Dallas Peak, San Juan Mountains, Telluride, Colorado

Dallas Peak tops out at 13,809 feet and provides an aspen-draped backdrop rising directly above the town of Telluride in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Snow can dust these high peaks any month of the year but the first permanent snows of winter usually start to build up during the month of September as the aspen begin to change color. The San Juan Mountains are Colorado’s most rugged and at over 4,000 square miles in area, one of the most extensive mountain ranges in the West. The town of Telluride nestles in a deep glacier-carved valley at nearly 9,000 feet in one of the most spectacular setting anywhere in the San Juans. This huge range of mountains which contains thirteen of the state’s fifty-five 14,000 foot summits, began to rise at the beginning of the Laramide Orogeny about 60 million years ago. During this period, extensive volcanic activity spewed enormous amounts of material across the region. The scenery we see today is mostly a result of the recent ice-age glacial advances which carved deep valley and created many of the precipitous peaks which fill this range. This panoramic photograph was captured with a 6×17 panorama format camera.