Independence Pass

Author's Comments

At twelve thousand feet, the air does something to light that I have never been able to fully describe. It thins. The blues get bluer and the shadows go almost violet, and the tundra, which from a distance reads as a uniform gold-green, reveals itself up close as a thousand small things - cushion plants, lichen on stone, the impossibly small flowers that have maybe six weeks to do their entire year's work. Independence Pass is a drive most people make once, on their way somewhere else. I have come back in July and again in late September, and the two visits felt like different places. Summer is the wildflower window, brief and dense, and the light at seven in the morning before the afternoon clouds build is the light to chase. Fall is something else entirely - the aspens on the Aspen side go electric, and the contrast between the gold lower slopes and the already-bare tundra at the summit gives you a vertical compression of seasons in a single frame. Stay on the boardwalk at the top. The tundra takes decades to recover from a footprint, and there is plenty to photograph from the planks if you slow down and look at what is actually there. The Sawatch opens to the east in long blue waves, and the Elk Range to the west holds afternoon light longer than you expect. The hairpins on the descent toward Aspen are their own reward, but the summit is where the pass earns its name. Arrive before the lot fills. Bring a layer. The wind up there has opinions.

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