Some moose, fall color and sunsets from the past month
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Continued warm and sunny days have allowed for a great fall mountain season that looks to continue for several more days until winter arrives about a week before the Steamboat Ski area official opening.
The moose are also out on the trails enjoying the beautiful weather. The picture of the one on the right was taken yesterday on 11 Nov on the Creekside trail right below the Pioneer merge.
The picture of the two moose below was taken on 9 Oct as they rested on lower Tenderfoot. They weren’t moving and they weren’t looking like they would be moving, so I backtracked to find a detour around the family.
On the way up Zig Zag yesterday, Milly surveyed the latest efforts by the Steamboat Ski area’s excellent snowmaking crew. There were some isolated islands of snow she could roll around on, but winter will have to wait for a few more days.
After seeing the first moose in the pictures above, I headed up Pioneer on my way to Rainbow Saddle and then the gondola. The next 3 photos are all taken in a very similar spot a bit before the uphill trail crosses the Pony Express lifline. That there are no leaves on the trees on 11 Nov is not surprising, but the speed at which the color changed and the leaves dropped was, as shown by the next 2 photos taken less than a week apart, on 15 Oct and 9 Oct.
Also on 9 Oct, the photo on the right was taken on the Elkhead trail.
I just can’t resist documenting a nice sunset; the first two were taken on 14 October from the top of Creekside looking south across the Yampa Valley.
This last photo was taken the next day on 15 October further down the mountain on Gunsmoke.
