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Blue at eleven thousand feet
An alpine reservoir on Fremont Pass — and stranger water a little farther up the road.
Fremont Pass, Colorado · 2026.08.06
Aerial work licensed through Amazing Aerial Agency
Clinton Gulch Reservoir sits just off Fremont Pass at around 11,000 feet, held in a forested valley under the Tenmile crest. From above it reads the way a high reservoir should — deep blue, cold, ringed by spruce.
A short distance up the pass the water changes colour completely. These are the tailings impoundments of the Climax molybdenum mine, and the turquoise is mineral, not depth. The same afternoon, a few hundred feet of elevation apart.
Both are worth flying. The blue is the picture people expect from the Colorado high country; the green is the one they don’t.
