A funny thing happened when I made this post last week. WordPress cropped my photograph in a way that I had never considered. When I took the photograph I shot it vertically, but when my post went up, WordPress just cropped horizontally to fit their featured image format.

As I mentioned in the original post, the scene when I shot the photo made me think of the Lord of the Rings. And when I saw that featured photo crop, I realized I was looking at the photograph all wrong. The scene doesn’t need a blue sky and beautiful trees. No, it just needed the darkened rock steps with the imposing rock face. That is what I saw that made me think of Frodo and Sam walking into Mordor.

So, I re-posted this with my original text below. I hope this allows you to share some of my insights about this photograph. And thanks for being patient with my unfinished work.

Here is a shot from a hike with a friend last Thursday in Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez, Colorado. My friend, Dave, and I had been hiking to some ancient petroglyphs on a trail that started near the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling ruins. This staircase was one of the last strenuous parts of the hike as it took us up near the top of the mesa again.

The view reminded me of a passage in the Lord of the Rings* when Frodo and Sam were hiking that long staircase up into Mordor. The sky was rapidly turning threatening as rain was approaching, and we wanted to be off of the steep exposed rock before the rain hit.

I hope you enjoy my redo, and that this version has more meaning to you as it does to me.

Thanks for stopping by, and I would love to hear your feedback.