Please subscribe for the latest research, photos, videos, data viz, and field reports about the science of snow and the future of the American West’s snowpack.

Snow is my muse, my passion, my obsession, and my occasional nemesis.

 

I’m launching snow.news because I’ll never tire of learning about this captivating force of nature that is responsible for some of my life’s most joyous—and harrowing—moments, sometimes on the same day!

My mission is to share what I find while exploring this fascinating form of weather and while reporting on how our precious snowpack is changing in the 21st century climate.

The snowpack is the foundation of the Southwest’s water supply and what makes desert metropolises possible in a dry region that’s aridifying further due to climate change.

Snow not only gives life to countless species and manifold ecosystems but also sustains jobs and rural economies that depend on farming, skiing, fishing, rafting, or all of the above, as is the case in my hometown of Durango.

Colorado and the mighty San Juan Mountains are my starting point, but I’ll be reporting on the snowpack throughout the region. I’ll share news, research, and insights from faraway places where it snows, even beyond the United States.

 

Snow News features

Snow News is a 100% free newsletter offering:

• Original reporting and explanatory journalism on snow science and the snowpack
• Interviews with leading scientists and other snow experts
• Photos and videos that capture the beauty of snow and the joy of snow sports
• Data visualizations depicting the weather, climate, and snowpack
• Helpful resources for understanding and forecasting snow
• Field reports and personal stories based on my exploration of the cryosphere

 

This is my personal newsletter and a passion project, but it will certainly be informed by my professional work as a journalist (my bio). I started covering water in the West 25 years ago as a newspaper reporter, and I now co-direct the Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism that focuses on the Colorado River and Rio Grande, both of which depend on the snowpack.

I’ll be publishing snow-related stories on waterdesk.org and elsewhere but will be using this newsletter to dig deeper and also cover snow-related issues that go beyond the water supply.

As I stand at the brink, ready to launch this newsletter after months of mental gymnastics, I feel like I’m at the top of a difficult ski run with sketchy visibility and many obstacles before me, some visible, others hidden. I’m anxious but excited, visualizing a fun ride while also wary of the challenges ahead.

 

After 53 years and more than my share of Sysphian endeavors, I’ve learned the hard way to make sure I’m crystal clear why I am taking on a new project.

10 reasons why I’m doing this

And so, a top-10 list of reasons why I’m taking the plunge:

1. I’m a weather nerd who is enchanted by snow and who worships winter storms.
2. I love to ski, snowboard, and otherwise recreate in the snow (although snowshoeing still leaves me cold).
3. I see huge news value in covering the current state and future trajectory of the snowpack, not only in the West but also around the world.
4. I don’t think nearly enough people know about the importance of snow for the West’s water, environment, economy, and way of life.
5. I’m sad and scared about what climate change is already doing to our planet’s cryosphere, but I have lots of unanswered questions about the future.
6. I’m excited to share what I learn about snow, from snowflakes at the microscopic level, to the mountain snowpack as seen by satellites, to snowfall on other celestial bodies, and anything in between.
7. I desperately need to work on something fun and pursue curiosities wherever they lead in order to rekindle my love for writing.
8. I’m looking for an outlet for my visual journalism, and I think imagery is as essential as words for telling the story.
9. I want to connect with other people who love snow and meet experts who can explain its many facets.
10. I know everything gets politicized today, but I want to work primarily on the science of snow and cover an issue that’s not so fraught, polarized, and divisive.

 

Questions? Suggestions?

If there’s anyone in your orbit who might be interested in Snow News, please let them know or suggest they sign up here.

I’ll also be publishing content on social media, so please follow Snow News on Instagram, Threads, X, and Facebook.

And feel free to email me at mitchtobin@gmail.com if you have any questions or feedback about the newsletter. I’m always looking for new sources and story ideas.

 

The post Why I’m launching snow.news appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

With the text next to the photo, it’s easy to connect the description to the image.

But this format works better when the container for all the content isn’t full width.

(To keep the text on this page focused in the center, I created a three-column layout and placed the copy in the middle one.)

The post Colorado backpacking photos: portrait versus landscape appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

I’ve grown to love downhill mountain biking almost as much as skiing, which is really saying something.

Like skiing, downhill biking reliably puts me in the precious state of flow: that elusive, magical experience of losing yourself in a challenging task that’s in the sweet spot between boredom and anxiety.

My adrenal glands are sore after hours of flying down a mountain on curvy, banked, hand-carved singletrack trails at Winter Park ski resort and other such venues.

My quads also ache, but downhilling this summer at Trestle Bike Park has been a great way for me to get my mind off work and soak in the scenery of the Colorado Rockies.

For the uninitiated, downhill mountain biking at a ski resort doesn’t involve bombing straight down the slope. The trails tend to be serpentine, weaving across the pistes and forests to make for a more enjoyable ride.

“Freeride” trails, which are my favorite, tend to be smooth and punctuated with jumps that let you catch air as well as berms that make it feel like you’re whipping around a luge track. “Cross-country” trails are rougher and more natural with obstacles such as roots, drops, and rock gardens.

Some guys approaching 50 get a little red sports car or find a mistress in a little black dress. Me? Body armor from Amazon and a used downhill bike off Craigslist.

My Trek Session 88’s dual suspension has a front fork with eight inches of travel, so it feels like I’m piloting an M1A2 Abrams tank down the spine of the continent while perched in the turret atop a La-Z-Boy sofa.

Proper downhill bikes are burly, pricey machines. For a few years, I resisted making the commitment, choosing instead to ride my cross-country mountain bike or occasionally rent a real downhill bike at the resort.

In retrospect, that was silly. I wish I’d pulled the trigger sooner, since having the right equipment readily available has dramatically increased my skills and enjoyment. I bought my downhill bike last year for about $1,200, less than 20% of the list price in 2012. It now feels like some of the best money I ever spent.

I’m pretty conservative in my riding, and I’m certainly one of the older people out there! One of the beauties of this sport is that it’s easy to titrate the adrenaline dose just by squeezing on my disc brakes. Go slow enough and there’s hardly any risk at all.

With the gondola or chairlift doing virtually all the climbing, you might think downhilling isn’t much of a workout. But I’m exhausted after riding because the proper technique has you squatting above or behind the saddle in a pose not unlike the skier’s stance, so you’re effectively doing innumerable mini-squats as you absorb bumps and pump the shocks to maintain your momentum.

My bike weighs more than 40 pounds, around double the weight of my carbon road bike, so even pedaling on level ground feels like a chore. One of my recent rides, summarized below, had my heart rate averaging 128 beats per minute, with a few excursions above 160 while cranking up the handful of tiny inclines.

I’m no gear head, but I’ve fallen not only for the technology in my bike but also the capabilities of the Rylo 360-degree camera I’m using to film my exploits.

One of the advantages of a 360-degree camera that films in every direction is that you can pick which angle to focus on after the shoot, rather than trying to fiddle with the camera while you’re having fun. Believe me, you do not want to be adjusting a camera while downhill mountain biking, unless you’re looking to capture close-up footage of you flying over the handlebars before heading to the ER.

The Rylo has some downsides–the batteries suck in cold weather and the screen is tough to read in any season–but the camera’s image stabilization is fantastic.

For years, I tried to shoot the very same trails using an older GoPro 3, but the incessant shaking made much of the footage unusable, unless you wanted to induce motion sickness or an epileptic seizure.

I’ve been mountain biking for three decades, and nearly all that time I’ve been huffing and puffing up hills in order to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Now, as I near the half-century mark, I’m happy to skip the vegetables and go straight to the dessert.

When I think back to my first days mountain biking in the late 1980s and then consider today’s technology–dual suspension, disc brakes, 360-degree cameras, cell phone trackers–I feel like a senior citizen.

Technology may be destroying the planet, but it’s also allowing some 48-year-old yutz like me to do and film things I never could have imagined in my youth.

The post Finding flow: downhill mountain biking at Winter Park appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

The Phantom 3 served me well, but I’ve put it out to pasture now that I have a new drone: DJI’s Mavic 2 Zoom. The new drone is a leap forward in technology in an industry that continues to innovate like mad. The Mavic 2 Zoom is not only much smaller and more portable than the Phantom 3 but also easier to fly. Other upgrades include a camera that can zoom in on your subject and anti-collision technology.

Now that I’ve retired my first drone, I thought it an opportune time to assemble some highlights from my first few years of flying. This “demo reel,” as such collections are known in the industry, features footage that I’ve sold on stock video marketplaces, such as Adobe Stock and Pond5.

Here’s the short version of my drone demo reel:

My drone photography has focused on mountains, water/rivers, solar/wind energy, and other interesting landscapes in my home state of Colorado.

Aspen leaves changing are one of my favorite subjects to film with a drone. In fall 2018, I photographed the foliage in the San Isabel National Forest near Salida (see this post for the footage). The still image below is from Guanella Pass near Georgetown in fall 2017.

Evergreen forests are also fun to fly over. Looking down upon huge trees is definitely an unusual vantage point. The image below is from the Gunnison National Forest in Central Colorado (see this post for the footage).

With an eye toward the stock video market, I paid a visit last year to a massive solar installation in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. This solar farm features panels that track the sun throughout the day and the dramatic backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

I also took a day trip southeast of Denver to one of the many wind farms that have sprouted on the High Plains of Eastern Colorado. For reference, my drone was nearly 400 feet above the ground in the shot below.

In 2018, I was fortunate to find some beautiful spots for flying during my road trip to Southeast Utah. The colorful rocks, stark geology, vivid displays of erosion, and typically benign weather make that corner of the American West an amazing place for flying. 

In addition to filming buttes, mesa, canyons, and desert scenery, I was also able to fly along the Colorado River near Moab. 

The Phantom 3 captured all of the images on this page and all of the footage in my drone demo reel. Overall, it was a reliable and proficient tool for aerial imagery. I still plan to use it as a trainer and backup aircraft.

But the Phantom 3 did have a few drawbacks. It was nearly as loud as a lawn mower and the batteries didn’t last long, especially in cold weather. Its bulkiness demanded a backpack unto itself, so it was difficult to film locations that required a big hike. And the whirring of the propeller blades would sometimes show up in the footage if the drone was tilting forward to achieve speed or fight a headwind.

Based on some early test flights, the Mavic 2 Zoom solves all of those problems, so I’m excited to embark on a new chapter in aerial photography. 

If you’d like to check out even more footage, here’s a longer version of my drone demo reel:

The post Drone demo reel: highlights from Colorado and Utah appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

Smaller than a fist, the Rylo 360 camera packs in some amazing technology and is among a new breed of action cameras.

Here are some highlights from a recent powder day at Loveland Ski Area.

The Rylo has super-wide-angle lenses on both the front and the back, so it’s able to film in all directions. While editing the footage, you can pick the best angle and even move the vantage point throughout the shot to follow objects or reveal fresh views.

Like the GoPro, the Rylo is meant to be used during sports, so its accompanying app includes automatic stabilization technology. This not only smooths out the shakes but also levels the horizon. 

Until now, a lot of footage I’ve shot with an older GoPro on mogul runs and mountain bike trails has been unusable because of the jitters. Technology to the rescue!

The 360-degree coverage also allows you to easily go from landscape to portrait to square orientations while editing in the accompanying app. Below is a different version of my test footage in portrait mode.

Traditionally, anything other than landscape orientation for video has been considered amateurish. Sure enough, video in portrait mode works poorly on a television screen. But with video now routinely consumed on phones and through social media platforms that favor portrait or square images, it’s a whole new world. 

One of Rylo’s fun features is the “tiny planet.” In the app, you just pinch on the screen and your video is converted into a highly warped, 360-degree view. 

While skiing or snowboarding, the standard tiny planet view makes it look like you’re riding on top of a giant snowball!

There’s also an “inverted” version of the tiny planet in which you appear to be skiing or snowboarding inside a washing machine (or maybe the full-pipe?)

The 360 video world has been exploding and there are lots of options out there. I was also considering the more expensive GoPro Fusion, but a Black Friday sale tipped the balance toward the Rylo.

I’m excited to use the Rylo for skiing, snowboarding, bicycling, hiking, and other outdoor recreation, but I’m also envisioning how to employ it on some work-related video projects.

Up next for me is exploring the Rylo’s ability to create immersive, virtual reality photos and videos in which viewers can survey the scene and choose their own perspective.

The post Perspective: snowboarding and skiing with a 360-degree camera appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

The San Juans—Colorado’s biggest and wildest range—are home to more than a dozen mountains above 14,000 feet.

We try to hit the area at least once a year, but the San Juans are a long drive from Denver, so after 10 years of living in Colorado, I still hadn’t climbed any of the range’s tallest peaks.

With Ginette and Camille visiting friends in Seattle, I took a solo journey with plans to summit three 14ers over two days.

On the drive out, I passed by Blue Mesa Reservoir, Colorado’s largest (manmade) lake. Central Colorado has been in a drought, so the reservoir has shriveled. In the photo below, the stream of water coming into the reservoir is the Gunnison River, a tributary of the Colorado River.

After a few more hours of driving, I camped near the Grizzly Gulch trailhead, which would be my launching spot for both of the hikes. Had I been visiting in the middle of summer, I imagine the place would’ve been crowded, but I was there in September and mid-week, so I was happy to find plenty of camping spots and solitude.

I arrived early enough to see the setting sun illuminate the next day’s objectives. The photo below shows Redcloud Peak (14,034 ft.) to the left and Sunshine Peak (14,001 ft.) on the right.

After the sun went down, I set up the tripod for some quick astrophotography before the moon rose. I only had about an hour with truly dark skies, but the view still impressive. Not much light pollution in the neighborhood!

I figured my night of photography was over when the moon started peeking above the horizon. But I soon realized that I could capture the moonlight illuminating the surrounding peaks while the sky was still dark enough to reveal the stars. The photo below illustrates this lunar alpenglow.

Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak

The next morning, I woke around sunrise and quickly made breakfast so I could begin what promised to be an epic day of hiking. My campsite was about a half-mile from the trailhead, and as I embarked on the journey in the early morning light, I wondered if I’d be back before dark.

The trail began with a lovely stroll through an aspen grove with the leaves peaking. I could’ve spent a lot more time photographing the area, but I knew I had better get a move on.

The weather was perfect for climbing a 14er. There was zero chance of rain and thunderstorms, so I didn’t have to worry about being stuck up on some ridge while Mother Nature was hurling down lightning bolts hotter than the sun. In fact, I didn’t see a cloud in the sky the whole day.

After a mile or two, I’d gained some elevation. I shot the photo below while looking back at the trailhead. The peak on the far left is Handies—my goal for the next day.

The trail to the top of Redcloud was straightforward and totally nontechnical, so I was able to make good time. As is common with 14ers, the approach was relatively tame, but the last few miles got super steep just as the altitude was starting to take a toll on my body.

I’ve lived in the mile-high city of Denver for a decade, but that doesn’t spare me from the ill effects of oxygen deprivation while hiking in Colorado’s high country. I feel shortness of breath when I’m just a few thousand feet higher than Denver in the foothills of the Rockies. Above 12,000 feet, I really notice the difference and start feeling the familiar fatigue, fuzzy thinking, and queasiness in my gut.

Below is a panoramic view from near the summit of Redcloud, looking north. Toward the end of 14er climbs, I slow down to a crawl—sometimes well below 1 mph—and I wind up making lots of pit stops, so there’s no shortage of opportunities to take photos.

When I reached the top of Redcloud, I had the summit to myself. I was surprised at how red the rocks were. I could imagine that around sunrise and sunset, the light bouncing off the red summit would illuminate the clouds above in a display befitting the peak’s name.

I was feeling spent by the time I reached Redcloud’s summit. Looking south, I could see that I still had a formidable hike ahead of me to reach neighboring Sunshine Peak. At 14,001, Sunshine Peak is the shortest of Colorado’s 14ers. If it were two feet shorter, it would see just a fraction of the visitation.

The trail from Redcloud to Sunshine looked well-defined and not too steep. By now I was well above 14,000 feet, and I’d been at high altitude for hours, so any activity felt strenuous. The photo below, from the top of Sunshine, looks back on the route from Redcloud, which required dipping down around 500 feet, then regaining that lost altitude, and then doing it all over again in reverse on the way out.

I didn’t see a soul on the way down the mountain, and I’d only seen five or six people on the way up. I was exhausted, but it felt exhilarating to bag two 14ers in one day and spend so much time staring at such stunning scenery.

The map below shows the day’s hike, which my GPS tracker put at about 13 miles round-trip.

More than a mile from the trailhead, it was already dark enough to demand a headlamp. On the other side of the valley, I could see a flickering light: another hiker, just like me, who was coming down the trail to Handies, my goal for the next day. Judging by the light’s position—close to the trailhead but dramatically higher in elevation—I could tell that tomorrow’s hike would have an abrupt start.

Back at camp, I wolfed down a carton of mac and cheese with a packet of tuna mixed in, washing it down with some beers and a few Nalgenes of water. My appetite was voracious, so I also gobbled down a Toblerone chocolate bar and some cookies. I’m sure I burned more calories than I consumed on this day.

With another long hike ahead of me, it didn’t take long for me to retreat into my tent. But I couldn’t resist staying up to shoot a few more images of the night sky, which was just as brilliant as the night before.

Handies Peak

The next morning, I woke up in my sleeping bag and immediately smelled smoke.  I sank lower into my sleeping bag, knowing that wildfire smoke had made its way to me.

Ah shit, I thought, another hike up a 14er in the smoke. The previous summer, I’d summited Mount Columbia in the Sawatch Range on a day when the smoke was even worse. For weeks afterward, I suffered from bronchitis after hiking a crumbly trail that my guidebook aptly described as “oft-cursed.”

When I turned on the car, the dashboard said it was 29 degrees, so I was justified in feeling chilly as I made coffee and oatmeal. The sky was cloudless, but even from my campsite I could see the haze between me and the mountains a mile or two away.

With legs sore from yesterday’s hike, and fearing for my lungs, I set out to summit Handies. The trail immediately spiked upward and had me puffing and sweating.

Fortunately, and much to my surprise, the smoke lifted as the morning wore on and the wind picked up. You could still see a little haze, but it no longer smelled like a campfire and my bronchial tubes weren’t burning as much.

Handies is considered one of the easier 14ers, especially if you take the standard six-mile route from the American Basin trailhead. That route only gains about 2,500 feet, but the trail I was a few miles longer and would rise around 3,650 feet.

After a steep start, the trail leveled out. Emerging from the forest at treeline, Handies was dead ahead and unmistakable as the destination.

One of the many amazing things about climbing mountains in Colorado is observing the impressive aftermath of immense geologic forces at work. In the photo below, you can see that erosion and gravity have done a number on the terrain, but the boulders in the foreground couldn’t have made it there just by falling and rolling: I think glacial action also helped scatter the debris.

The mild trail quickly turned steep again in order to gain the ridge that would dominate the rest of the climb to Handies. The photo below looks back on the trail and Whitecross Mountain, a 13er whose white and yellow rocks were luminous in the sunlight.

Near the top of the ridge, I saw one of the few people I would meet the whole day. This guy was jogging down the trail and didn’t have a pack. I take 100+ ounces of water on 14er hikes, as well as food, extra clothing, a first aid kit, and other supplies in a large daypack, so I’m not sure how these minimalists do it.

Near the top of the mountain, I saw evidence of the season’s first snow. There wasn’t much left, but seeing the white patch got me excited and thinking about how ski season was right around the corner.

The final stretch of the trail ascended along a granular ridgeline that offered expansive views of the northern San Juans. Many other Colorado mountain ranges are linear and relatively narrow, but the San Juans are sprawling and cover more than 4,000 square miles. I shot the photo below shortly before reaching the summit.

From the top of Handies, the view was wild: mountains beyond mountains in every direction. I could see a number of other San Juan 14ers that are on my bucket list, especially Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre. Compared to the day before, the visibility atop Handies was slightly reduced by the wildfire smoke, but it was a lot better than I was expecting when I started the hike. The map below shows the route, which my GPS estimated at nearly 9 miles round-trip.

Driving toward Monarch Pass, I noticed a fiery sunset in the rearview mirror and jumped out of the car for a few more photos. I suspect the wildfire smoke was enhancing the atmospherics. It was a stirring ending to another amazing day in the Colorado high country.

For me, the sun has set on this year’s exploration of 14ers, now that snow is burying Colorado’s tallest peaks. I’m psyched to have crossed the halfway point—Handies was my 27th summit of Colorado’s 53 14ers—and I’m looking forward to making more progress next year.

The post San Juan 14ers photos appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

On my way back from the San Juan Mountains, I stopped at one of our favorite camping spots with hopes of capturing some drone footage of the fall foliage.

During our previous visits over the summer, I noted that the hillsides across from our campsite had an abundance of aspen. I figured if I came back at the right time in autumn, the hills would be glowing.

The prediction held true and, by happenstance, I happened to be visiting when the aspen were peaking.

Here are some highlights of the aerial footage from my Vimeo page:

It was a windy morning, so I was worried that my footage would be too shaky. But even my 3-year-old drone is able to compensate and smooth out the ride.

I focused on shooting video, but I also took a few photos and extracted some stills in post-production. Here’s a gallery of the images:

The sky was clear, so the sun striking the aspen produced a super-bright yellow reflection. I think it overwhelmed the camera, which had trouble balancing that explosion of light against the dark shadows between the trees, but I was able to correct for some of that in my editing.

Last year, I went on a similar mission closer to home. On Guanella Pass, near Georgetown, I used my drone to film the leaves changing on the hillsides. On that day, the leaves were even more colorful, but it was a tougher location for flying because the valley was narrow and the winds were stiff. Here are some highlights from Guanella Pass:

The Guanella Pass trip had the advantage of some leaves also turning orange, which nicely complemented the yellows and greens.

It can be hard to predict what the leaves will look like hours from home, but there are sites online that monitor the progression of the fall foliage.

My favorite is from smokymountains.com, which tracks leaves changing across the country. Here’s an example of their maps:

Aspen aren’t native to my hometown of Denver, which lies several thousand feet lower in elevation than their natural range in the Rockies. But we have a bunch of aspen in our backyard and they grow like weeds.

In Denver, the aspen leaves typically change many weeks later than they do in Colorado’s high country. When the big aspen tree right outside my office window turns yellow and orange, it injects a warm light into the room. That transition also reminds me to start doing more squats and lunges in anticipation of ski season!

It may be just a day or two after the peak when a windy day comes along and blows the leaves down into the yard. Like the summer wildflower season in Colorado, the changing of the aspen in autumn is a short but sweet display.

The post Drone video: aspen changing in the Colorado Rockies appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

This summer, we camped for a couple of nights on the way to a hotel near the ski resort, then camped again on the journey back to Denver.

On the first night, we went to one of our go-to spots in the San Isabel Forest and enjoyed some beautiful and unseasonably warm weather.

The next day, we were looking for a camping spot east of Crested Butte, in the Gunnison National Forest, when we stumbled upon a family of moose: bull, cow, and calf. It was a rare treat since moose are not too common here in Colorado.

Camille got a kick out of seeing the moose, but she was just as excited to play with mud balls around our campsite.

Now that Camille is four, she’s a lot more independent and can sometimes keep herself occupied on our camping trips.

In Crested Butte, we stayed in a hotel in the Mountain Village, which was deserted in the off-season but offered a convenient launching pad for a few hours of mountain biking.

I decided to rent a proper downhill bike and also took a lesson. It was the middle of the week, so the place was empty and it wound up being one-on-one instruction.

Although not quite as awesome as Winter Park’s Trestle bike park, where I’ve done most of my downhilling, Crested Butte’s Evolution bike park is still super-fun and features a wide range of trails.

After leaving our hotel in Crested Butte, we looked for another camping spot and found a gem in the Paradise Divide area. We car-camped near the top of the pass and were treated to some amazing views of the surrounding mountains.

There were plenty of places to explore nearby, including lots of huge talus fields with innumerable rocks and boulders where Camille enjoyed playing.

We were visiting after the peak of the wildflower season around Crested Butte, which is one of the best spots in Colorado to see the blooming in the high country. But there were still a few flowers going off near our campsite.

That first night we watched a fiery sunset while having dinner. The atmospherics were probably enhanced by smoke from Western wildfires.

There was even a fleeting rainbow as a stray shower passed nearby and the setting sun illuminated the surrounding peaks with alpenglow.

It rained overnight, but nothing too terrible so we stayed dry in the tent. In the morning, it was chilly and foggy in the valley. Not exactly an enticement to jump out of the sleeping bag. After I managed to crawl out of the warm cocoon, I was rewarded with views of the mist and fog swirling in the Slate River Valley.

The photo below shows Whetstone Mountain, a 12,527-foot peak just south of Crested Butte. Whetstone is an example of a laccolith, an intrusion of igneous rock whose uplift through the strata often creates a dome-shaped mountain (Crested Butte’s namesake is another example).

Like the San Juans, the mountains around Crested Butte are often topped with stunning red and orange summits that have inspired names such as the Ruby Range.

Heading back to Denver, I realized that I probably won’t be skiing as much at Crested Butte since its recent acquisition by Vail Resorts puts the mountain on a different pass than the one I usually get. Here’s hoping the new ownership of the ski mountain doesn’t hurt Crested Butte’s vibe.

The post Crested Butte camping photos appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

I set up my launch pad on a roadside pullout along Utah 128 and took the Phantom 3 for a spin, moving the aircraft up and down the canyon.

Here’s a video with some highlights:

This turned out to be a fun spot to fly the drone. I didn’t have to worry about trees, power lines, or other obstructions. The rocks on both sides of the river were a fairly gradual series of steps, rather than sheer cliffs, and it was easy to judge my distance from them.

The one thing that gave me pause was the river: if I lost control of the drone and it fell from the sky, there would be no retrieving it!

From this location, the Colorado River appeared docile and not especially big or important. But the river is the source of drinking water for some 40 million people, most of them downstream from Moab.

On the way back to Denver, I occasionally passed by and over the Colorado, most notably in Glenwood Canyon. Flying the drone over the river there is on my to-do list!

This post is part of a series on my May 2018 trip to Southeast Utah. Check out the rest:

• Day 1: Goblin Valley State Park photos
• Camp 1: Little Flat Top drone flights and video
• Day 2: Dirty Devil and Lake Powell Overlooks
• Camp 2: Bears Ears National Monument photos
• Day 3: Valley of the Gods photos
• Day 4: Canyonlands National Park confluence hike
• Camp 4: Finding my North Star in the Abajo Mountains
• Day 5: Colorado River drone footage near Moab, Utah

The post Day 5: Colorado River drone footage near Moab, Utah appeared first on MitchTobin.com.

After a long and challenging hike to the confluence of the Colorado River and Green River, I didn’t have much time to find a spot before it got dark.

Driving north from Canyonlands National Park, the red rock buttes and cliffs were glowing, but by the time I reached the Abajos, the light was failing.

As I ascended the mountain on a lonely two-lane blacktop, the temperature on my 4Runner’s dashboard dropped steadily, down into the lower 50s on a day when I’d been sweating it out hiking in the 90s.

I dithered for a while and then finally settled on an unspectacular and undeveloped campsite in the forest. After wolfing down dinner, I set up my tripod and camera for one last chance at some astrophotography.

Below is a map of dark skies from lightpollutionmap.info, which is a great resource for anyone interested in seeing celestial objects. Unlike Denver and the entire Front Range, Southeast Utah is an amazing spot for seeing the heavens.

The shot below is my favorite of the night, and one of my top picks from the entire trip. It’s a 27-minute exposure, oriented around Polaris, aka the North Star.

The brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor, Polaris is located about 433 light years from Earth. It’s the closest star to the celestial pole, the imaginary spot around which the stars and planets appear to rotate, so long-exposure photographs show it as the center of the vortex.

I suppose this entire trip had a sub-motif of finding my North Star and getting back to some activities that I cherish. In this trip, I managed to pack in a fair amount of photography, drone pilotage, and hiking/camping. In fact, I generated more multimedia material to process than I had in many months. But by night four, I was ready for a shower, my bed, and the embrace of my family.

That last night, I stayed up late one last time, working on some long-exposure shots in particular. It may take a half-hour to create star-trail exposures like the ones on this page, but for 99% of the time, there’s nothing to do except keep the area dark and stay out of the way of the camera.

I’m an impatient person, but I never seem to get bored during those intervals because the sky above me is so mesmerizing. I relish the chance to see something that’s obscured from my view on most nights due to the bright skies in and around my home in Denver. I savor the opportunity to take leave from everyday life and remember how insignificant I am in relation to the cosmos.

I’m not a religious man. I would classify myself as a devout atheist who spends little time in the metaphysical world. But looking up at the night sky in a place like the Abajo Mountains, I do feel something that you might call spiritual: a profound, ineffable connection to a vast, unifying force beyond myself that elides description.

When you step back to ponder the odds, the fact that there is any life on Earth, let alone the dizzying array of millions upon millions of species, from the microscopic to the mammoth, is a mathematical “miracle.” Talk about everything coming together at the right place and the right time!

I fell into a deep slumber in my tent, exhausted from the 10-mile hike and three nights of reduced sleep thanks to the astrophotography. The next day would be dominated by driving back to Denver, but I still had one more fun activity planned.

This post is part of a series on my May 2018 trip to Southeast Utah. Check out the rest:

• Day 1: Goblin Valley State Park photos
• Camp 1: Little Flat Top drone flights and video
• Day 2: Dirty Devil and Lake Powell Overlooks
• Camp 2: Bears Ears National Monument photos
• Day 3: Valley of the Gods photos
• Day 4: Canyonlands National Park confluence hike
• Camp 4: Finding my North Star in the Abajo Mountains
• Day 5: Colorado River drone footage near Moab, Utah

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