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Sunrise from Uncompahgre Peak, 14,309 feet
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| Dawn light from Uncompahgre Peak |
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| Sunrise from Uncompahgre Peak |
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| Uncompahgre Peak at Sunset |
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After getting up absurdly early for two
mornings in a row on Mt. Sneffels and Wetterhorn Peak, I was feeling rather run-down, but I had one more peak I wanted to
do before heading for home: 14,309-foot Uncompahgre. After hiking out from Wetterhorn, I bounced down the 4wd
road from the Matterhorn Creek trailhead, then continued bouncing up the 4wd road to the Nellie Creek trailhead, the standard
jumping-off point for Uncompahgre. Grateful to be out of the truck, I then collapsed into my tent for a short night's
sleep. My alarm jarred me awake at 1 am.
I was on the trail before 2. Although I felt like I was pushing hard, I gained only 770 feet in the first hour, and
suddenly I realized that I should have allowed a lot more time. I still had over 3,000 feet to climb, and only three
hours to do it. I had to arrive on the summit at least 10 or 15 minutes before sunrise, preferably more, since I knew
I would need to don warm clothes, find a composition, set up my 4x5 field camera, adjust the camera's tilts, shifts and swings
to get everything in focus, add a graduated neutral-density filter to reduce the range of tones present in the scene to something
the film could capture, then calculate the exposure with a hand-held spot-meter ‒ a meticulous and time-consuming process.
In addition, I knew that the peak light on the clouds often preceded the actual moment of sunrise by as much as half an hour,
depending on the direction I was looking. As I pushed higher, fatigue and altitude began to wear me down. I felt
like I was working at race pace. I crested the last steep rise and began plodding up the final, gentle quarter-mile
to the summit, but my boots felt like they were immersed in wet concrete. Feeling rather sick, with no time to spare,
I finally reached the summit cairn, threw on an extra layer and began searching for a composition. The light on the
high cirrus clouds was already peaking when I finished setting up my first composition, slammed the film holder into the back
of the camera and exposed the first sheet, creating the first image you see here, Dawn Light from Uncompahgre Peak.
By the time I finished exposing the fourth and final sheet of that composition, the sun had crested the horizon and was pouring
golden light onto the orange volcanic rocks that comprised my foreground. The color was so intense they almost looked
molten. I recomposed in haste, repositioned the graduated neutral density filter, re-metered, and kept shooting, creating
the second image on this page, Sunrise from Uncompahgre Peak. After making a few more images, which proved to be unremarkable,
I started down. By the time I got to my truck, I was craving sleep more than I ever had in my life. I slept in
my tent for 2 1/2 hours, packed up, and started the seven-hour drive to home. Read about my next Fourteener shoot, my return to Windom Peak
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To order an 11x14 loose, matted-only or framed print of Dawn
Light from Uncompahgre Peak, please visit my product catalog by clicking the link beneath the appropriate thumbnail.
To order an 11x14 loose, matted-only or framed print of Sunrise
from Uncompahgre Peak, please visit my product catalog by clicking the link beneath the appropriate thumbnail.
To order an 11x14 loose, matted-only or framed print of Uncompahgre
Peak at Sunset, please visit my product catalog by clicking the link beneath the appropriate thumbnail.
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Glenn Randall Photography
At
home on the web at GlennRandall.com and AGPix.com
Specializing in Colorado landscape photography and Colorado scenic photography since 1993
Now offering a select
group of Utah landscape photographs from Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park
Glenn Randall Photography
and its online store, GlennRandall.com, offer some of the finest Colorado landscape photographs, Colorado scenic photographs
and Colorado photographic prints available
Colorado landscape photographs and Colorado scenic photographs are offered
both as prints for the general public and as stock images for professional photo buyers.
For the best in Colorado
landscape photography, Colorado scenic photography and Colorado photographic prints, add glennrandall.com to your favorites
today. Thanks for visiting--please check back often!
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