A few weeks ago I went out to the Konza Prairie with Scott for a hike. They happened to be in the process of burning that day, so on some portions of the hike we had to walk through fairly thick smoke. It didn’t make breathing all that fun, but it was pretty surreal and beautiful seeing the familiar landscape engulfed in smoke.
Happy Monday, and Cinco de Mayo everyone!
I have a few random images from the past few weeks that I finally got around to editing. They are all from different days, but don’t really deserve a post to themselves, so I’m going to throw them all together here.
This first one is from yet another hike in the Konza Prairie back at the beginning of April. I stumbled on this area where half the prairie was burned, and half was not, and I just loved the stark contrast of the two areas.
Spring has finally arrived in Manhattan, and the trees in my apartment complex were all blooming. I cut some branches off to put in vases in my apartment and ended up with some in almost every room. I have a few more images that I will be posting later on of the larger vase as well.
A week ago or so I ended up going on a spontaneous sunset chase with a good friend. He has lived in Manhattan for quite a while and took me to some new spots. We ended up finding this random, perfect hill that we climbed to the top of to see this incredible view. It was perfect, absolutely perfect.
A few weeks ago (yes, I am just now finally getting around to sharing) I went for a quick hike in the Konza Prairie. I had apparently just missed the controlled burns there, and was struck by how bare this landscape now looked. Also, I am indeed aware that I am slightly obsessed with images of vanishing points, so that is mostly what I shot while there. The contrast between the untouched path and burned land around it fascinated me that day.
I went out to the prairie to get pictures of epic clouds, but by the time I got there they were all gone. But, I hadn’t done a stitch for a while, so I thought it would be a good option.
I got my film just in time for the last day of roid week! I needed to get out and clear my head, so I went out on a hike in the Konza Prairie and shot a few while I was out there.
*Saturday, August 11
Saturday was Chris’s (my fiance) last day with me in Kansas. We went out to dinner and then went for a hike in the Konza Prairie. It was a wonderful, but bittersweet evening.
On our third day at Rocky Mountain National Park we decided to take it easy, since we were going to be climbing Longs Peak the next day. We woke up and took our time getting ready for our hike more than we usually do, so I had time to grab some pictures of the flowers around our campsite with the morning dew and sun.
Our easy hike for the day ended up being to Bierstadt Lake. The hike was a pretty steep one, and we were mostly in the woods so there wasn’t much of a view except for a few times.
When we arrived at the lake I was in awe. It was absolutely stunning there, like a dream. We spent the afternoon sitting by the lake, reading, with my feet in the water. It couldn’t have been much more perfect.
The water was so incredibly clear, and it was surprisingly warm for being a mountain lake. It was perfect for dangling my feet in while I read.
For those of you who have been following my blog, you may remember that my 365 for this day was a duck. We were sitting there relaxing and this duck swam up and just hung around us for a while. So of course I took a ton of pictures.
Then the afternoon storms started to roll in. We wanted to get down to our car before it started to rain, but my brother and dad had gone off to hike to another lake so while we waited around for them I got some more pictures of the incredibly scenery and the clouds that were moving in.
My brother started skipping rocks then, which I couldn’t avoid taking a picture of, so I went with it.
And lastly, I couldn’t leave the lake without showing some love to my analogue sunrise decorated nalgene.
The second day of our stay in Rocky Mountain National Park was yet another amazing day. As I mentioned in my 365 from that day, we drove up Trail Ridge Road and had stunning views the entire way.
I will start things off with some pictures from the drive. We stopped at one point at a pull off to take in the views. There was a trail that led up to the top of that particular mountain, and we were surrounded by tundra, clouds, and more mountains. It was absolutely amazing, and I was left in awe of it all. The pictures don’t do it justice.
There were a bunch of little lakes tucked in the mountains, was yet another thing that made me fall in love with the area. It would have been amazing to be able to hike to some of them. If you look close in this photograph you can see one.
Besides the amazing, grand view, there were some tiny little details that had me in awe. I fell in love with all the little tundra flowers that were growing up there. They were so incredibly small, but have to be so strong and resilient.
After our brief stop we continued driving. I took a crazy amount of pictures out of the window while on our way, but I will only share a few. This first one I really wish the trees weren’t there, but I still love the rest of the scene so I thought I would share it anyways.
After weaving through the mountains on the country’s highest paved roads we arrived at the trailhead for the Lulu City hike and started on our way. The Lulu City was an old mining city, but all that was left of the “city” was one, barely noticeable cabin that was rotting away; only the bottom few logs were left. The hike itself didn’t have the best views but it was still a really nice hike through a drastically different type of landscape than the day before. That is one thing I loved about the Rocky Mountains, the huge range of landscapes that you come across in just one day’s hike even.
We had to cross a crazy amount of streams on our hike. There were some bridges that broke during the flooding from the snow melt that spring so it made things a little more exciting. Most were just tiny little streams though, but they added something special to the hike none the less.
And of course more flowers. I absolutely loved all the wildflowers blooming out there.
The trail ended up at the Colorado river, where we stopped to rest and eat lunch. Talk about a great spot for a picnic!
On the drive back we stopped at the Alpine Visitor Center, which had some amazing views. When we got there a huge cloud had moved in and you could hardly see anything, but luckily it moved out pretty quick and then the clouds were pretty amazing.
These two images were are very similar, but they showed off some different things and I just couldn’t decide between them.
We also stopped at a lake on the way back, since it was just a short little walk to it.
And, just like on the way to the hike, I had my camera stuck out the window for most of the drive back.
I went for a short hike today at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary. I was originally planning on going for an extremely long hike at the Red River Gorge and so I had packed a lunch and such, but decided last-minute I wanted something a bit more relaxing and a place to just sit and breathe with nothing around so that I could clear my head. I stumbled on this spot, and ate my lunch on some rocks just to the right of this picture. It was a perfect spot and was just what I needed.
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Here are the rest from my mini hike yesterday morning.
There was a random tomb for Archibald Moore.
So if you were to go by all of the above images you would think that all I shot yesterday were vertical pictures. This however is not true. I took lots of horizontal ones, my favorites just happened to be vertical. But, for good measure, here is a horizontal shot.
Abigail Thompson Photography 