Scenic

Was up at Indian peaks wilderness the past few days. The arapaho pass trail(from 4th of july trailhead) had a amazing amount of flowers, especially columbines. It was my first time there, so I dont know if other seasons have been better. But there was plenty of good shooting out there.

American Basin:
The columbine in American Basin over the weekend were spectacular. March marigold and evening primrose were fair. Many of the other flowers like paintbrush were OK, but not as good as past years. A real good place to shoot though particularly in the shade of morning/evening or if it clouds up.
Red Mountain Pass:
The flowers on red mountain are miserable on the east (west facing slopes) and much to dry. I doubt they will be any good this year. East facing slopes are fair in some places, but very dry and much shorter and sparce than in good years. The varieties are pretty good, but plan on small scenes or macros.
Stoney Pass:
The flowers here are pretty good, somewhere between American Basin and Red Mountain area. Good variety and along streams are nice. They have some of the best purple fringe that I have ever seen. Very large bushes and in nice condition.

It is a bit dry over here and that is making flowers shorter and not as plentiful as in years past. They may be late coming on or just may not mature as well.

I am here for the week so I will try to post every day or two as I get to Yankee Boy, Imigene, and many others. I will also be back over to American and I will update.

Well the wild flowers in Yankee Boy and Imogene Pass were spectacular on Tuesday, but we got a heavy rain and some hail which had damaged the Columbine quite a bit. They are not totally shreaded and unless you are doing macros or have them in the forground like the photo I attached then you are fine. Most of the rest of the flowers survived pretty well. This weekend should be a GREAT weekend and I think that most will be close to peak in the Ouray area. Depending on where and how much hail things got the Columbine sill be better some places than others. They seem to catch it the most when that type of weather hits. I will be going to Stoney Pass and American Basin tomorrow and I will post what I find in those locations. Here are a couple from Yankee Boy.

I forgot to add that the road to Yankee boy was hit pretty had and was in tough shape going in, but on the way out the grader and cat were making it into a super highway. GET THERE EARLY and plan to leave Ouray around 6am and you will have about 3 hours of good light without a ton of people. Around 9 or 10 the place is a horde of people, but the light is too hot anyway so I am on my way out about then. If you want to play with the marmots and pica the is a good place just beyond the toilet near a big rock on the left side of the road, slide on the right. Have fun!!