Sketching Colorado
And a moose!
Although I live in the high desert of New Mexico, a land of stunning beauty, I like to head north often to Colorado, a land of a different kind of stunning beauty. Here I hike through sage brush thickets with a broad view of mesas and wind-sculpted cliffs; in Colorado, in the San Juan range, I pick my way along trails that follow boulder-strewn creeks and thread between sharp, snowy peaks.
I went to the San Juans this last week for some hiking and sketching. Seeing all the green—and the apparently plentiful water—lifted my spirit. In New Mexico, it has been exceedingly dry. In my area, the drought is stressing the piñon trees, and many have died. But in southern Colorado, the mountains and valleys are green and lush, partly from irrigation, partly from snowmelt. That’s not to say Colorado is not in a drought, too; it is, but it certainly has received more precipitation this winter than New Mexico.
Although I stayed in a little cottage just outside Durango, I spent most of my time on trails between Durango and Silverton. The area around Silverton, especially, has become one of my favorite places to sketch, and the drive along US 550 with stops at Molas Pass (10,970 feet) and Coal Bank Pass (10,640 feet) is breathtaking. (Yes, it was chilly, with a stiff wind and a temperature around 45°F.) And Silverton itself enjoys several creeks with visual interest: the Animas River, Mineral Creek, Cement Creek and Arrastra Creek—not to mention views of the surrounding mountains.
Below I’d like to share some of my 5x8 gouache sketches from the trip. But first, I want to tell you about a wildlife encounter. Although I’ve seen plenty of moose back east in Vermont, Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, I’ve never seen a single moose out west. But as I was driving up a particularly narrow and steep, single-track gravel road from a creek, I spied a young moose blocking my route. I wondered how this would work out, as there was no way for either of us to pass; to my right was a vertical rock wall, and to my left, a dizzying drop-off. But I continued, grinding up the steep grade, spinning gravel. As I slowly drove the moose ahead, it finally decided to attempt the very, very steep scree slope and leave the road. It quickly vanished from sight.
