A couple of years back, I woke before sunrise to find frost covering the 4Runner and a cold chill filling the mountain air. I had one goal that morning—to find a place where the first light of day would bring the golden fall colors of Colorado to life.

Leaving the warmth of the house wasn’t easy. After scraping the frost from the windows and letting the 4Runner warm up, I gathered my camera gear and headed toward the mountains just outside of Breckenridge, Colorado.

I turned onto a dirt road with no guarantee that I would find anything worth photographing. That is part of landscape photography. You can plan where you are going and what you hope to find, but nature ultimately decides what kind of morning it is going to give you.

As the sun began to break over the mountains to the east, warm rays of light reached the frost-covered trees. The frost began to melt, creating wisps of steam that seemed to glow in the morning sunlight. Suddenly, everything around me was changing by the minute, and I knew I had only a short window before that beautiful light disappeared.

I found a place to park, grabbed my tripod and camera, and headed down a short trail. That was when I came upon this restored mining cabin tucked into the mountainside and surrounded by brilliant golden aspens and deep green pines.

I quickly found my composition and set up the tripod.

Then, for just a moment, everything seemed to come together.

A cool breeze moved through the trees, and I could hear the autumn leaves crackling and rustling around me. Somewhere overhead came the unmistakable calls of a flock of Canada geese making their way across the Colorado sky.

Standing there in the cold, surrounded by the colors and sounds of fall, I pressed the shutter.

All the early mornings, the cold fingers, the frost-covered windows, and the uncertainty of not knowing what I would find had led me to this one moment.

There is always something special about fall in the Colorado Rockies. The colors don't last long, the light is constantly changing, and moments like this disappear almost as quickly as they arrive.

But on this particular morning, I was fortunate enough to be there when everything came together—and to bring a little piece of that moment home with me.