Howdy,

I'm not sure if I'm posting this is the correct section, but it is photography and it was taken less than a week ago. We had spent Wed and Thursday night at Manzanita Campground. Then on Friday we drove through the middle of Arizona looking at possible future campgrounds and Ashurst Lake was still open. After passing Lake Mary(closed) and Mormon Lake(closed) on County Road 3(paved) 25 miles we turned left onto a rough 4 mile dirt road to Ashurst Lake covering 1230 acres and a chilly 42 degrees. Forked Pine Campground was passed on the way up and was closed. Vault toilets, no showers, fire-rings were made out of piled rocks. Very primitive! We saw a few people fishing and only one tent was seen. It looked very promising and the views of the mountains above Flagstaff were impressive. Please enjoy the photos:

In those last 3 pix the blues seem unnaturally vivid...were you using a color filter?

Howdy Ed,

Yes sir I was using a circular polarizing filter. It is interesting that above 5000' the circular polarizing filter really deepens an already blue sky. The clouds also just seem to pop out, but it was a cloudless day. When viewing distant objects like mountains, they tend to go bluish also so I was a little timid in showing this set. But I did and so there they are.

Incidental to the photography, my computer machine is a 2008 Dell XPS with 4GB Ram & 750GB HD. The monitor is a Dell LCD 24". I have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for raw files, Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 for jpegs.
I also have had later versions of photoshop, but there is just to much happy crap for me to deal with.

I've been retired since 2005, however my wife still slaves away at the Veterans Hospital in Las Vegas where is she an advanced practice nurse (care giver) in wounds and wounds that won't heal(diabetic ulcers and the like).

Thank you once again for asking!

wow the surroundings and place is so nice to have a camping..
the view across the lake is so nice..

Wow the pictures are too nice. I must say you have spent too much time to get these and gather and the info. Great work i really appreciate.

Very nice pictures. Once again, these pictures show there are so many jewels in the National Forest system to visit!

I lived in Arizona for two years Vegas, and I seriously didn't even realize places like this exist. I didn't get in to camping until I left the area for the Northwest, but these pictures make me wish I was more of an explorer in the olden days!

These pics are really beautiful. I think the blue filter turned out really nicely.

I'm not much of a photography guy, but some of the photos here are inspiring me to get a better camera and take some shots next time I go backpacking.