Panoramic Close Up Photos
of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

I seem to drive around the Sangre de Cristo Mountains a lot, in all different seasons. These photos were all taken in late January and early February, 2008. We've been having a real Colorado winter this year and the snow levels are higher than usual (although it may not look that way from these photos). This area of Colorado is seeing 168% of normal snowpack already and several people have died in avalanches this year. As the winter goes on, the avalanche danger just increases.

On some of the lower photos on this page the mountains look kinda fuzzy: that's the snow blowing in the breeze. There's no clouds to speak of, it's all blowing snow at high elevations. I took some of the lower photos on February 8, 2008. On that day, because of blowing snow and avalanche danger, the I-70 was closed for a very long stretch, US 24 and 285 in the Buena Vista area were both closed, and US 50 through Monarch Pass was being closed that afternoon to do avalanche mitigation. I drove Cuchara Pass, La Veta Pass and Poncha Pass both ways that day and the roads were horrific (icy, snow-packed and heavy cross winds), never mind all those accidents with the folks in their fancy SUV's (owning an SUV doesn't automatically mean the driver knows how to drive, only that he thinks he's safer if he gets into trouble - what was the name of that movie? Oh yeah, Unsafe at Any Speed...)