Love all the pictures, but that Hero's Highway really grabbed me. How long does it take to cross?

Hero's Highway takes 4 - 8 hours to traverse, depending on weather and conditions. If weather looks the least bit threatening, you don't. There is no place for a retreat, and if you were lucky enough to set up rappels and get down to "safe ground" at the base of the cliff, you'd be many, many miles and an epic journey to return to your campsite.

If Crestone Peak summit doesn't look like a dragon's back then Hero's Highway rising from the mists must!!...

Crestone summit is a thrilling place. The mountain is like Grand Teton, except higher, and more vertical.


What kind of camera do you use? Film or digital? Brand, year, lens, etc.

In old days, before digital, I used a Nikon FM, with the standard Nikkor lens, a Nikkor 35-70 zoom, and a wide angle. I scanned in many of the better photos. Now we use a Nikeon D50 digital camera, with the standard lens, and a 70 - 300 zoom. Always been a Nikon fan.

The details in some of the photos is positively stunning. I get goose-bumps from the peaks rising up from clouds below pictures, but the details in pictures like Capital from Knife are simply dazzling!

Capitol is a rock peak, with thin, shattered ridges, protected on every side by tremendous cliffs. The long backpack in, and the knife make it the hardest Colorado fourteener in opinions of many people.

That ridge over to Coxcomb Peak looks much more accessible for me.

Getting up on the ridge is the trick. I required a vertical climb of a hundred feet in a chimney, and then one more tricky spot, in a gash, where a rope is useful.

That must be in south Western Colorado?

Coxcomb is between Lake City and Ouray, Colorado, in the San Juan range.

I would like to spend some time exploring that part of the state. I've only been through there once. The Grenadier range, what part of the state is that?...

The Grenadiers are part of the San Juans, in the Weminuche Wilderness. The only place you can see them from a highway is at Molas Lake, atop Molas Divide, which is also the "trailhead" for getting to them. Because they have no fourteeners, and they're so remote, they don't often have people climbing them, even in summer. In winter, getting to them is epic and climbing them is more epic.

Some of your images really make me think of fractals. It is so readily apparent how climbing helps you maintain your sanity. Due to health issues riding Wildfire is far more realistic for me, but I am very jealous of you, my friend....


What an eye! So many breathtaking pictures a'la natural, but the ways you present some, like Elbert Summit, are uniquely your own. The mathematics inherent in music shows up in your images too. One would suspect that is what makes Cooter a brilliant phog also?...

Thank you. I believe we all have that eye. It is clear in your pix, and of course, Cooter's, Jen's, and Kitty's....


The image, Elbert winter, makes me think what the Hindu Kush must look like from about that altitude. I've only seen it from around 30,000 feet. I've no idea where the Kuch and the ranges north of them end and begin, it seems like one continues field of ranges all the way from India well into Russia. You wouldn't believe how those mountains go on, and on, and on, seems like forever!

So many stunning pictures!!! Thank you bud, for showing me places it would never have been possible to have seen otherwise.

My pleasure, sir.