Night Falls Over Wilson Peak

On my recent trip to Southwest Colorado and the Canyonlands of Utah, I made a point to try and find a place photographed by Thomas Mangelsen. It is one of Colorado's hardest, and in my opinion most beautiful, 14ers. The peak is known as Wilson Peak (14,017 ft) and after driving down a wrong road believing I finally figured out where it was for sunset, I finally came to the conclusion I was wrong. So, in the later hours of the evening, I found myself searching for it in the middle of the night.

Miles away from everything in the hot rod, I decided to pull over on the side of the road and check my location. Using a high ISO to reduce the length of my exposure, just to check I was in the right area, I figured out that I was. Cheers began to erupt into the pitch black of the night knowing that a good shot would soon ensue.

So, lowering my ISO and dragging out my shutter, I sat quietly alongside the gravel road, eating my chilli, tuna burrito and chicken noodle soup waiting for my exposure to finish. Once I knew I had my low noise exposure, I again cranked the ISO up to shoot and freeze the stars. A manual blend in photoshop created the image you see here.

Enjoy!

P.S. The lighting is from the moon rising back and to my left.

All images are ©copyright Jacob Lynn Routzahn. You may not replicate, use, manipulate, modify, print, or any other form of editing to my work without my permission. All rights reserved.