Alamosa, Co. Part 1- Landscapes

The San Luis Valley is located in southwestern Colorado and is surrounded by mountains, some of which rise over 14,000 feet above the valley floor.  My center of operations was the city of Alamosa, almost an equal distance between the Great Sand Dunes NP and the Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge, stopover for 20,000+ Sandhill Cranes on their way north to Yellowstone NP. 

This post is part one of a three post series and contains landscape images taken near or inside the refuge.

The marshes were frozen solid and therefore of little interest to the Sandhill Cranes and other birds within the refuge. That said, this frozen ecosystem made for one of my favorite landscape images of the trip.

The image above is of Mont Blanca, just one of many mountains that surround the San Luis Valley.  It's peak rests at more than 14,000 feet and is covered in its snowy cap year round.

Tomorrow's post- Sandhill Cranes of the San Luis Valley