louisianajones wrote:
I will pick up a friend in Oklahoma city so we will be on I40 but a are willing to go up to I70, I think it is, to go through Colorado. I am sure there are many good places along the way.
Man, that's a dilemma. I don't know what you're looking to shoot necessarily image-wise. You can get some good night shots about anywhere along the Divide but you do have to get off the beaten path to avoid light either from towns or cars. I'm just wondering if you'd find it to be worth your while to go a few hundred miles out of your way to get some shots and if you'd ultimately be content that you were well rewarded for that effort.
With either I-40 or 70 you're going to dead end into I-15 well south of Fairfield and short of being able to shoot a comet or some particular phenomenon, I'm not sure I'd feel like it was worth it if it were me unless you just have time to burn. If you come on up and hit 70 it's a 50 mile haul to the Divide from Denver to the you the Eisenhower Tunnel or you can veer off and go up over Loveland Pass to look for complete darkness but you'd want to time that for 1 or 2 in the morning, most likely and that'd sure mess up a night for you. Now, if you've got a telescope you want to hook your camera up to, that's another matter.
Independence Pass, Trail Ridge Road, and the road to the top of Mt. Evans are all closed 'til Memorial Day next year and going on top of Loveland Pass will take you to about 12,000 ft and there are a couple of places off that road where you could get back far enough to do some timed exposures without car lights ruining 'em for you. There are places at about that same height up on Mt. Evans where you can get darkness after about 10 p.m. but that's off the beaten path and sort of a dead end situation of 'up and back down' kind of thing. If you're planning on spending the night in the Denver area, that'd work out pretty good for you and getting there is fairly simple but you'd probably want to waste a night if you do that.
Timing and location are everything. I have no idea what equipment you have or, again, what you're looking to shoot but getting behind the mountains and early before the moon rises is key. You can do that on Mt. Evans depending on the phase and timing of the moon. If the moon is out it'll affect your images a lot. If you want shots of the full moon, that can be timed too and you'd be surprised what being two miles closer to the moon will do for a good long lens. If you can let me know when you're going to head this way, what gear you'll be using, and what you'd like to shoot for, I will sort of check things out for you and let you know what you'd be in for as far as results are concerned.
I'm attaching a shot of the Hale Bopp Comet that came around back in March 1997. I've shown this here before. I went up on Mt. Evans every night for about two weeks and shot up about 50 rolls of film using a Nikon FA and a Vivitar Series 1 28-80mm lens, mostly shot at about 65mm with about a 30 second timed shot so you can get an idea of what you might get with what kind of lens. I experimented a lot with different lens and settled on the 28-80 for this task.
Oh, another thing - we got our first dusting of snow above 10,000 ft. last night, which is late, so that's something else you might want to expect at those altitudes. If that's the case, going to 12,000 ft you might want a 4-wheel drive. May not need that - it has been a dry year and may stay that way but you don't want to be caught 'hanging out there.' It will be cold, coats, possibly long-johns if you have 'em. Incidentally, I could barely see the comet with the naked eye in town before I went up so you can begin to see an idea of the benefit of being up there around 12,000 ft.