Very crunchy bit of mountain, on the final approach to the overlook of Willow Lake this weekend. It’s like a reward of a giant piece of Cadbury’s Flake after a long hike over rocks and snow. Quite beautiful.
Close up, it is rather marvellous too. There are lovely formations of broken brown rock on several scales. (Click right for larger view.) If you look between the cracks, there are 
all sorts of interesting flowers, such as this rather splendid plant with black-brown leaves, sometimes sporting a surprising vivid yellow flower. (Click left to enlarge.)
I wonder if the dark colouring for this evolved as a mechanism for getting more energy from the sun at this high altitude?
-cvj
There is no such sofa, to my knowledge. In fact, never seen a sofa there. However, I imagine that the kind people of the city of Aspen have some sort of social services department that stretches to having a homeless shelter.
Best,
-cvj
Aspen? Oh, that’s nice. Say, does the Center have a sofa that homeless people can sleep on?
Ah, yes. Scree. The creator of many a twisted ankle.
Chocolaty goodness of course!!!
(Essentially yes, is the less silly answer. Actually, there’s a nice discussion at NASA’s earth observatory site here.)
The photo below shows how that colour spreads over the whole region of the Maroon Bells wilderness. Willow is (I think) the unlabelled lake to the north. The hike goes from Maroon lake to near crater lake, and then you turn off North West (ish), climb over the slopes into a new valley and then veer right near the top of the photo to encounter the view of the reddish structure I took, which I think is the final bit of reddish structure just below the top of the picture, about half way horizontally from Willow to the left edge of the picture.
-cvj
Great photos! What makes the rock such a distinctive colour? Is it haematite?
Hi,
Colorado. I’m in Aspen. See earlier posts. And these parts (in photo) are relatively untouched, actually. People are good to sticking to the trails, which are out of shot.
Cheers,
-cvj
It looks like a lot of people walk up there, but I guess California is a heavily populated place. Nice photos.