Blue River Valley From Ute Pass, Colorado

This photo of the Blue River Valley in Summit County, Colorado represents the closing of a circle for me. It was October 1990 and I was moving from Oregon to Ohio. Yes, I know. But I did it anyway.

I used to be a forester, working in the very country you see in this picture. I assisted private landowners with their forestry needs, hunted and fished in the valleys and hills, and backpacked several times into the Eagle's Nest Wilderness, which are the high peaks of the Gore Range that you see in the far distance.

Being so familiar with the local area, it was only natural for me to make a very easy but valuable side trip off of Interstate 70 as I was traveling with all my possessions in a U-Haul trailer and the bed of my pickup truck.

The autumn evening was cold and stormy, sleeting in the valley bottom and turning to snow as my truck climbed toward Ute Pass. It was deer hunting season, and hunters were camped along the road, warming themselves around campfires. I pulled over at a suitable turnoff, unrolled my sleeping bag across the bench seat of my truck, and went to sleep.

Come morning, I was in luck. The snowstorm had cleared out, leaving a snow-covered scene and blue skies. I was right where I wanted to be, and I wasted no time with breakfast, or anything else. From dawn until mid-morning, I photographed in the chill and then the warming sun on my back. Thinking all the while of memories...and possibilities.

Reluctantly, I returned to I-70 and continued east, across the Continental Divide. Down into Denver (surviving a harrowing incident at "The Mousetrap" where I-70 and I-25 intersect), then out across the high plains.

Goodbye...forever? Not on your life.

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