Castle Rock

Even if you know Castle Rock, you may have never seen it like this before!

The biggest benefit I get from writing “Colorado HIGH SKY” is getting to see the familiar in a whole new light. If I recall correctly, my Dad took me to play basketball at a local park near here when I was very, very young, making Castle Rock very, very familiar. Having grown up near here, I don’t visit as often as I would like, but the setting of the full moon was the perfect excuse to trek to Rock Park.

There were a few other trekkers on the trails that morning, sharing warm greetings in the cold air. On some occasions I’m the only person around, but on this morning—like many others at Rock Park—I had plenty of company. On this particular morning, all the people I met were exercising. But in years past, many park visitors come just for the scenery and the spectacle of sunrise or sunset.

There are several benches for visitors to take in the sights, but none were in use when I flew a drone to capture a rare sight: Castle Rock from above! Using a telephoto lens, or zooming in towards the subject, helps make the background look larger in relation to the subject in the foreground, with regards to the composition. For a drone pilot, it also means that I can maintain a safe distance from the subject, or more importantly, any people I can’t or didn’t see clambering over any of the rocks in the park.

This moonset closed the 18.6 year Northern Maximum, cycling through the angle at which the moon rises and sets. It won’t be this far north again for more than another eighteen years! Zooming in on the moon is more difficult for the drones I fly, because their gimbals, or motors that hold the camera steady, use the horizon as a baseline. Without the gimbals, the images taken by the drone would be affected by the wind and the variation in motor speed, and would be really blurry.

On this morning, some clouds acted like an artificial horizon as the moon set behind them. Once again, I’m reminded of seeing something in a new way, or in this case, just plain, new. As a kid, all of this area in the photo below was undeveloped. Little towns like Sedalia and Louvier dotted along the Plum Creek railroad line heading north towards Denver. Before the modern interstate highway, most traffic and trade from the south would have followed this same pathway. But now, the fields have been filled with housing subdivisions, as Douglas County has been the fastest growing county in Colorado for decades.

In 2022, I had once again returned to Castle Rock. I don’t think I was even the only aerial photographer flying a drone at Rock Park that day. There have only been two such occasions when I had been flying and surprised when another drone took to the air! The drone I was flying that morning was fitted with four additional auxiliary lights, visible at least up to three miles, but I never found out what any other pilot thought about that. I wonder if they were surprised, too?

When the sun rose this stormy Sunday morning, the light was spectacular, even if partially obscured by clouds. Flying a drone gives me the vantage of lining up Castle Rock and the rising sun in countless combinations until I get the composition I’m looking for. Fortunately for anyone who would climb the trails to see the sunrise from Castle Rock, I position my drone to the west of Castle Rock, where the visitors seeking the sight of the rising sun are on the other side, away from the drone.

The rock itself can get in the way of some compositions, but there’s no use complaining as that won’t do any good. The clouds on this morning certainly helped guide my eye in composing the photos I took. Lining up the hill with the clouds behind it was a serendipitous discovery!

But with the shadows of the hills above Cherry Creek and Castlewood Canyon in Eastern Douglas County falling down the sides of Castle Rock, the light of the sun revealed another side of Rock Park, in between sightings of Pikes Peak and Devil’s Head in the distance.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end of this little article, just to see more of Castle Rock! And lastly, please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone you think would be interested in seeing more Colorado HIGH SKY!