Ouray Dawn Panorama

Ouray, San Juan mountains, Colorado, winter, panorama, dawn, february, lights

Ouray Winter Dawn Panorama : Prints Available

The lights of Main Street and the snowplow drivers cleaning up a fresh snowfall in Ouray on a clear February morning in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado. The mountains to the right are illuminated by lunar alpenglow from the setting almost-full moon.

Here’s a view of Ouray early on Wednesday morning. Be sure to click on the photo to go to the page where you can view this larger!

On Tuesday it was absolutely dumping snow around here, and with a nearly full moon and a forecast of clearing skies overnight I was up half the night thinking about where I should go for a sunrise shoot. Well, I ended up just going to the “Switzerland of America” overlook, just a minute drive up the road from my house. I’ve shot photos here many times before (as have millions of tourists), but this time I wanted to capture a more panoramic winter view of the valley. This here is a panoramic stitch of 6 vertical overlapping frames shot with a 24mm wideangle lens. That should give you a sense of the grand scale of the landscape here!

The snowplow drivers were in full attack mode since about 2:00 in the morning, and I thought about how it would have made for a cool time lapse video to see them zipping up and down all the streets. But I don’t have the patience for shooting time lapses, so I’ll leave that to somebody else…

Ridgway, Colorado, San Juan Mountains, February, winter, dusk

Dusk light over the town of Ridgway and the San Juan Mountains – February.

After shooting the sunrise, I went back home for another couple hours of sleep, drove a little ways up the road for a lap on the splitboard, got a bit of work done, watched the sunset over Ridgway with Claudia and a thermos of gluwein, and enjoyed excellent pizza and beer at the Colorado Boy Brewery. What a day! I love it here…

9 thoughts on “Ouray Dawn Panorama

  1. Wow, the light glowing off the snow is just magical….every time I think you’ve taken the ultimate image of Ouray, you kick it up another notch and give us something even better! Just spectacular!

  2. A beautiful panorama of a beautiful place, Jack!
    I’m curious though…whenever I try to stitch a series of wide angle (< 50mm) images together, the software struggles with the inherent distortion. What's your secret?
    And great news about the Bon Ton restaurant! I'll be there soon to help support it.

    1. Thanks John! I think one “secret” for shooting wide angle panoramas is to overlap each frame by at least 1/2. When shooting ultra wide, maybe overlap by even more than that.

      And yeah I’m glad the Bon Ton opened again (with locals running the show!) Best restaurant in town.

  3. I used to live in Montrose and your pictures are breathtaking. They make me miss it!! The panoramic of Ouray is awesome. I wanted to share it on my facebook page. Thought I’d ask permission to use it. I now have you in my “favorites” on my computer to see all your current stuff. Well done. These photos are amazing.

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