Dean Krakel Photography

Sometimes a selection of the year's best photos don't tell the whole story. Sometimes the photos left out tell the best part of the story. While I was editing the best of my photos in 2018 I was struck by the number of images that didn't make the grade and yet helped tell the story of a hike on the Continental Divide Trail from the Mexican border at Crazy Cook, NM to Wyoming. I stopped shooting photos, or at least as many photos, of people and things the further north we prog

High, lonely, stormy, rugged and wild. That's Colorado's southern San Juan Mountain range. My friend Tom Brown and I spent five days walking north from Cumbres Pass, near the New Mexico border, exploring the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). We saw no one else for three days, not even another human track. But of everything wild there was plenty: we saw herds of elk every day and heard coyotes every night. Bald eagles cruised low over the tundra, hunting. There was lion sign, ta

On July 26th 2015 I left my job as a photo editor at the Denver Post, and a thirty-year-long career in journalism to walk The Colorado Trail. The 550 mile long journey from Durango, Colorado to my home in Conifer, Colorado took me eleven weeks. I crossed eight mountain ranges, six wilderness areas and climbed over 100,000 vertical feet. There are some of my favorite photographs in the Gallery site but here I'm posting images that include some beautiful scenics as well as phot