Wheeler Trail to Aspen Mountain Summit

Author's Comments

The gondola is the easy answer and there is no shame in taking it. But the Wheeler Trail is the honest one. Three and a half miles of relentless climbing out of downtown Aspen, gaining nearly three thousand feet, and by the time you reach the summit your legs will have earned whatever the light decides to give you. What it gives, on a good late August afternoon, is something close to embarrassment of riches. The Elk Mountains stack up to the southwest in receding layers, the Maroon Bells just visible on the horizon when the haze cooperates, and the town of Aspen sits in its valley below like something dropped there by a careful hand. At 11,212 feet the air thins and the color shifts. Greens go bluer. Shadows get harder edges. Wildflowers in July and early August run riot across the upper meadows, and a wide lens with the Bells in the distance and paintbrush in the foreground is a composition that almost makes itself. Golden hour is the time. The Elk range faces you head-on as the sun drops, and for maybe twenty minutes the western faces go the color of struck flint. The trick is the descent - if you have hiked up, the gondola will carry you down for free, which means you can stay for the light without worrying about getting off the mountain in the dark. I came here expecting a view. I left understanding why people build their lives around these mountains.

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