Zoom Out, Zoom In

Everything’s a matter of perspective.

Somewhere in the fog of November I’d slipped these photos into a folder for use in a post that month and promptly forgot them. A mere four photos for two exercises in perspective, but a post is a post. We’ll start from a location in western Alamosa County, looking due west at Blanca Massif, home to not one, not two, but three peaks over 14,000 ft./4,267.2 m.

It’s already a little pre-zoomed out and fish-eyed with this old Canon Powershot, but that’s part of its wacky charm and I’ll cope until I can get funding for a proper DSLR. Meanwhile, I’m doing well enough. Now, zooming in:

As that ancient ‘80s pop radio hymn goes, now face north. It’s still the Sangre de Cristos and I have no idea what the individual peaks are. Even up close I don’t see how anyone can tell. It’s just one jagged line of sharp snow-covered rock.

I’ll never get over how flat this high valley is. Fun fact: no one, neither Spanish nor Anglo, took anything from the local Indian tribes when they settled here. It was simply too crazy cold for the Utes and Navajo to endure in the pits of winter. They hunted when they could and beat feet out when the weather started turning. It’s fierce enough everywhere else around here that’s not in the San Luis Valley.

I’m looking at that and I can imagine what someone coming in from the Taos Plateau to the south would think, “There’s no way through that, is there?” You’ll need to head farther south to find a proper pass.