Colorado color in winter

I arrived in Colorado yesterday for a week’s stay at our family cabin with my dear husband. We’ll ski a bit, but mostly relax and visit friends and relatives. And hike. On a short jaunt up the canyon today, I realized I haven’t posted much of my nature photography the last few months. So here’s a bit of winter from the Rockies Front Range, where the snow has persisted in the shade, but otherwise the plants are showing their colors.

Red twig dogwood lining the trail.

Oregon grape creeping over the hillsides.

Bright berries of the Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperous scopulorum) which goes by many common names, including Western red cedar and Mountain red cedar and Cedro rojo.

A flood scoured this narrow canyon in 2013 and wiped out the old road. We now cross on log bridges.

And wind our way over rocky hillsides under the Douglas fir and Ponderosa pines.

Still, the lichen on the rocks is eye-catching…

…and the sandbars the flood left behind are hosting pioneer mullein.

At the end of the day, even the flood-ravaged trees form beautiful silhouettes.

Thanks for hiking with me!