My name is Marty Hulsebos and I've been a passionate landscape photographer since the late 1980's.
At 88, my father-in-law took me up into the San Juan Mountains, back to where he’d grown up as a cowboy. This photo is his view as he grew up. On our trip, I watched him, aged but steady, as we drove the winding dirt roads toward the peaks. His gaze was distant, fixed on the mountains he knew so well, his voice deep and calm as he told me stories of his life out here, tales of hardship and grit that he recounted like they were just another day on the job.
He told me about a brutal snowstorm that hit early one season, catching everyone off guard. The family’s horses were grazing in a high mountain corral, and he had no choice but to go up and try to rescue them. “Snow came fast, and it was already up to the horses’ bellies when I got there,” he said, as if he could still feel it. He laughed as he recalled getting snowed into the nearby cabin with nothing but a case of canned tomatoes. “That was all there was,” he chuckled. “For a week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was red as the mountains by the time I got out of there.”
His voice softened as he told me about spring runoff and the river crossings. He’d once tried to cross on foot when the water was high, figuring he’d be quick enough. But halfway through, he slipped and was swept downstream, the icy water taking his breath. “I thought it was the end,” he admitted, almost in a whisper. “Then my horse came up beside me, steady as a rock, and I grabbed hold.” That horse saved him, pulling him out onto the bank, his life owing to the animal’s loyalty and his own grit.
Listening, I was awestruck. The life he took for granted was a rugged hero’s journey to me, each hardship a lesson his father had left him to learn through action, not words. Looking out over the mountains that had shaped him, I saw the San Juans differently, through his eyes—a wild, unforgiving land that had carved him into the man he was.
