Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend a photo charter at the Locust Heights & Western Railroad in Clarksburg West Virginia. The LH&WRR is a “backyard” railroad operated by the Mason Family and their team of dedicated volunteers. They typically only operate on Wednesday evenings, June through October so this photo excursion was a special opportunity.
Look for a trip report Tuesday.
Continuing on from Part 2, the next stop was Maroon Bells for sunrise. Located in the Snowmass Wilderness, this is a very popular sunrise photo location. Unfortunately a storm was blowing through so I didn’t get the alpine glow sunrise that you typically see here. Instead I got a nice pre-dawn shot (above) with some stars visible between the clouds and a late morning shot when the sun came out and the wind stopped just long enough to get a decent reflection in the lake.
From there I traveled south over Independence Pass, stopping at a couple of spots to take photos of the spectacular landscape before heading to Great Sand Dunes National Park.
The Ghost Town of Independence:
Roaring Fork River:
Snow Squall:
Twin Lakes:
I arrived at Great Sand Dunes in a windstorm, so I didn’t spend much time on the dune field. Clouds over the park with clear skies to the west provided some nice storm light on the Dunes.
Dune field from the Entrance Road:
High Dune Hikers:
Dunefield Storm Light:
Look for Part 4 covering the two railroad photo charters this trip was centered around in a couple of weeks.
Maroon Bells is a popular location to photograph sunrise in Colorado, especially in the fall when the aspen trees on both sides of the lake turn gold. A storm was blowing through the morning I was there, so we didn’t have the typical alpine sunrise reflected in the lake. There was a short break in the clouds after sunrise that allowed the photographers assembled at the lake to get a couple of photos before the clouds closed in again.
I’ll post Part 3 of my Colorado Fall Trip Report on Tuesday, covering Maroon Bells, Independence Pass and Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Since a number of folks liked my previous post from Ravens Roost Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I thought I’d share another.
I usually don’t include people in my landscape photos because they’re often distracting elements. But on the rare occasion when they’re standing in the right spot, its nice to include people to add a sense of scale. After other photographers had moved on to other locations at the overlook, I found a composition that allowed me to include two people between the trees.
Half the fun of photography is the experience behind each image. In the case of this image, I’ll never forget the sound of N&W 611 crawling up the grade outside Christiansburg pulling a 19 car train while doing her best Mt. Vesuvius impression, or the moment when the exhaust hit the underside of the highway bridge we were standing on, lifting the bridge upward.
This photo of sunset at Ravens Roost Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway is another case of luck favoring the prepared. I was driving from work in Baltimore down to Roanoke for Memorial Day Weekend to photograph N&W 611 on her trips out of Roanoke. During lunch at work I took a couple of minutes to look up potential sunset locations on the the Blue Ridge Parkway just in case I was ahead of schedule and had time to head back up the parkway after checking into my hotel. Four traffic accidents on I-81 turned a 4 hour drive into 7 hours, but remembering one photo I saw of an overlook at the North end of the parkway, I turned east on I-64 with just enough time to get to Ravens Roost Overlook before sunset. Sometimes you just get lucky.
The East Broad Top Railroad and Coal Company, located in Rockhill Furnace, PA is a place where time stands still. The railroad, touted as one of the oldest and best preserved railroads, operated from 1871 until it closed in 1956. The EBT was then purchased by a salvage company who eventually decided to operate a portion of the railroad as a tourist line starting in 1961. While operations ceased in 2011, the Friends of The East Broad Top have continued to lovingly restore the structures that make up the Rockhill Yard and Shop Complex.
When visiting it’s not hard to feel like you have traveled back in time a half century or more. So, when my friend and fellow photographer, Matthew Malkiewicz announced that he had secured access for a small group of photographers to visit this past January, I jumped at the chance to participate.
I arrived shortly after sunrise, hoping to get some shots around the yard in early morning sunlight. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but it had been several years since I had been there so found things to shoot despite the less than optimal lighting.
Moss Covered Coal Hoppers:
Moss Covered Wheels:
A Pair of Switch Stands – notice the glove, most likely left by the last person who threw the switch, waiting to be picked up again, just like the line waits for operations to re-start:
The Three Way Switch – a very rare occurrence on railroads. There are only two others that I’m aware of.
Once the rest of the group arrived we headed into the Roundhouse for two hours before breaking for lunch.
Locomotives Waiting:
Journal Oil Can:
Oil Can and Cobwebs:
After Lunch we moved into the shops complex for a couple of hours.
The Blacksmith Shop – Not many people have been in this building. The columns rotted over the years resulting in a severe tilt to the building that was repaired in the last few years.
The Foundry:
The Machine Shop was full of scenes, large and small:
Zanol Cocoa – Quality First:
Light:
Boiler Shop:
You could spend days in a place like this and never run out of things to photograph. I hope to get to spend more time at the East Broad Top in the future.
The Norfolk & Western Class “J” 611 is an incredible machine. She was designed to pull the N&W’s premiere passenger trains at speeds up to 100mph. As the only example of this class of locomotive to survive the scrapper’ torch, we’re lucky she’s operational today.
In the photo above, we see her rolling past the former N&W Freight House in Roanoke. The site is now home to the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
Last week was the third weekend I photographed her this spring. Watch for the trip Report in a couple of weeks.
Continuing where we left off in Part 1 of the trip report, after leaving Mesa Verde National Park, I drove North to Montrose Colorado to be in position for sunrise at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison became a National Park on October 21, 1999, encompasing 30,750 acres and is known for its incredibly steep cliffs and narrow canyon. At its narrowest point, Chasm View, the canyon is 1,100ft wide at the rim, 40ft wide at the river and 1,820ft deep! This unique steepness and narrowness is caused by the steep route the Gunnison River takes through the canyon. It averages 34ft of drop per mile which causes the river to cut deeper into the canyon faster than the walls can erode and widen the canyon.
Island Peaks:
Pulpit Rock:
Chasm View:
The canyon is difficult to photograph during the day due to the huge contrast between the shadows and the sunny side of the canyon. I think this park may be best captured in the pre-dawn and post sunset light. A second trip to better capture this park is definitely in order.
Part 3 of the trip report will cover Maroon Bells and Great Sand Dunes National Park.
As magma cools and solidifies, water becomes concentrated, making the remaining magma more fluid. That last bit of magma to cool moves easily into the cracks in the surrounding rock before cooling and forming a type of granite called Pegmatite. The light colored streaks at Painted Wall in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park are an impressive example of this phenomenon. For reference, those are full size trees above the rim of the canyon. At 2,250 feet high, Painted Wall is Colorado’s tallest cliff.
The patterns in the rock look great in black & white too.
Check back Tuesday for the long overdue Part 2 of my Colorado Fall Color Trip Report.