon for their canvas.

There are steps for the first half of the trail, with the steps at the bottom of the hike being much wider than near the halfway point where teh steps disappear entirely.  I don't know who laid these stones - whether they were arranged like this by the Mogollon or by explorers later on.

The rocks in the foreground have have the first glyphs that we saw on the hike.  In the background, you can see the parking area where we started.

Some of the petroglyphs at Three Rivers look very much like other New Mexico petroglyphs, but some of the Three Rivers glyphs are surprising.  The depiction of human faces are among those that look suprisingly modern.

The symbol in the second and third shots is one that is seen at a number of petroglyph sites.  According to the guide pamphlet at the Three Rivers site says that in Mesoamerica, the symbol is associated with Quetzalcoatl, but that other researchers suggest that the dots represent corn or a population count.  I doubt that the symbol represents a particular deity, since it is found in the glyphs of a number of different Native American cultures, but I believe it probably does have a religious significance.  If it was a population or harvest count, I'm not sure why the Mogollon would have painted it on a rock halfway up a mountain.

 

This face is enough to give a guy nightmares.

 

This is a marker on the trail telling the visitors about some of the landscape features.  The mountains beyond the marker are the Sacramentos, and the tallest peak is Sierra Blanca.

These are the "Godfrey Hills."  It says something about these terrain in New Mexico when a feature this large can be called "hills."

A view of the parking area from the location of the terrain markers.

Just a view of a lower hill from our high vantage point.

 

A rest area halfway up the trail.  According to the ranger we talked to at the parking area, most people turn around here and go back.  The trail gets rougher from here on up.

A view of the rest area from further up the trail.

 

A couple of pictures Stina took of me.  What you can't tell from the pics is that I was staring into winds of about 50 miles per hour.

Two concentric circles of rocks.  I find it unlikely that these were set this way by the Mogollon, but it was a nice touch.

These were the last glyphs I saw before heading back down.

The trail ended completely at the top of one ridge, but it still wasn't the top of the mountain.  There was another ridge beyond the end of the trail.