A Defense of the Quiet Trail

Half of what I have photographed in fifty years was made within four miles of the nearest road. Not because I am unwilling to walk farther — I have walked farther many times — but because the four-mile radius around any decent trailhead in Colorado contains more photographable terrain than a working photographer can exhaust in a lifetime.

The famous wildernesses — the Maroon Bells–Snowmass, the Indian Peaks, the Holy Cross — are largely overrated for the photographer, and not because they are not beautiful but because they have been photographed by everyone. The quiet trail next door, the one without a name on the map, the one that ends at an unsigned overlook, is the one that has not.

I will not name any of these trails.