This will be my first photo-story installment, an afternoon quicky excursion I took after work in late November, 2010. I've begun adding a watermark to the photos, because if you clowns are going to jack my images, you're gonna have to do a little work to be able to tell everyone they're yours. Bunch of scoundrels, the lot of you.
Let me start by saying that I'm kind of dense. I left in a hurry after loading the hounds in the truck, and forgot to grab my 55-200mm lens, so what you see here with the Bighorn Sheep is me just sort of letting the shutter fly. No real artistry, just grabbing some quick shots on the side of US 6, in Clear Creek Canyon.
That sounds innocuous enough, but I wasn't getting any shots that I loved from a distance, so I crept up and started taking shots from about 35 feet. Bighorns are normally pretty laid back, but I neglected one important factor: it's right, smack dab in the middle of the rut. Those rams are wound up real, real tight, looking to get laid and in no mood to suffer an interloper in their bidness. The first image is of the Alpha Ram of the group; he's standing in the very spot I was standing in just seconds before I took this shot. He thought that I was a dumbass for forgetting my zoom lens...and wanted to whisper his opinion sweetly into my ear.
The second shot was taken from the safety of my Pathfinder; I'm brave but I'm not stupid. This picture is a bummer to me, because the big ram on the far right was very badly injured, but I didn't notice it until I retreated to the truck. His left rear leg was broken in about 4 places, and he was really struggling. I couldn't get a decent pic of him with his leg showing, but I think both of us are OK with not looking at an animal's injury, especially when it's his death sentence. He had a radio collar on, thankfully, so I jotted the number down and gave the Division of Wildlife a buzz when I got home.
It was very, very cold that afternoon, and as I drove up Clear Creek Canyon, I was checking out some of the cool ice formations that had sprung up in the river. I spotted one particular set that was adjacent to a nice pullout.
I was dealing with very low light, and I was so freaking cold by the time I got to the water's edge, I decided not to go back to the truck for my tripod. I wouldn't call it a huge miscue because my hands are quite steady, but you can see some movement in the background. 
I'd hate to fall into that. Or drive my car into it, as some chump will inevitably do this winter somewhere along this road.
I really had hoped for snowfall during this shoot, because at 9am that morning, they were talking about closing I-70, winter storm warning, blah blah blah. Missed it by a few hours. So I headed up to Berthoud Pass, but since the light was fading, I decided to turn off at Henderson Mine instead, which is at the base of Berthoud Pass. The road terminates about 100 feet past the mine, at a parking area which doubles as a staging area for a backcountry snowcat operation on Jones Pass, and old mining and stagecoach route that once led to Silverthorne, but now dead ends shortly after you reach the top. Through-travel is not possible.
The thermometer at the mine facility entrance read -10F, at about 10,500ft. I let the dogs out of the truck, but Layla was having none of it, she took a few steps and looked at me like I had 3 heads, so I let her back in the truck and kicked around with Linus for a few minutes. I'd imagine the wind chill factor put the temperature well below -20F, and I was wearing khaki cargos and an insulated flannel; not adequate for those conditions. I snapped off a few pictures, and headed for home. You can see in the last picture the snowcat road, heading off into the unknown. I hope to snowshoe down this trail later on this winter to try to find some ptarmigan, winter foxes, and maybe some moose, who recently moved over Berthoud Pass into this area.
This excursion was a 3 hour venture into the mountains to make some attempts at snowfall pictures, but I was thwarted by good fortune. I was happy to see that the snowpack is building rapidly in the Clear Creek Basin, because in the previous several years, this area has been lacking decent snowfall, especially early in the year.
This particular trip found me just pointing and shooting, with little effort going into my settings and making adjustments; it was just too damn cold to worry about that stuff. Up at Jones Pass it was all I could do to press the shutter, and I was concerned about the camera cooling off too quickly and forming condensation. So I hit it and quit it....
