Silverjack Lake

Peak Aspen color in the Cimarron Valley

Silverjack Lake is a man-made reservoir that lies at the junction of three forks of the Cimarron River, each fork in its own steep, rugged canyon, high up in Colorado’s San Juan mountains. At about 9,000 feet above sea level, it is right in the heart of Aspen habitat. It is in Gunnison County, far from any towns and near the edge of a Wilderness area.

There are two ways to get in: a fairly decent gravel road that goes up the Cimarron River from an isolated stretch of US Hwy 50, and a somewhat gnarly Forest Service road that goes over the Cimarron Ridge from US 550 near the town of Ridgeway.

If you’re pulling an RV, take the route from Hwy 50 and go slow. It’s not smooth. You’ll be truly off the grid; there isn’t even any cellular service up there. If you’re in a 4WD rig, do take the other road. It’s a lot more fun.

The first thing I wanted to do was shoot a photosphere. I set up at a little viewpoint off of the Silverjack USFS campground.

Photosphere of Silverjack Lake (link goes to Google Maps)

Here’s a still photo taken from the same spot.

Silverjack Lake with aspens in full color

This view looks south (upriver) with the east fork of the Cimarron on the left, and the west fork on the right. The middle fork is between them. After this shot, I went over to the east side of the valley, off to the left side of this picture, and spent a few hours.

There are a few small picturesque ponds in the area. I stopped at one called Rowdy Lake and took several shots.

Rowdy Lake, near Silverjack Lake in the Cimarron country

Those cliffs are made of volcanic tuff. All of the San Juan mountains are volcanic tuff. In this valley, they form a wall all along the east side of the area.

Ridge of rugged spires between middle fork and east fork of the Cimarron River.

Paid subscribers received a full-sized copy of this image, suitable for printing and framing, a few days ago. The aspens were right at their peak that day, providing spectacular color against the rugged spires of tuff.

It was at this spot where I encountered a bunch of wanna-be photogs.

Wanna-be photogs (note the white lens barrels) all getting the same shot

I call them wanna-be’s because they all had white lens barrels - meaning that their cameras were made by that inferior “C word” company.

As noted in a couple of posts here and here (and here, too) from the early days of ths Substack, I shoot Nikon. I tried not to let my smugness show as I took a shot of them all getting the exact same picture.

It was a spectacular day and I took dozens of shots. I shan’t show all of them here. Here’s another one of the spectacular pinnacles of volcanic tuff with aspens in color.

Aspens in color against cliffs of tuff near Silverjack Lake

I went out of this magical place on the other road, the one that goes over Cimarron Ridge down into the town of Ridgeway. Here is one last shot, of Chimney Rock, taken in the evening light on my way back to civilization.

Chimney Rock, near Cimarron Ridge. Courthouse Mountain in the background.

It was a beautiful day, and the end of the Aspen color season. A few days later the wind had stripped all of them of their leaves and the color was gone all across Colorado’s high country.