Western Railroad Discussion > Purple Mountains Majesty

Going through my film archives I stumbled across this little gem of an image... When I was looking at the image, I thought "hey, maybe this is what that means"... (grin)

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Great combination - mountains and Rio Grande!! Thanks for posting an excellent picture!

John

Where was this shot. Looks like Alamosa but it could be other places.

Location? Roper Yard, Salt Lake City... Anybody notice the "bridge"?

"Rio Grande" translated in english means:

Big River.

Pretty cool, huh??????????

So, I guess that D&RGW---instead of standing for Denver and Rio Grande Western really means:

Denver and Big River Western.

Of course, I would still call it the Rio Grande or the Denver and Rio Grande Western.

Just my unusual fact for the night!

bnsf100
(Dreaming about Colorado and what I could've seen when I was younger, or even before I was born.)

Well, the Purple Mountains part usually referrs to being able to see mountains a hundered miles or more across the plains, the farther you see em, the more blue they become due to the effects of the atmosphere.

What you have in your picture is more properly called alpenglow - that reddish hue that comes from the sun's light bending around through the upper atmosphere just before the peak slides on over into the earth's shadow. The bigger the mountain, and the farther the horizon opposite it, the redder the alpenglow. I've seen some in the High Sierras that have left me awestruck.

Good pic, too.

- Kit

CimaScrambler Wrote:
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> Well, the Purple Mountains part usually referrs to
> being able to see mountains a hundered miles or
> more across the plains, the farther you see em,
> the more blue they become due to the effects of
> the atmosphere.
>
> What you have in your picture is more properly
> called alpenglow - that reddish hue that comes
> from the sun's light bending around through the
> upper atmosphere just before the peak slides on
> over into the earth's shadow. The bigger the
> mountain, and the farther the horizon opposite it,
> the redder the alpenglow. I've seen some in the
> High Sierras that have left me awestruck.
>
> Good pic, too.
>
> - Kit
>


I agree, beautiful photo. Captures the sunlight on the distant peaks without rendering the subject in the shade too dark. To turn this into a complete nerdfest, the purple haze generally associated with mountain vistas is the result of a photochemical reaction in the atmosphere with terpenes, which are given off by both evergreen and deciduous trees. Typically, the warmer the weather, the greater the effect. Before man-made smog, this is one of the things that gave the Great Smokey Mountains their name. I can vouch for Kit's description of alpenglow in the Sierras; I lived in Lake Tahoe for many years, and it can be particulalry stunning on clear, cold winter evenings. Never, ever, got tired of the view.

Elizabeth