Liquid gold, bluebird skies, and a chill in the air

I'm watching the fall in all its glory. Another snow dusting with the gorgeous color is a unique mountain event I look forward to.

First fire, Mark is usually the firemaker, and he's not back yet, but happily I know his technique. Temps went into the low 20's in the last few nights. Now that's cold.

Preparations for the long standing fall harvest festival called Vinotok in Crested Butte were underway.A week long celebration  with ancient roots coinciding with the autumnal equinox to give thanks for the abundance of harvest through song, dance and feasts. People in nature crazy costumes and the culmination is a bonfire and burning of the Grump, somewhat similar to the Burning Man or Zozobra in Santa Fe on a much smaller scale. We've never made it the 'burning' but hear its a lot of fun. Maybe one year...

Lake Irwin

Workshop group and yes, it was cold!

Forest Queen Mine

During Vinotok, or instead of it, I went to a wonderful 3 day art workshop in CB. The instructor was Frank Francese, a long time watercolor artist and teacher in Colorado, known for brilliant loose color mountain scenes. We had part on site(plein air) and part inside. Got to see Lake Irwin from a different perspective and see Forest Queen Mine for the first time. It was a silver mine active in the late 1880's. I learned a lot, purchased a painting, and met lots of great people and reconnected with an old acquaintance. Nice way for me to get back to painting, as I've been writing all summer instead of painting. More on than later...

Mt. Crested Butte

Castles

Whetstone

Caught a herd of big horn sheep as I was traveling around. These are all female, males are clearly wandering.

Fall color is interesting this year, of course every year is different, but this year is more checkerboard, as I call it, than years past. All gorgeous no matter what. The scary part is give this a week and tons will be falling to the ground. Too quick...