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Mountain adventure, in the name of art

Durango photographer’s image comes with epic story

Durango photographer Ron Martin’s image, “Grenadier Range,” is a moody panorama that captures a wave of storm clouds crashing into the steely, snow-flecked Grenadier Range.

It’s a dramatic photograph that has the notable distinction of fitting all six Grenadiers – East Trinity, Middle Trinity, West Trinity, Vestal, Arrow and Electric – into the frame. And if pictures are indeed worth a thousand words, this one would tell a harrowing tale of adventure – negotiating snowbanks, a sketchy scree field, howling winds and a close call on a mountain deep in the wilderness.

“Grenadier Range” has been selected to hang in the Washington, D.C., office of Sen. Michael Bennet for the next two years through a contest sponsored by the Colorado Artists Guild. Martin said he is honored that his image was selected solely on its aesthetics.

“It got in on its own merits aesthetically. I’m really happy about that,” Martin said, adding that he typed up the story behind the photo and sent it to Bennet’s office with the artwork. “As a bonus, he knows the story.”

That story goes back to 2012, when Martin was hiking and shooting photos in the Highland Mary area of the Weminuche Wilderness. He ended up gaining a sweet vantage point of the Grenadier Range, an eight-mile arc of quartzite bedrock that forms six distinct peaks.

The view wasn’t perfect, though.

“I could see all of the Grenadiers, they were nice, but there was this big fat mountain in the way,” he said. “I realized that the only way to really see them all is to get up on Peak 3 (on the other side of Vestal Basin).”

That planted a seed in Martin’s head, and he soon became determined to find an unobstructed view of all six of the Grenadiers, and photograph them.

As far as Martin can tell through his research, nobody has ever taken that photograph – or if they have, they haven’t shared it. And the majesty of the range, he said, warrants it.

“Here’s the thing with those mountains: They’re just as good as the Tetons,” Martin said. “You have these hidden gems that are right there. You think, ‘why don’t people know about it?’ They should be out there.”

Martin scoured topographic maps and Google Earth to help him devise a plan to capture the image. He knew he would have to carry a heavy pack and stay two nights, and he knew he wanted to be there during a storm for sky dramatics. (“I always go for clouds,” he said.)

Martin set out solo in early June 2013, riding the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad to the Elk Creek stop, then taking off on foot on the Colorado Trail toward Vestal Trail. The hike wasn’t easy; snowbanks and deadfall obscured much of the trail. Martin made it to Vestal Basin and started up the flank of Peak 3. He was hiking at a pretty good clip, he said, until the landscape underfoot started to change.

“About halfway up, the rock is really loose and slippery, the kind of shale that is really hard to negotiate, and it gets pretty nasty,” he said.

Martin has done a fair amount of climbing and mountaineering, but navigating through shale that was “as slippery as a wet kitchen floor” required a tremendous amount of effort.

Then, he slipped. Martin caught himself – plus the weight of his 55-pound pack – with just two fingers.

It wasn’t until later that he discovered he tore two tendons in his hand in the fall, but he knew he had injured himself. Despite that, he gathered himself and continued on, camping on the mountain that night.

The next day around noon, the wind picked up: the storm was coming. Martin found a location to capture his shot, set up his tripod and waited.

He ended up having to lay on his tripod to steady it in the raging winds. But just like he hoped, the clouds stacked up in dramatic piles behind the range, and he snapped off the pictures. Just minutes later, he got snowed on. And then the storm passed.

Martin was pretty sure he had his image, but he still had to get home. He was spooked from the scree field experience the day before, so he decided to descend down the other side.

“It ended up being harder,” he said. “I just had to pick my way down these bands of cliffs, it was really crumbly rock. I had to do a couple hundred feet of talus. I thought about being rescued at one point.”

Using his injured hand when he needed to, Martin eventually made it back to the basin. When he got there, his hand looked like a lobster claw and he was pretty cut up, he said.

When he returned to the main trail in the late afternoon, he laid out his tarp, went to sleep and slept through the night. The next day, he put his hand in a sling and hiked back to the train. That’s where it hit him: “A lot of just bold experience and pain kind of kicked in. Everything really rushed out, and I realized what I had just went through. I got to the train and there was really nothing left of me,” Martin said.

Martin made it home, rested and nursed his wounds. When he got around to stitching together his panorama, he said, he was happy with what he accomplished.

“Considering how hard it was to get the picture, I was really pleased,” he said. “It was the hardest thing I ever did to take a picture.”

“Grenadier Range” is now on display in D.C., where Martin hopes it will be seen and appreciated by people from all over.

The photographer said he never expected his passion to take him so deep, but he was moved by the idea that nobody had done this before. He thinks photography can serve a higher purpose in illuminating threatened places or locales that deserve to be celebrated.

“I’m hoping this will inspire some other photographers to really get out there,” he said. “Maybe we can make some changes.”

kklingsporn@durangoherald

If you go

See “The Grenadiers” and other Ron Martin images through November at Pine River Valley Bank, 1701 Main Ave.



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