October 3rd I headed up Blanco basin road for some reason in the six years I have lived here I have never been up this road.  I leads up behind square to a major mountain you see from all over town to this gorgeous secret little valley.  The valley is all privately owned but surrounded by forest service lands.  To the east are the peaks of the continental divide that are part of the southern San Juan Wilderness. the back side of square top is on the other side and the valley runs up to big mountains to the north so it forms a U at the top.  Every direction is beautiful!

There were nasty chemtrails all day but I headed out anyway and asked for some piece of the sky to be cleared and trusted my intuition to tell me where to go.  I did get some blue skies at the beginning the slowed faded to the disgusting chemtrail haze.

 

first you start going around square top

 

 

 

You go up over a big hill then start to come down into the basin this one is part way down.

 

 

 

When you get into the basin you meet the Blanco River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were lots of trees in the area that had not turned yet which surprised me based on how the colors were in the upper Piedra and Wolf Creek areas.

 

 

 

I can upon this ranch entrance that I thought was interesting

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nice little pond, this place I noticed was actually for sale.  Just a mere 1.3 million, it has river frontage though and 40 acres or so.

 

 

 

 

 

After going up to the end of the valley I went back and cut off on a forest service road.  There was a  fox there waiting for me but he didn’t hang out long enough to get his photo taken.  The aspens up there were brilliant, but the sky was whiting out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panoramas

 

Square Top

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Divide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blanco river

 

 

 

 

The river valley

 

 

 

 

 

On October 2nd I headed up Wolf Creek Pass, it was mostly cloudy again and I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get a blue sky day.

 

 

 

Here is a close up of one of the hills

 

 

 

The Bootjack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Treasure falls was almost non existent we haven’t had much rain the last few weeks.

 

 

 

 

up to the overlook

 

 

 

 

I always have to get a shot of this tree for some reason it just calls to me with the  rock with a hole in it.

 

 

 

The was a crow hanging out on the cliff making some noise and he kind of makes an interesting

silhouette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On to Lobo overlook at around 11,000 feet it is 3 miles of dirt road of the main highway at the top of the pass.

 

 

 

You can see there were hills full of aspen but at this time of the day they were in the shade that combined with the clouds makes them pretty dull.

 

 

 

 

Here you can see the parking lot of the Wolf Creek Ski area

 

 

 

Coming back down the pass I stopped in on the west fork road

 

 

 

 

Took a little deer by surprise

 

 

 

West Fork of the San Juan River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panorama’s for the day

 

bootjack

 

 

 

lobo overlook

 

 

 

 

This lobo overlook view has all of the Ski Area

 

 

 

 

The viewpoint above treasure falls

 

 

 

on the 30th of September I headed out to the high country to see how the aspen were coming along.  I went north of town to the upper Piedra and Williams Lake.  It was mostly cloudy but still beautiful.

These were pretty much the first aspen I came upon

 

 

 

Here you can see how many are still green, still I love the contrast that they offer to the yellow and the dark green pines.

 

 

 

This is the first good view spot of Cimarrona Peak in the Weminuche wilderness area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Williams Lake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

trees reflected in the lake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like a pretty great place to be a cow

 

 

 

 

 

The sun was fading but this hillside was lit up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun went down as I pass a little pond on the way home

 

 

 

 

Then it lit up the other side of the sky high above Pagosa Peak

 

 

 

 

Oh I almost forgot here is a panorama by the lake taken from the boat launch area.

 

 

These are from walks around the neighborhood hood on September 26th and 29th.

Here is one of the bigger oak in the area

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These grasses had turned orange and the sun was hitting them and lighting them up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 22nd: When I went to town I noticed a few bright red oak on the hillside of the little canyon I have to drive through so when I got home I took my camera on a walk on and some leaves were turning yellow and some red, but most are still green.

 

Here is the hillside from the car

 

 

 

I loved the way the light was hitting these yellow leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little bugger was on the ground I am not sure what kind of tree it came from