In 1719 the Spanish explorer Antonio Valverde y Cosio awoke to the sight of the morning sun throwing reddish hues onto the snow-capped peaks of a mountain range to his west. Impressed by the sight, the explorer named the mountains Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ).I drove up into the Sangre de Cristo mountains east of Santa Fe one evening on the road trip my wife and I took from Phoenix to Chicago. I wanted to get a photo of the sun setting behind the Jemez mountains to the west. As the sun dipped lower in the sky I continued up the winding road hoping to find a scenic overlook from which to photograph. Finding none and deciding there was no time to look further, I pulled into a small turnout, set up my camera and tripod on the roadside (quite a drop and no guardrail) and took several frames of the sky as it burned with color, then faded into twilight.
I built this panorama, which includes a portion of the road I had been traveling, from three separate photographs.
Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.
1 comment:
We were privileged to do some driving in New Mexico about three years ago. Although in a different mountainous area, the scenery was spectacular. Thanks for this photo, which I think really captures that "I'm winding up the mountains look" and is made even more beautiful by the light. V. Schroeder
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