Yellow Mountain, San Juan Mountains, Telluride, Colorado

In this black & white photograph, the 12,715-foot north peak of Yellow Mountain rises dramatically above the South Fork of the San Miguel River near the town of Ophir, about ten miles south of Telluride, Colorado. As it drains the western edge of the four thousand square-mile San Juan range, the San Miguel descends from these high glacier-carved alpine valleys to the arid deserts of Utah where its waters enter the Colorado River less than 100 air miles from this spot. This extensive range of mountains began to rise at the beginning of the Laramide Orogeny about 60 million years ago and contains thirteen of the state’s fifty-five summits higher than 14,000 feet. This black & white horizontal photograph was captured with a 6×7 format camera.