Jim and John on the Road to Gothic Colorado. October 27, 2012.
It is difficult to put into words what this photo means to me.
In February 2012 my brother had a life threatening health crisis. He was in a coma and the prognosis was not good. I printed some 8×10 photos of our favorite childhood places in Colorado and made the long drive from Ohio to the hospital in Missouri. The cardiologist told me how slim John’s chances of recovery were, and that if he did come out of the coma he might not be the person we remembered. He might not even know any of us, or himself.
Every day I sat by John’s bed and “showed” him (his eyes were closed) one of the Colorado photos. I would describe the photo and say “When you get out of this coma and recover, we are going back to Colorado to visit this place.” Each day I showed him a different photo and said the same thing: “When you get out of this coma and recover, we are going back to Colorado to visit this place.” I knew, of course, that he couldn’t see and that he probably couldn’t hear me, but every day I showed him a photo and talked to him about our trip to Colorado. I talked about many other things too.
John came out of the coma, and he was himself! I was in his hospital room when the cardiologist walked in and said “This is pretty much a miracle.” And then he told us why it was a miracle.
The recovery process was slow. John was not able to travel until several months later. In October I picked him up at his home in Missouri and we left for Colorado. We went to all of the places in the photos I showed him. It was the trip of a lifetime – not because of where we were, but because we were there together.
Jim and John on the Road to Gothic, Colorado. Mid 1950s.
This is one of the photos I showed John. It was taken by my dad in the mid 1950s. I didn’t know where this photo was taken but I did remember a childhood trip to Emerald Lake. We drove along the road until we were stopped by deep snow. We got out of the car and hiked over the snow to Emerald Lake.
To find the location of this photo I started by doing a Google Image search of Emerald Lake. I found a relatively recent online story of a couple who were trying to drive to Emerald Lake in June but the snow was too deep on the road. They had to get out and walk to the lake. They had a photo of Mt. Gothic in their story. That was a good clue. I looked at topographic maps of the area and looked for Mt. Gothic and the names of other mountains in the area. Then I used Google Earth to look at the mountains and roads near Emerald Lake. I found Mt. Gothic and nearby Mt. Avery.
Google Earth: The Road to Gothic Colorado with Mt. Avery in the background.
It was obvious from Google Earth that Mt. Avery was the mountain in dad’s photo. I figured our dad’s photo was taken south of Gothic, Colorado on the Road to Gothic. Emerald Lake is north of Gothic.
Jim and John on the Road to Gothic, Colorado. Mt. Avery in the background. Mid 1950s. October 27, 2012.
When we got to the right area, we looked at the 1950s photo and we lined up the large white rocky gash on Mt. Avery with the angular tip of the large aspen grove at the base of the mountain to find the same location. We walked up and down the road to make sure everything lined up like it did in dad’s photo. If we walked 30 feet in either direction, the point of the aspen grove and white gash did not line up. In dad’s photo the tops of the trees on the left side of the photo are barely visible behind the bushes by the road. They are hard to make out in this small web sized photo. They were little more than saplings at the time. They grew a lot in the 55 plus years separating the two images. So did we.
This is just an average photo of two guys in the Colorado Rockies. It is nothing like a photo you would see in an art gallery or photo exhibition or in a coffee table photography book. But for all of the reasons you can imagine, this is one of my most treasured photos.
Mt. Antero and Mt. Princeton’s Chalk Cliffs by Moonlight. October 27, 2012.
At the end of a long day (the same day as the Road to Gothic photo) we were driving south on U.S. 285 to our motel near Salida. The moon was lighting the Collegiate Peaks. We were on this stretch of U.S. 285 a lot growing up. Every summer our dad taught astronomy merit badge classes at a boy scout camp near the Collegiate Peaks and we would drive to the scout camp at least once every summer to visit.
It was late so I was hesitant to stop. I tried to make sure John got plenty of rest on our trip. But John saw me looking at the peaks, read my mind, and said we should stop so I could take a picture. We turned west and drove down the road leading to Mt. Princeton’s famous Chalk Cliffs (not to mention the well known and popular hot springs near by). I was setting up my tripod when John told me someone was driving down the road. “Perfect”, I said. I told him the taillights during the long exposure would add to the photo. I clicked the shutter just before the vehicle passed our location. This is my second favorite photo of a very special day.
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