Officers Gulch Pond

Author's Comments

You pass it doing seventy. Most people do, every day, and most of them never know what they have driven by. Officers Gulch is a pond the size of a thought, tucked between the interstate and the spruce, and the only reason to stop is that you already know it is there. I came the first time on a tip from another photographer and almost talked myself out of the pulloff. From the road it looks like nothing. Then you walk the short distance through the trees and the Tenmile Range is suddenly standing in the water in front of you, upside down and exact, and the whole equation changes. Calm is everything here. A breath of wind and the photograph is gone. Which means early - genuinely early, before the canyon starts to breathe and the surface begins to move. In late September the aspens on the hillsides above the pond come in as gold accents against the dark spruce, and the reflection holds all of it. Range, trees, sky, the whole composition folded onto itself. It is a small place. You will not spend hours here. You will make your frames, watch the light shift across the peaks, and probably have the pond entirely to yourself even in peak season. There is something I love about a location that asks so little and gives back what this one does. The interstate is right there behind you the whole time, and somehow it does not matter at all.

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