For dramatic mountain views in Colorado, it's hard
to beat the sight of the Sangre de Cristo Range rising abruptly for nearly 7,000 vertical feet from either the Wet Mountain
Valley to the east, or the San Luis Valley to the west. The range is about 200 miles long from north to south, extending
well into New Mexico, but only 10 or 15 miles wide. In Colorado, only the view of the Sneffels Range as you drive south
from Montrose towards Ridgway is comparable in the way dramatic peaks rise so abruptly from broad, gentle valleys.
In Colorado, the Sangres, as climbers call them, have two climaxes: the Crestone group, centered on Crestone Peak, Crestone
Needle and Kit Carson, and the Sierra Blanca massif, with Blanca Peak, Ellingwood, Little Bear and Mt. Lindsey as the crown
jewels. The two clusters of giant peaks are separated by Medano and Mosca passes and the relatively low peaks that surround
them. The Crestone group has some of the most challenging Fourteeners in the state. Crestone Peak and Crestone
Needle weren't climbed until 1916, and an adequate topographic map of the area didn't become available until 1967. Humboldt
Peak stands in striking contrast to the sheer cliffs and jagged ridges of the Crestones. This rounded hump of a Fourteener,
accessed by an easy, well-constructed trail (again courtesy of the hard work of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative) sits
just to the northeast of the Crestones and provides a spectacular sunrise vantage point. In this image, Crestone Needle
is on the left, and Crestone Peak on the right. At the latitude of Colorado, the angle of sunrise varies by more than
60 degrees, from summer solstice to winter solstice. I chose to climb the peak in late September, when the sunrise angle
allowed the red light of the rising sun to flood the valley of South Colony Creek and light the Crestones from the base of
the steep faces to the summits. If I had done the shoot in midsummer, the sun would have risen much further north, and
Humboldt Peak would have cast a blue shadow over much of the most interesting terrain.
Read about my next Fourteener shoot, on Mt. Democrat
