Trail Ridge Road, which reaches more than 12,000 feet en route between the east and west sides of Rocky Mountain National Park, has just opened for the season (it usually opens on Memorial Day). There’s still too much snow high up for easy hiking, but I thought it would be interesting to take some photos from the road while the mountains still have their wintery appearance. With various roadworks (US36 from Lyons to Estes Park is being rebuilt this summer after last Fall’s devastating floods) I just made it to the Forest Canyon overlook (elevation 11,700 feet) in time for the sunset.
And then stayed on for an hour of shooting the stars. As usual, this is a two frame panorama of stacked 30s frames, here shot at f/8 and ISO 1600. Stopping down – which was here necessary for depth of field – has the additional benefit of substantially sharpening up the edges of the 10-22mm lens I have mounted on the Canon 7D (the Zeiss 18mm I have on the 5D3, on the other hand, is sharp even wide open). The light on the far left, behind Longs Peak, comes from Denver.
