Colorado // The Daily Render by Nikolas R. Schiller

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The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

|| 8/4/2010 || 12:04 pm || + Render A Comment || ||
Backpacking Photos from Pike National Forest in Colorado

Random Photograph from my backpacking trip in Pike National Forest in Colorado

Last month while I was in Colorado I spent about 14 hours in Pike National Forest. The plan was to leave Monday, July 26th, hike into the state park, find an appropriate camping spot, spend the night, in the morning attempt to climb Sentinel Point, and then return in the afternoon of Tuesday, July 27th. We were able to accomplish some of those plans, but not all of them.

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|| 8/6/2009 || 3:56 pm || 3 Comments Rendered || ||
Google Maps: Add the Contour Interval to the Legend of your Terrain maps

Nearly every printed topographic map I’ve ever looked at has the contour interval, otherwise known as the distance between contour lines, listed in the legend. Depending on the scale of the map, the contour interval ranges from 1 foot to hundreds of feet between each successive contour line. The contour interval allows the map reader to instantly know the relative steepness & flatness of the topography in the map at one quick glance. Because of this crucial information, a topographic map is considered incomplete when it does not disclose this information to the reader.

Enter the Terrain feature of Google Maps. Released to the public in November of 2007, the contour lines were subsequently added in April of 2008. I hadn’t really given the feature much use until last week when I was planning my weekend excursion to the Shenandoah mountains. I was trying to figure out the altitude variation on my friends property by finding where their property line started & ended and calculating the elevation change. Since their property lies on the side of a mountain, I wanted to know the altitude at the bottom of the property and the altitude of the highest portion of the property, and subtract the difference to find the total elevation variance.

What I found out instead was that Terrain function of Google Maps was lacking the contour interval declaration in the legend. As with all their maps, the lower left-hand corner showed the units of distance on the map, but was missing the topographical information provided by the contour interval declaration.

In lieu of ever getting a response from Google Maps after previous queries, I decided to send a tweet to Google Maps:

I wasn’t really expecting a response, but a couple hours later I received this response on Twitter:

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|| 6/20/2009 || 10:15 pm || Comments Off || ||
Front Range Quilt #2

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Front Range Quilt no.2 by Nikolas R. Schiller

Using this portion of Front Range Quilt, I created this derivative map. I sampled that portion because I like the nature of how the shadows of the ridge presented themselves and I wanted to include the tarn at the base of Andrews Glacier. I opted for the Dodecagon Quilt Projection because I felt it that it would work nicely since I am not trying to capture any specific buildings or streets in the source imagery (there are none!).

View the Google Map of the Front Range in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

: detail :
A location somewhere within the map

View the rest of the map details:

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|| 6/19/2009 || 9:40 pm || Comments Off || ||
Front Range Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Front Range Quilt by Nikolas R. Schiller

So I never got around to making a map of downtown Birmingham, Alabama, but I still plan on doing so. Instead I decided to seek out a somewhat new place and try out a new style. For years I have been reticent about making a map that it not composed of an urban area. I always thought that it was the buildings and the streets that gave each map its intrinsic uniqueness, but with this map, I have branched out, tried something new, and am pleasantly surprised with the results.

Years ago I posted a topographic map of Rocky Mountain National Park featuring the first mountains I ever climbed as a child. It was also the first topographic map posted this to this blog, and to continue this line of thought, I was delighted to find that the imagery was available to create the first map of its type. Instead of the aerial photography being too dull to be worthy of a map, I found it interesting that the shadows created by the ridge line added some aerial chiaroscuro. Moreover, upon closer examination, due to the spatial resolution of the source aerial photography, you can actually make out the trails crisscrossing through the forest. While they don’t appear as well as a highway or skyscraper, the trails and shadows help make create a map that I am happy to publish here.

Another striking feature of the imagery is the color tone of the tarn at the base of Andrews Glacier. This blue/green lake adds a unique color contrast to the somewhat monotone yellow hue of the rocky terrain. I do, however, wish there was a bit more color contrast between the east side of the continental divide and the west side of the continental divide that I’ve seen when I’ve stood atop these mountains. I also kinda wish, for once, that the aerial photography wasn’t taken from nadir, rather I wish it was taken at an oblique angle because we’d be able to see more elevation contrast between the various mountain peaks. However, since I have hiked these mountains, I know the continental divide shown in this aerial photography traverses north and south and the shadows are only formed from the ridges extending west from the continental divide. This makes it slightly easier to differentiate where the ridges are, but not where the peaks are. Anyways, I’ve decided to sample a portion of this imagery and will make another iteration of this map shortly.

View the Google Map of the Front Range in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Curiously, the imagery used on Google Maps shows the area during the winter time and covered in snow.

: detail of Andrews Glacier :
A location somewhere within the map

View the rest of the map details:

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|| 12/30/2008 || 3:48 pm || Comments Off || ||
Birds of Colorado: The Stellar’s Jay

Today I am flying back to Washington, DC, so I am going to post some pictures of the birds I saw when I was in Colorado. This third and final photographic installment is the Stellar’s Jay. I saw this guy eating tourist’s food at the edge of Bear Lake. They are named after naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller and are probably one of my favorite alpine birds because of their beautiful blue feathers.

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Birds of Colorado: The Hairy Woodpecker

Today I am flying back to Washington, DC, so I am going to post some pictures of the birds I saw when I was in Colorado. This second photographic installment is the Hairy Woodpecker. I saw this guy from the deck of the cabin. I believe I saw this same specie about three weeks ago in Washington, DC. It was tapping on the dead tree in the backyard of the house three doors down from where I live.

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Birds of Colorado: The Pine Siskin

Today I am flying back to Washington, DC, so I am going to post some pictures of the birds I saw when I was in Colorado. This first photographic installment is the small finch known as the Pine Siskin. I saw these tiny finches constantly feeding on the deck of the cabin. They remind me of the common sparrow, except they have little yellow fellows and a brown & white spotted breast.

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|| 12/29/2008 || 9:00 pm || Comments Off || ||
A slightly blurry view of Mount Princeton from Buena Vista

View of Mount Princeton at night taken from the car

Today we drove to the Mount Princeton Hot Springs near the ghost town of Nathrop, Colorado, nine miles outside of Buena Vista, Colorado. There are about are forty springs around the resort, with two main pools, that have a flow of hot water aggregating to about 1,000,000 gallons daily (in 1904). The springs are known to be beneficial for rheumatism, cutaneous diseases, and paralysis. It was wonderful sitting in the 104 degree water on the banks of the ice cold river. When I was playing in the rocks, I cut my cuticle on my thumb and I noticed how quickly it healed in the mineral-rich water! While I am not going to post any of the photographs of the hot springs, today’s photographs are of Mount Princeton at night.

View of Mount Princeton at night from Buena Vista

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A panoramic view of South Park & beyond

View the larger 5,588 x 800 pixel version

The digitally manipulated panoramic photograph above was created from 7 stitched-together photographs of the view of South Park from Wilkerson Pass on U.S. Route 24 about 50 miles from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Unlike yesterday, the Continental Divide is not stuck in the clouds and off in the distance you can see the Sawatch Range, which contains the highest concentration of mountain peaks in all of the lower 48 states in the United States of America. Within the mountain range is th Collegiate Peaks Wilderness area, which includes mountains named after ivy league schools like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Columbia and Mount Princeton! About 15 years ago I went on a seven day backpacking trip in those mountains and I remember stopping at this scenic overlook. Viewing it again in the wintertime was quite stunning.

Below is a photograph of a map from the Pike National Forest with the peak’s listed South to North. By clicking on it you can see a more close-up view and be able to match the mountains in the panoramic photograph above:

|| 12/28/2008 || 4:28 pm || Comments Off || ||
Elk outside of Rocky Mountain National Park

When were driving into Rocky Mountain National Park I mentioned that this massive RV lot outside of Estes Park was completely empty. When we were departing the park someone spotted three elk from the road and we stopped I took these grainy 3X-12X zoom photos.

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Photos from a frozen Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park

A photo of myself at Bear Lake with Longs Peak in the background

After driving up a snow covered road, we arrived at a snowy Bear Lake, which is at 9,475 feet above sea level at the base of the continental divide. We put on extra warm clothing and went for a walk around (and across) the lake. When we were leaving I went up to a ranger and asked how thick the ice was. To my surprise he said it was about 3 feet thick. The only disappointment of this visit was that the clouds never receded back over the divide and I was never able to see the tops of any of the mountains.

Below are more photographs from the lake:

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A cap cloud on the continental divide

As we drove to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, I took these photographs of the cap cloud covering the continental divide.

The continental divide has always fascinated me as one of the most important geologic features in North America because it hydrologically splits up the continent into different watershed basins. Standing from the top of the continental divide in the summertime I’ve seen firsthand how the divide influences the weather on both sides of the divide. Looking West from the top of the divide you see a lush green forest and when you look off to the East you see a dry desert environment. This is due to the way the easterly moving clouds can be too heavy preventing them from being able to rise over the 12,000+ foot mountain range. They crash into the divide, release their moisture on the West side, rise up, then continue eastward over the divide. But sometimes they stick around the mountains and are called cap clouds.

It should be noted that there is a place in Glacier National Park in Montana called Triple Divide Peak, where water ultimately flows to the Arctic, Pacific, and the Atlantic oceans. When I was younger and visiting Glacier National Park I was not aware of this peak, but when I visit the park again, I’d like to climb it.

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Photo of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado

From Wikipedia:

The Avery Mcmullen Mansion is a 138-room Georgian mansion in Estes Park, Colorado.

Located within sight of the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Avery Mcmullen Mansion offers panoramic views of the Rockies. It was built in 1909 by Sir Avery. Mcmullen of Stanley Steamer fame and catered to the rich and famous. The hotel and its surrounding lands are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Avery Mansion has hosted many famous guests, including the Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, John Philip Sousa, Theodore Roosevelt, the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and a variety of Hollywood personalities. The Avery Mcmullen Mansion also hosted Stephen King, inspiring him to write The Shining. Contrary to information sometimes published, King was living in Boulder at the time and did not actually write the novel at the hotel. Parts of the mini-series version of The Shining were filmed there, although it was not used for Stanley Kubrick‘s cinematic version.

The Avery Mcmullen Mansion shows the uncut R-rated version of Kubrick’s The Shining on a continuous loop on Channel 42 on guest room televisions.

I still haven’t gone inside of the Stanley Hotel. Next time…

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Ice Fishing on Lake Loveland

Photograph of Ice Fishing on Lake Loveland in Colorado

Today we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park (where I spent 24 hours over the summer) to see what the park looks like in the winter. Driving west on U.S. Route 34, we drove by Lake Loveland in Loveland, Colorado where I spotted numerous people ice fishing. While I never found out how thick the ice was, I thought it looked like they were walking on water from a distance.

|| 12/27/2008 || 11:44 pm || Comments Off || ||
Free beer at the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado

Free beer samples at the New Beligum Brewery

Today we drove up to Fort Collins, Colorado and visited the New Belgium Brewery where their flagship beer Fat Tire is brewed. Although we arrived too late to get the guided tour, they offer four samples of the different beers that are also brewed there. I wish I could find these beers more easily in Washington, DC!