No, that’s not a Windows review, I just wanted to give folks room to stretch out…
Ute Mountain w/ Sangre de Cristos Mts.
What we have here is the uncropped version of the image in the previous post. Ute Mountain (10,093 ft.) is about 20 miles away, and most of the peaks you see to the left are in southern Colorado, about 40 – 50 miles distant. If you started out walking from where I took this shot, headed straight for Ute Mountain and kept on going until you reached the wall of mountains to the east, you would cross just one paved road. I’d say that would be 40 miles away as the crow flies. Yes, this mountain is another volcano. The peak rises 2600 feet above the surrounding plain, which means it got to 10K ft. by starting out at 7,493. Stack two Ute Mountain volcanoes, one on top of the other, and they would be almost a mile high. That stuff out there is BIG, in other words, so imagine how big the whole scene is.
You have to imagine, too: the Rio Grande comes down from the north just this side of Ute Mountain, but you can’t see it, can you? I don’t know how far up from Taos the official gorge extends, but the river is certainly running down where we can’t see it. I have crossed the Rio Grande on a rickety trestle bridge on an amazing dirt road that runs from Garcia, CO to just east of Manassa (home of Jack Dempsey, the “Manassa Mauler”). At that point there isn’t anything more than a steepish bank where cattle come down to the water, but it’s still pretty exotic. Just getting there is exotic. All of this is out there, somewhere.
Vibe and San Antonio Mountain
And for you volcano freaks, this is the one we were parked at when I took the other picture in this post. These and other images will no doubt find themselves on FotoFeed very shortly at twice this size.
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aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……………………
*whew*
