Sleeping Ute Mountain

Published Nov 19, 2024

Black and white photo of sweeping plains dappled with snow and a mountain with two peaks in the distance. There's a fence in the foreground and the sky is wide and open with whispy cirrus clouds illuminated by the sun (moments from rising)

Sleeping Ute Mountain as viewed from Cortex, CO just before dawn, December 2018.

This particular morning is sort of a core memory for me. I woke before dawn and drove into the emptiness west of Cortez Colorado, watching this solitary mountain as the sun came up, painted in a million different colors before settling on a brilliant blue-white. It was so impossibly, blissfully quiet.