Austin Smith

Turning and turning in the widening gyre.

Catch it at the right time and place and Colorado could seem like anywhere in the world. Right now, we’re nearing that time when the alpine, shrouded in a wonderful gloom of mists and fog, can feel like Iceland or the highlands of Scotland.

I’m heading off into the backcountry for the rest of the week on a little climbing adventure. It’s been an unusual summer with very little time for my normal adventures and this outing is one I’ve looked forward to for a long time. See you good folks on the other side ✌🏼

Finding El Dorado

I crossed into the Navajo reservation late and pulled into the Kayenta gas station. It was January and it had already been dark for hours and any heat the ground held had long since left. The night was perfectly still and the hiss of gasoline slurping into my car filled the night. I watched a late-century white Cadillac El Dorado file into the empty station and pull in to the pump next to me. An enormous sw****ka filled the entire bonnet of the old be**er. My hand went limp on the pump a confusion rolled over me like that of a child given pieces of disparate puzzles. The door cracked and an old Navajo woman stepped out, reached back slowly into the cab with the length of her entire body, and emerged with a purse also emblazoned with a sw****ka and paid the pump and we both stood there filling our cars in the frozen January night listening to the hiss of gasoline and I thought the night had given me a lot to think about unexpectedly.

A few miles down the road, I pulled into The View Hotel, set my alarm for before dawn, and fell asleep on top of my bed. In the morning, I walked out to the balcony in yesterday’s clothes and sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup and took these photos of Navajo lands that the Nation have protected for centuries. The only one in the hotel, I watched the sun rise and the colors turn from monochrome to hues so rich you could sell them as Technicolor. I watched these colors change like an old television turning on for a long time in the deep cold of the morning and was grateful for the stillness and the land. I checked out of my room and caught an informational sign in the lobby informing visitors on the significance of the Whirling Log, a cross with equal arms bent at right angles. The one I’d seen the night before on the old woman’s El Dorado. The sign described an ancient Navajo symbol denoting great abundance, prosperity, healing and luck. I walked out into the morning air illuminated and took the road North into Utah and then Colorado and drove right through the day to home.

Moody skies where the mountains greet the plains.

One more week in the rear view mirror. What kind of adventures are y’all getting into this weekend? Make me jealous.

Moonset over Mexico at the edge of dawn from 18,000ft. Beyond this mountain lies Mexico City.

Beach (noun); definition: a place of heat, sand, and very little skiing ⛷

I’m finally making my way through the thousands of photos I’ve taken this year but haven’t had the chance to edit and remembered this wintery day spent exploring ancient Pueblo ruins right in the heart of Colorado Springs. Amazingly, these were inhabited until only a little over a hundred years ago.

Is there someone that listens to country music that knows if there’s a country song title that fits this as a caption? Feels like a country song.

Since I can’t be at Oshkosh this week, I thought I’d share a few of the aviation photos I’ve taken in the last few months. I post a lot of mountain shots, but aviation is a foundational passion of mine. I got my pilot’s license before my drivers license and it’ll always be my lifelong love. In other topics, y’all have no idea how many thousands of photos of all sorts I’m sitting on right now, ha. Finding time to edit and post is a continuous uphill battle 😅 I’m trying to get them out to you!

Hope y’all don’t care too much that this isn’t a reel.