I can’t think of a better place to be right now than up at 12,500′ in a remote alpine environment of the beautiful San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado.

It is refreshingly lush everywhere we travel this summer. The weather is a bit tricky this year as the rains are frequent so it is easy to get stuck out there in a lightning storm as I did just before this shot. In a matter of 15 minutes I saw a torrential downpour to a full rainbow that only lasted 20 seconds to dark clouds again.

I just can’t get enough of this and find myself thinking about it day and night. Nature is really reaching out to us this summer and I plan on taking full advantage of it!

Since I found most of the paintbrush buds just developing at the lower elevations, I felt reluctant to search above timberline especially since there was still so much snow.  Regardless I couldn’t resist checking out one of my favorite locations just north of Silverton, CO. Surprisingly, despite the heavy snow still clinging to the ground, I ran into a beautiful carpet of many different species in full bloom. All the flowers were on the south side of the slopes with little if any on the north face as my picture illustrates.
This means that we are going to have another wildflower bloom later this month or even into August when the snows finally melt.

The stream shot was taken with  my Canon 16-35  F-4L at f/11, 1.3 sec, ISO 100 at  approx.  8:30 pm.  The paintbrush was taken with my Canon F-4L 24-70, 1/160 sec,  f/11 at ISO 200.  Camera – 6D.

Hope you all had a great 4th weekend!

The past Winter was very dry leaving most to fear a bad wildfire season.  We were blessed this May and part of June to receive an abundance of rain/snow to help break the drought.  Now, everything is in great shape at least for now.  The wildflowers should be awesome this summer but will probably peak a little later than usual.

This shot captures the West Needles, Spud, Twilight, and Emerald.  While taking this shot, the ground was saturated and soft under my feet with a strong scent of fresh mountain air… The San Juan Mountains are beautiful right now!