I had almost completely forgotten about these images, but while doing some cleanup on my computer stumbled on them. Not long before spring break I went on a mini adventure to Pillsbury Crossing with my studio-mate. Pillsbury Crossing is a small wildlife area just outside of Manhattan. There are a few trails there, so we hiked around a little and scoped out some places for potential self-portraits in the future.
Happy Monday everyone!
Welcome back! Hopefully you all didn’t get bored with the first post since there are still more images to share. These are my favorite images of the trip, so in my opinion it was all worth it. Without further ado, enjoy part 2!
Friday morning we woke up early and drove to Golden, Colorado to try climbing at the Golden Cliffs area. The hike up to the cliff was incredibly beautiful, and the view once we got there was just as amazing. From the cliff side we could see almost all of Golden, including the Coors Brewery, mountains in almost every direction, and Denver in the distance; near perfection I would dare to say.
It is always interesting when going to a new climbing area; it tends to be a slow process to begin climbing as you try to get oriented according to the guide-book and figure out what routes are what. We ended up on some rather sketchy routes to begin the day, and encountered very polished rock (which we later read in about on mountain project). After finishing a particularly bad route Scott and I were both frustrated and angry, but he spontaneously decided to climb the route right next to it before we headed back to Denver. The route ended up being the hardest route he has ever lead climbed, and a terrific one to end the day on.
Saturday we managed to wake up even earlier, and again headed to the Golden Cliffs. Our friends that were in Colorado Springs drove up to climb with us for a bit, and despite some serious pain due to my elbow injury we had a great morning of climbing. A storm rolled in right as we were wrapping up a route, so I grabbed some photographs quick and then we sprinted down to our cars with thunder exploding around us the entire time.
The four of us grabbed lunch in Golden while the storm passed, and then Scott and I made a snap decision to drive up to the summit of Mt. Evans, a 14,000 foot mountain near by. It is a narrow, winding road to the top. I was driving and was terrified while doing so (you see, I terrify me despite the fact that I climb). We drove through a hail storm, some rain, along with some sunshine while driving up. When we got to the end of the road we hopped out of the car, noted the crazy effect of the altitude on us, and started to hike around. The road takes you nearly to the top; there is just a short hike to get to the actual summit. Near the parking lot there is an A-frame building where the first high altitude research ever done took place. Scott was all giddy since that is something he hopes to pursue, so we hiked around there for a bit and then headed up the short trail to the summit. While we were at the summit the clouds opened up just right, and I got some truly amazing light. I have never been in the alpine environment during golden hour before; it was one of the most magical things I have witnessed. I have already vowed to go back when I can spend more time there and explore a bit more for the perfect shot.
I had a guy at the summit snap a photograph of me and Scott quick, so that there would be proof of us being there together 🙂
Sadly this was our last night in Colorado. The next morning we woke up to drive back to Kansas; not nearly as exciting as finding a new place to climb and explore in the mountains.
*Sunday, October 14
Sunday Chris and I were back in Lexington, and we went on a walk so that I could shoot some houses for my current grad work. We walked to the street where I used to live, and it made me a bit homesick for those times.
*Wednesday, August 3 – Rocky Mountain National Park (Bierstadt Lake)
On Wednesday we decided we needed a short hike and a relaxing day since we were planning on hiking up Longs Peak the next day. We had wanted to go to Bear Lake, but the line for the shuttle to the trail head was extremely long so we thought it would be more enjoyable to go to the less popular Bierstadt Lake. We found a great little spot to sit right next to the lake, and we were able to walk in the water a little bit since there was a little natural beach area. Most of us just sat on the rocks and read, ate some lunch, and enjoyed the beautiful weather and view. This duck swam up to us at one point and I was able to get within feet of her for some pictures. She just went right on preening as if I wasn’t there.
I obviously had pictures of the beautiful scenery and what not, but I wanted to keep my 365 diverse. I don’t want to have a week of landscape shots every single day.
*Sunday, July 31 – Just entering Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP)
Sunday morning we all got up early and packed up some more stuff from my brother’s house and got on the road to head to RMNP. It was around a 6 hour drive through the rest of South Dakota (my brother lives in Spear Fish, where we spent the night), Wyoming, and then finally Colorado. When we got to the park it started storming, and when we turned on to the road to our campground this was the view that greeted us. I actually took this in the car as my brother continued to drive, so I was lucky it turned out so well! It was one of the few pictures I managed to get that day (really the only good one) since we were in the car for most of the day. And the rest of the night was spent setting up all four tents and getting our stuff set up inside them, and making dinner. We were all pretty exhausted from the drive and such and so we headed to bed pretty early.
I have millions of pictures of the Red River Gorge on here already, but, since I have been hiking there twice already this summer, I have tons more to share. So here are some extras from the past two times I have been.
I’m getting there…slowly. So, so many memories brought back by going through all these pictures…
Day 158 – 6/15/2010
Day 159 – 6/16/2010
Day 162 – 6/19/2010
Day 163 – 6/20/2010
Day 168 – 6/25/2010
Day 176 – 7/4/2010
Day 185 – 7/13/2010
Day 186 – 7/14/2010
Day 188 – 7/16/2010
Day 189 – 7/17/2010
Day 192 – 7/20/2010
Day 195 – 7/23/2010
Day 196 – 7/24/2010
Day 198 – 7/26/2010
I haven’t linked to this for a while, but become a fan on Facebook at Abigail Thompson Photography. And be sure to check out the Etsy shop I opened with my sister.
This is a long one, I really cranked out some pictures in the past few days.
Also, for some reason, all of a sudden my pictures are looking extremely dull when I upload them here or on flickr. I have no clue why, but it is frustrating me greatly and destroying the look of my pictures. I hope it is just my computer for some odd reason….
Day 106 – 4/24/2010
Day 11 – 4/29
Day 112 – 4/30/2010
Day 113 – 5/1/2010
Day 119 – 5/7/2010
Day 120 – 5/8/2010
Day 121 – 5/9/2010
Day 123 – 5/11/2010
Day 124 – 5/12/2010
Day 131 – 5/19/2010
Day 132 – 5/20/2010
Day 134 – 5/22/2010
Day 135 – 5/23/2010
Day 136 – 5/24/2010
Day 145 – 6/2/2010
Day 151 – 6/8/2010
Day 152 – 6/9/2010
Day 156 – 6/13/2010
I totally forgot that I never got around to uploading the rest from our day trip to Cumberland Falls. So here we go…
When we got there, we had to cross this bridge to get to the parking lot, and we both loved it so we walked down the the river and took a bunch of pictures of it.
As I mentioned in my first post of our trip, Cumberland Falls is one of two waterfalls where it is possible to see a moonbow. Obviously this makes it a huge tourist attraction, even during the day, so we had to battle for good spots to get pictures for the first bit of our hike. The park has 3 main overlooks (if I am remembering correctly) built for the waterfall; one at the top, one very close to the bottom of it, and then one further away. This shot was taken from the overlook that was closest the the bottom.
This one was taken while hiking, just looking off of the path. After those three main overlooks the number of people that we encountered went way down, it was kind of funny.
There then was a path that led down to this beach area (no swimming allowed though) that had such beautiful fine, white sand. There were quite a few people here again, but we hiked down the beach back towards the waterfall and after climbing over some boulders and piles of logs jammed from when the river is high, we were all alone and had a perfect view.
We then continued our hike, heading for our main goal for the day, Dog Slaughter Falls. The entire hike out there we didn’t encounter a single person, and on the way back, only two people. It was so nice to have the trail to ourselves, and especially on such a pretty hike.
And here are just some details from our hike.
I should mention, that we never actually made it to Dog Slaughter Falls. We had been hiking for a couple of hours, and it was already 5 o’clock or later, and we came upon a sign that told us that the trail was closed due to erosion, and that we had to take a detour. We didn’t know how much further we had until the falls, or how much the detour would add to the hike, and we were definitely not prepared to hike back in the dark, so we just turned around. Hopefully we will be able to get out there once again and actually make it.
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 