Looking back toward Emerald Lake: smoke increases in the east
As I work my way across the talus slope I begin to taste smoke in the air again. And the farther cliffs, sharp against the sky just a few moments before, begin to blur. I check behind me, and sure enough the eastern mountains have disappeared behind a thick layer of smoke. This photo is shot from about halfway across the talus slope. The grassy area in the middle of the photo is Emerald Lake meadow; the lake is just around the shoulder of the cliff on the right. The peak on the left is Robert's Horn. A corner of Pica Cirque is visible at its base on the far left. The lip fringed with pine trees in the middle of the picture is the edge of Aspen Grove canyon. The peak right in the middle of the photo is the one that looms just to the east of the Aspen Grove parking lot in photo #2. The far background should be filled in with ridge after ridge of mountains, with perhaps a glimpse of Heber Valley and the Uintah Mountains. Instead there is only thickening smoke.