by Michele Kadison

With just about 300 days filled with sunshine per year, Colorado is the home of the spectacular sunset.  With its altitude and humidity, the Rockies create a powerful effect as the sun descends below the horizon.  Getting away from the magical for a moment and into the nuts and bolts of physics, let’s analyze what happens when sunlight is filtered through Earth’s atmosphere.

When the sun is close to the horizon, it scatters more light as it passes through more of the atmosphere than it does when it is directly overhead.  The easiest light to scatter is blue, so as the sun goes down, the bluest part of the spectrum becomes filtered out, allowing the other hues to come to the fore.  Yellow, orange, and then red show themselves until the sun finally sinks, only to light the clouds from underneath, turning the sky pink.  The higher the altitude, the stronger the sunset.

And so, we now can get to the magical part:  the mountain ranges of Colorado at sunset.  Pick the Front Range, the Great Sand Dunes, or the red rock canyons of the Delores River area; stand on the summit of Ute Mountain or Mesa Verde, or anywhere in the Colorado Rockies above the treeline and you will feel like one of the gods on Mt. Olympus.  Then stay as the skies fill with the afterglow and twilight descends, making even the most pedantic visitor into a poet.  Here we have the ‘alpenglow’ effect, where everything is covered in an otherworldly lilac hue.  Physics again:  the red rays of the setting sun are penetrating the deepening overhead sky where the violet wash remains until the sun hits 18 degrees below the horizon – often taking 2 hours during the summer season.

A sunset softens even the hardest of hearts.  A sunset elicits promises never expected.  A sunset reminds us that life is indeed beautiful, and that we have infinite capacity to appreciate nature’s gifts no matter what our personal circumstances.  Let the healing rays of a Colorado sunset put their arms around your soul to remind you of what is most important in life.

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