South Park, Colorado is real and it’s wonderful! No, it’s not the quirky two-dimensional town you see in the Comedy Central TV show. Instead it’s a high valley, covering 1,000 square miles of grassland, and situated between the Front Range and the Mosquito Range in central Colorado. It’s here that you can often find some of the most incredible contrasts between grassy planes, mountains, and Colorado’s spectacularly changing weather.

I wrote in the past about my 2011 visit to Page, Arizona to visit the famed slot canyons. These are among the most beautiful spots in the American southwest, and I enjoyed every minute of our trip. This photo was taken one day after the one I shared before, this time in nearby Lower Antelope Canyon. Like the previous day, the weather was still dreary, but that didn’t stop me from finding some great shots.

In 2018, I did a solo backpacking trip to Quartz Lake in Colorado’s South San Juan Wilderness. When planning this trip, I had in mind three photos – a sunset, nighttime, and sunrise photo. I’ve already posted two photos from this trip before – the nighttime photo showing Mars and the Milky Way and the sunrise photo showing the surrounding ridges over Quartz Lake. This photo is the third from the series – the sunset photo taken shortly after I had arrived at the campsite.

Last year I did a solo backpacking trip to Quartz Lake in Colorado’s South San Juan Wilderness. While there, I was fortunate enough to take an outstanding night photo showing Mars and the Milky Way together in the sky at the same time. The next morning, when I woke up, I was greeted by the sunrise bathing the mountains in a warm, pleasant glow. Sort of…

One of the nice things about reposting some of my old photos is that I get to take a second look at them. Most of the time I like them the way they are. They reflect my style at a period in time, and messing with them seems less productive than working on new stuff that reflects my style now. But every once in a while I think “I can improve on this,” and that’s what I’ve done with this photo from Upper Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. I originally took this photo on a trip in 2011, and you can see how it looked when I originally published it over on Flickr. However, eight years later, I want to make some tweaks.