I am back from a fantastic weekend of camping in Colorado’s high country and have lots of pics to share. First of them is one I took this morning. I was almost entirely focused on some wildlife to my west. Thankfully I turned around and saw the gorgeous light show at sunrise that was happening to the east.

Colorado has had a good number of wildfires this season but nothing as bad as what areas to our west have seen. As fires rage in California, Montana, British Columbia and Alberta, their smoke has been a near constant presence this summer.

This makes for some crazy, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets but of course I would prefer not to have them as a result of the fires. Nevertheless, it does make some good photo ops such as this rising sun taken yesterday morning in Weld County. The ring was caused by the polarizer filter on my lens.

We have had our share of wildfires here in Colorado but nothing like what California and western Canada have been seeing. Smoke from blazes in those areas backed into eastern Colorado overnight last night creating this somewhat eerie scene this morning. It was pretty but of course the reason for it is not so great.

Down below, the sunrise was obscured by clouds. This morning I was at about 10,000 feet allowing a clearer view – kind of. While there were no clouds directly above, some were along the horizon as was smoke from wildfires in the region. The smell of the smoke was quite strong but the red sun made for a bit of a surreal scene and was kind of cool. Taken in Arapaho National Forest.

It’s not often the sun is red and when it is, it usually comes from wildfires. Such was the case this morning as smoke from the 416 Fire in southwestern Colorado stretched to the Front Range. Certainly it is sad to see forests burn and we certainly wish it wasn’t happening but it does make for some pretty views.