Fall in the Rockies usually brings a variety of weather. One day you can be out shooting in short sleeves and the next you need to put on a winter coat. The forecast during my first visit to the Steamboat Springs area called for a storm moving in at the end of the week. And that it did indeed.

A check of the skies before sunrise on Friday morning confirmed that the front had arrived. The clouds had descended in the valley and you could feel that it was going to start raining soon. By the time we had finished breakfast, it was raining steadily. We concluded that it would be a good day to get some computer work done. Rod Hanna and I settled into his office in the basement of a bank building. The location is great for getting work done since you don’t have a clue about what is going on outside. Luckily the other member of our group, fellow photographer Bill Robertson, was out and about and came down to let us know that there was a break in the clouds. We jumped in the car and headed up to Rabbit Ridge outside of town to check on some aspen groves.

We drove into a mix of snow and rain the higher we climbed, but by the time we reached the pass it was only raining slightly. This group of trees caught our eye and we headed down the bank to get closer. I still needed a long telephoto to isolate just what I wanted and framed up this composition. The rain made the colors really pop in the even overcast light. I was drawn to the grouping of red trees to begin with, but really liked how there was about every color of aspen leave represented in this image. We got off just a couple of frames before the snow and rain picked up. By the time we got back to town the snow had started in earnest.

Click on the image to view a larger version in the galleries.