Alluvial Fan at RMNP

 

Me and my painting setup

Yesterday Chad and I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park to catch the fall colors at the alluvial fan below Lawn Lake.  The fan, a sort of slanted waterfall, was formed quite recently in 1982 -- a mere blip, geologically speaking. On July 15th at 5am in the morning the ordinarily placid lake broke through the glacial dam that had held the water back since the last ice age.  Millions of gallons crashed down the mountainside all at once, moving car-sized boulders and flooding nearby Estes Park. 

Nowadays it's a peaceful picnicking spot; but it's not hard to imagine the powerful forces that were unleashed nearly thirty years ago.

It was bright & sunny when I started...

It was a lovely afternoon for painting, but the always fickle mountain weather soon changed and the aspen lost their warm, sunlit gold.  Then, it began to thunder.  Seeing as I was working in watercolor, I decided to wrap things up as quickly as I could.  All in all, though, a very pleasant day.