Engineer Mountain - a matter of perspective

First off, I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July holiday weekend!

Ours was great, and got off to a great start yesterday morning with a hike up the trail at Coal Bank Pass on Hwy 550 to the local favorite mountain:  Engineer.   I've painted it, and photographed it on numerous occasions, and hiked it back in July '06.   I'll never get sick of it.

And, as such, I thought I'd combine the different perspectives I have of this mountain, via painting and photos, and as an artist and a hiker.

First, is the plein air piece I did on Friday, during our trip to Andrews Lake.  Actually, I had Wayne drop me off at Andrews specifically so I could paint Engineer, while he drove up the road to fish in Molas lake.

Engineer Mountain from Andrews Lake

16x8 inches

pastel on board with black-toned Golden pumice ground

The painting isn't anything to write home about; I struggled to get the right shades of green for the various slopes, and to try and effectively balance detail vs. abstract shape and eliminate poor compositional elements (namely, a bunch of spruce trees in the foreground).  It didn't help that some hiker went out of his way to come over and chat with me and ask me about the "chalks" I was using.  Well-meaning, but when he showed up, that was the end of the painting session.  

Despite the painting's shortcomings, I still found the process valuable, and I'll keep painting Engineer both from photos and on location.  

Now on to the photos from the hike yesterday.  The neat thing about this perspective of Engineer is that it shows the approach for summiting it (a non-technical climb).  See the lines of snow?  They show the east-facing slope the trail goes up.  

Along the forested trail

This photo is for fellow pastelist and blogger Dan;

go have a look at his blog to see why

A snowbank holds interesting shadows from surrounding trees, and casts its reflection in a small alpine pond by the trail, about 1 1/4 miles from the trailhead

Striking patches of Parry's Primrose were blooming at alpine and sub-alpine zones.  This is one of the earliest bloomers, along with the marsh marigolds seen in the background, at 10,000'+ elevations.

Base of Engineer pano

4-part landscape-oriented image shot at 18mm (so a wide angle of a wide angle view)

This is where we sat and hand lunch.  Click on photo to see larger image.

The snow to the left?  It's one of the thin lines of pastel in the painting.  

Approach to Engineer

click on the photo to see a larger picture; there is a peep coming down the trail on the snowbank just to the left of the middle evergreen...to give a sense of scale and how steep the trail is

Engineer Slope pano

3-part @18mm 

After this, it was time to put the camera away for the climb (we accidentally took the dicey route, very steep and lots of loose rock and dirt)

Scree Slope

The whitish-gray rock that forms the vertically-jointed cliffs is a Tertiary-age igneous sill (volcanic rock that has formed intrusions in older sedimentary rock).  It sounds like broken pottery as you walk across it.  This is not a hike to do if you cannot handle exposure.

Engineer Bench pano

2-part @18mm

View is to the northwest, showing Grizzly Peak to the left, along with several other smaller ranges within the San Juans.  The pile of rocks in the lower right-hand corner were stacked to form a small semi-circle on the leading edge of this ridge.

Note how many more clouds there are than in the earlier photos

Sky Pilot (Polemonium viscosum) eking out a living in a crack in the rock at 12,600'+

Due to rapid build-up of monsoon clouds over the mountains, along with sudden wind gusts and distal thunder, we opted not to go for the summit on this hike.  An earlier start on a day when no rain is forecast is on the agenda for the future.

Looking Back

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Fourth of July wouldn't be complete without fireworks, and we had the best view in town right from our deck.  First time shooting them, and I was finally starting to get the hang of it by the time the show ended:

How do you photograph fireworks, you ask?  

Two absolute requirements:

1) a DSLR camera with capacity for manual exposure (BULB setting, with cable or electronic shutter device)

2) a tripod

All these were shot at f/5.6, ISO 200 equivalent, both manual and automatic focus.  Exposure length variable.  Open the shutter when the firework goes off, and close it when the streamers fade away - 2-4 sec.