Last Dollar Road

Author's Comments

Late September. That is the window, and it is narrow. The aspens along Last Dollar shift fast once they turn, and a single hard wind can take a third of the leaves down in an afternoon. I have been here in years when the timing was perfect and years when I arrived two days late, and the difference is the difference between a photograph and a memory of one. The road climbs out of Telluride and works its way north toward Dallas Divide, gaining elevation through groves so dense that in places the light comes through gold on both sides of the truck. There are pullouts that everyone knows about. The split-rail fence with Sneffels behind it has been photographed ten thousand times, and it is photographed that often because it works. I do not begrudge anyone that frame. But the compositions I keep coming back for are the smaller ones - a single fence post catching side light, a stand of aspens layered against the darker conifers behind, the way an old ranch meadow holds frost at sunrise before the sun crests the ridge. Drive it slowly. The road is dirt and rough in places, and you want high clearance, but the real reason to go slowly is that the photograph is rarely where you expect it. I have pulled over for one thing and stayed an hour for something else entirely. Golden hour is the obvious answer and it is the right one. The Wilson Range catches alpenglow late, after the valleys have already gone blue, and there are minutes up here in early October when the whole landscape seems to be holding its breath.

Gallery