The Rockies

Steve likes to live at the base of mountains—with a summit as backdrop and open space sweeping away before him.  He grew up in Colorado, where the Rockies meet the Great Plains.  He lived in Tucson, below the Catalinas; in Flagstaff, below the San Francisco Peaks. He lived at the southern end of the Rockies, where the Sangre de Cristo Mountains give way to the desert at Santa Fe.  And he lives now along the Wasatch Front, where the Rockies meet the Great Basin.   

The Shining Mountains will always hover over his days, it seems.

Bison, Lamar Valley, Yellowstone.
Blooming arnica above Alta in Grizzly Gulch, Wasatch Range, Utah.
Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park, one of the great surprises of the Rocky Mountains: the nation's highest sand dunes, with the backdrop of 14,000-foot Crestone Peak & Crestone Needle.
In college, I attempted winter ascents in Colorado's San Juan Mountains. I came back decades later to mountain bike with my son from Telluride to Durango for a newspaper travel story—a different kind of challenge
Montana, the "last best place." Near Ovando.
When I began work on "Bargaining for Eden," I asked a simple question: What will it take to get a racer down the mountain when the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic downhill comes to Snowbasin? I knew the answer would be complicated—and fascinating.
My tribute, in color, to Ansel Adams' perfect photograph: Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico.
Ogden Valley at Huntsville, Utah—a lovely, miniature Jackson Hole and setting for much of my book, "Bargaining for Eden."
Rocky Mountain Nature Association asked me to write and photograph a book about Longs Peak—and I was thrilled to do so. This was my childhood mountain, a talisman of the wild, hovering above my Denver neighborhood.
Summit of Lone Peak, the wilderness climax of the Wasatch Range, Utah.
Miner's shack on Imogene Pass, between Ouray and Telluride in Colorado's San Juan Mountains.
High country in the Sawtooths, Idaho.
Great Sand Dunes looms large in my professional journey. This was the first national park where I served a full season as a ranger/naturalist. And my little general interpretive booklet for Great Sand Dunes was my first book.
The Flattops Backway in Colorado, the best autumn aspen display I've ever seen!
Centennial Valley horse corral along the Red Rock River, Montana.
Colorado blue columbine, the state flower--and deservedly so.
My relationship with mountains grew from my mountaineering days in college in the Colorado Rockies. How I love places like Chasm Meadow, below Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Widgeon Pond, Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Montana. I returned to this lovely valley—just like the trumpeter swans— each fall for several years to teach a workshop.
Mount Superior at Alta, Utah—our family ski area.
Devil's Castle and twisted aspen, Albion Basin, Alta, Utah.
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park. When national park crowds threaten to kill your experience, approach from the back, return at night, at dawn, in a storm. Make the place your own.
Tippet Rise Art Center is an astonishing monumental sculpture garden in the middle of nowhere in Fishtail, Montana. This is Patrick Dougherty's willow-wrapped cabin, "Daydreams."
Looking into Wyoming and the North Absaroka Wilderness from Cooke City, Montana. Those perfect crags are Pilot and Index peaks.
One of Montana's classic alpine hikes—to Beehive Basin in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness above Big Sky.
Wild bergamot in Montana's East Rosebud Valley below the Beartooths—some of the most beautiful mountains in the Rockies.
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