A View of Longs Peak

One of the larger mountain peaks visible from the Denver Metro area, laying almost directly west of it, is Mount Evans.  It's claimed to be country's highest paved highway, CO5, which takes one to its summit at over 14,100 feet.

Mount Evans has been the subject of many of my postings, today I would like to show you views of the other large peak visible on a clear day from Denver:  Longs Peak.

Lying more to the North/NorthWest of Denver, its one of Colorado's Fourteeners

It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s. Longs Peak is one of the most prominent mountains in Colorado.  More here on wikipedia.

Popular with mountain climbers and hikers, it's not climbable by motor vehicle that I know of.  You get great views of it when riding the Peak to Peak Highway on the way to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Today, I was in Northglenn picking up a Harmonizer Carburetor Balancer tool from my friend Darrell S, a fellow Uralista.  He sold it to me as he's trading in/selling both his 2006 URAL Patrol sidecar rigs in order to finance the purchase of a 2014 Ural Patrol, the one with fuel-injection and many other modern improvements.  I can't wait, for him to get it, so I can get a first hand look at one of these rigs!

Anyways, I was north of the Metro Area, the weather was pretty clear, and the views I'd seen of Longs Peak while going to Darrell's house had set my pictorial objective of the day.

I rode NW from Darrell's house, ending up on 160th Street heading west till it junctions with Sheridan Parkway.  From there it was a dirt road to a nearby construction area which unobstructed views of Longs Peak.

 Above and below pictures taken with my Nikon AW110 camera.

 Above and below pictures taken with my old and mostly

non-working Panasonic Lumix ZS8.  I use it for long focal length shots

as its optical zoom is greater than the Nikon's for such shots.

What do you think of the clarity of the last two pictures?  I think it's "acceptable" after some tweaking with ribbett.com's online tools.  The Panasonic never did recover from the big rains we had weeks ago, that led to the big floods which made the national news.

Hope you're getting some riding in this new year.

Update: Just noticed that URAL's Facebook page is sporting one of my pictures!  :)

URAL's FB Page