Mount Zirkel Wilderness - Rainbow Lake

Decided to head north again to an area I have never been before. There is still a lot of snow in the higher elevations so I figured one more week at lower elevation mountains was in order.

The majority of the hike was in forested areas affected by the pine beetle kill. It is a new reality in northern and central Colorado. I was pleasantly surprised though to see the amount of new trees already growing over 10 ft. in length. I guess this is just natures way of cleansing the forest.

It was actually a pretty boring hike if there is such a thing. Not much to see for the entire trip until I reached the lake. I screwed around with some closeup shots on the way up and took a couple of interesting shots.




Once reaching the lake, I was pleasantly surprised to see some amazing cascading falls. I pretty much spent the rest of my day taking photos of the falls. There were some kids having a good time in the area so that forced me to to adjust my framing of the cascades not getting the exact composition I was hoping for. Oh well, it is just as much there forest as it is mine and it was good to see them having a blast sliding down the snow fields. Even though I didn't get the composition I was hoping for, I still was able to capture some decent shots. Besides wildflower photography, cascading falls is by far my favorite photos to take.


I was forced to take 2 to 5 second exposure however because the ND filter I purchased last year was the wrong one. I will have to get one that isn't so dark so I can speed up the shots if necessary. I would have actually liked to take .5 to 1 second exposures to better show off the amount of water flow. Oh well.

Although this wasn't one of the prettier adventures I have been on. It was still well worth the trip. I have a few more photos of this trip posted on my website if you want to check them out. It is getting closer to backpacking season in the upper elevations but it is not quite there yet. I am getting very impatient!!!

Flat Tops Wilderness - Mcginnis Lake

I finally got out and decided to head to an area i have never been before, Flat Tops Wilderness. I didn't really know what to expect and I was surprised to see what I saw. An area that was a casualty of a forest fire. This kind of messed up my plans as all the areas I was planning on hiking were burned down. It turned out that it didn't matter anyways as in typical June hiking, there were several mishaps.

The first was I forgot to bring extra CF cards for my camera. I recently got a new camera bag and forgot to put all my extra CF cards in the bag. Unbelievable!!! Hiking without taking photos is like hiking naked. As it turned out, it didn't matter anyways. I managed to develop a blister on my right heel so I would not have been able to go another round anyways. I have never developed a blister before so that was a little concerning. I don't know how that happened.

I did manage to take a decent hike however, to Mcginnis Lake. The trail proved to be very difficult with downed trees everywhere. The water levels were also very high resulting in some fun water crossings.


I was pleasantly surprised to see the beauty of this lake once I reached it. The fire was not present and it was nestled beneath the formidable Chinese Wall that towered above. It was a nice little sup rise for me.


Above is a photo of Mcginnis Lake. If you would like to see more photos of Mcginnis Lake, you can visit my website or just click here.

Well, I am off to New Mexico for the next week so I won't be going on another adventure until the first week of July. I have no idea where I am going so I guess you will just have to be surprised :)

1st week of unemployment = lazy week

When I quit my job, I told myself I wasn't going to do anything for the week except stay up late and sleep in. Well, I accomplished that goal but it is now time to start enjoying the summer.

I was going to post a photo showing all of you what lazy week was all about but quickly realized a self portrait shot of me being lazy was WAAAAYYY to much work hehe. So no photo this post.

I do plan on getting out next week and heading to Crested Butte. I have no idea what to expect but I am hoping enough snow is melted to be able to hike some of the trails I have targeted. I hope to take some good pictures to get the summer started out right.

In the meantime, feel free to visit the semi new Kevin Adkins Photography site. I have 16 adventures posted with new ones being added often.

Also, I encourage you to check out my buddy Jesse's site. He FINALLY decided to give an update on things since he moved to Montana and took an incredible shot. You can view his site here and click on the what's new link. Or.....you can be lazy like me and just click here to see the photo I was referring to :)

Until next week..."do the responsible thing, live life without regrets"

One last thing, would somebody please leave a comment to let me know at least one person visits this blog, hehe :) I just noticed all my bronco blogs weren't all that popular and all this time, I thought everyone loved the Broncos!!!

broncos field pass, part 6

"Boooooooooooo!!!!!!!" hehe

broncos field pass, part 5

Here are some various photos I took while the players were warming up. Some of them got pretty darn close.

broncos field pass, part 4

The Broncos equipment manager was standing right beside me and I asked him if I could check out one of the game balls. He was gracious enough to allow me to check out one of the footballs that Cutler himself throws. The bummer of it all though was at the end, he gave out two footballs to the fans. One football went directly to the kid next to me which I was happy for but the second went directly to the left of my buddy who was no kid.

I suppose I should have just dove for it and intercepted it, hehe.

broncos field pass, part 3

I did not know what to expect when I was told I was going to be able to be on the field during the pregame. What I was hoping for though was to get to see Cutler up close and personal. Sure enough, one of the first people that ventured out on the field was Jay.

Elway will always be my hero but I really do like Jay because he has alot of Elway's traits when it comes to the strong arm and scrambling ability. There will never be another Elway but there will be a Cutler :)....and this dude will be AOK IMO :)