Foggy Friday

At 4:30am, Tuesday morning was still dark, with low-lying and heavy clouds turning the street lights into glowing arcs, unable to pierce the lingering night. After waking up a half-hour earlier, I drove slowly through the thick fog, targeting the area around Shamballa, south of Chatfield and Roxborough, where I had escaped the fog previously (shown below), and even shared some photos from when I visited recently.

In the photo above, Green Mountain is barely visible above the clouds that covered the Metropolitan Denver area. This time, I found a place to stop on Platte Canyon Drive as soon as I cleared the fog—but the fog was creeping ever southward, so I couldn’t stay. The clouds would soon cover that area completely, and as I was driving, the car I was following slowed way down when the fog squatted heavily upon the South Platte River. Continuing south, I soon escaped the cloud cover and could freely fly in the clear sky.

I stopped again when I reached Chatfield East Park, next to a fire department station. From there, my drones could capture the blanket of clouds covering the metro area from a distance.

The creeping fog showed no sign of slowing as it rolled southward. I wasn’t content to just capture static images, as my drones have the capability to stitch together images to form a “hyperlapse” video, like timelapse photography, but with the possibility of movement. Of course, I don’t know if this email newsletter can play the video, but it is on Facebook and Youtube, as well.

Even before rising of the sun, the light made for a dramatic vista of the East. I swapped the ND filter I had installed on the Mavic 3 for a basic polarization filter, but I left an ND32 filter on the Autel drone that took the following picture. I really like how the drone (which produces colors that are really saturated and vibrant), gets “serious” with the filter increasing the value of the colors.

With dawn’s new light, the clouds were transformed by the sun but didn’t slow their encroachment (and would later continue up Platte Canyon—but that’s literally a story for another day).

The movement of the moist air was relentless. The bank was hundreds of feet thick, but also spread light, thin, layers up the sides of the foothills.

When the sun finally rose, it was a sight to behold. Far from being complete, this day—and my journey—was just starting.

The rest of the community slept while my drones flew in their own little world.

But this was not the limit of their flight on that day, as I continued south towards my next destination, and the subject of the coming newsletter for Monday: Devil’s Head!

Thanks for reading all the way to the—not quite end, as this one closes with a cliffhanger! I look forward to sharing the rest of the adventure, so please come on back and check it out.