Welcome to the Colorado backcountry

The vast acreage of wilderness and backcountry beauty in Colorado make it one of the more popular locations for camping, backpacking, and day-hiking.

In addition to a eight National Parks and Monuments, Colorado boasts an equal number of Wilderness Areas, millions of acres of National Forest and BLM land, and over three dozen state parks.

From mountains to deserts, and grasslands to canyons, one could spend a lifetime hiking the trails of Colorado and not cover all of them.

Maroon Bells

A few minutes southwest of Aspen, Colorado is the most-photographed place in the state: Maroon Bells, and Maroon Lake.  Next week, as the autumn colors approach their peak, photographers will line the north shore of the lake, possibly with their tripod legs overlapping one another, as they seek to capture the iconic image.

I was there early, and for only the third time in the last twelve years, yesterday morning.  I had the time and the car pass (we took an out-of-town guest there on Saturday afternoon), and wanted to try my hand at HDR photography.  Here are the results using Fotor, and online HDR program.  I later downloaded Luminance which produces results that are truer in color.

maroon bells, aspen, colorado, landscape