Maroon Bells Wilderness

After we departed Rocky Mountain National Park, we stopped at Hot Sulfur Springs, where Elena spent several hours in the various natural hot springs pools. Bebop and I walked down to the Colorado Rive, which was shallow enough to walk across. We camped that night on Wolford Lake. The next morning we rafted the Colorado River through Little Brown Canyon. The big Brown Canyon is some of the fiercest whitewater on the planet - our section was mild and scenic.

We spent the next night at Peak One campground near Frisco, CO. We inflated Elena's paddleboard and enjoyed some calm morning water. I even tried the paddleboard and successfully stood up shortly after the photo was taken.

Paddling and drinking at the Dillon Reservoir

After paddling, we drove toward the highest incorporated town in North America - Leadville, CO. On the way, we hiked the Mayflower Gulch Trail up to an old abandoned mining camp. The trail started at 11,000 feet and went up another 650’ from there. It was about a 4-mile RT hike. Mayflower Gulch is a beautiful basin and some of the old mining buildings from the late 1800s are still standing. We crossed the continental divide shortly after that hike and were back on the east side of the Rockies spine.

Mayflower Gulch Hike

While passing through Leadville, I stopped to take a photo of Mount Massive. It’s the 2nd tallest peak in Colorado at 14,250’ and I summited that mountain back in 1988 when my company sent a number of us on a one-week Outward Bound course. It was 13 miles and 4,600 feet of elevation gain to get to the top.

Mount Massive from a distance

Me on Mount Massive in 1988 with an Outward Bound group

We camped at the beautiful Whitestar campground on Twin Lakes. This was one of our highest campsites at 9,300 feet of elevation. The next morning, we headed toward Independence Pass. Not far along the road, we saw about eight bighorn sheep right off the edge of the highway. We proceeded up the pass and walked around at the continental divide at 12,095 feet.

Whitestar Campground on Twin Lakes

Independence Pass

On the way down into Aspen, we made a couple of stops. One was a 1.1 mile trail to Weller Lake. It was a nice little hike to an alpine lake. We also hiked the Grottos Trail. Two main features of this trail are the Ice Cave and the Cascades. The Ice Cave is a bit of a tricky climb to get down to, but it is an interesting stream carved nook in the rocks. The last of this year's ice melted a couple of weeks ago, but it was still an interesting feature to crawl in and see. We then went to The Cascades, which is a series of waterfalls as the Roaring Fork River comes roaring down the mountain.

Weller Lake

The Ice Cave (ice free since a couple of weeks prior to our visit)

The Cascades on the Roaring Fork River

We crawled through the traffic in Aspen and made it to our campsite - Silver Queen near the Maroon Bells. This camp only has 6 sites, so I was fortunate to grab one six months ago when it opened up for booking. The first evening, we hiked around with Bebop and saw a few deer - to go with the stunning mountain and lake scenery in every direction.

The Maroon Bells - Evening Edition

The following morning (day 17 of our trip - the halfway point), I drove the van from our campsite to Maroon Lake before dawn. It’s a short 3-mile drive. I hiked out to get some dawn shots of the early morning sun hitting the mountains. I returned to the van to get Bebop for a walk. When I stepped out again, I almost stepped on a fox weaving through the parking lot. I managed to get a few fuzzy photos.

The Maroon Bells - Morning Edition

Parking Lot Fox

I took Bebop on a morning walk and a large female deer stared us down and got a little aggressive when she saw Bebop. I think she had her fawn tucked nearby in the woods. Later, Elena and I took the rocky hike to Crater Lake. Bebop was exhausted from finally being able to hike the last few days, so she slept in for this hike. She did pose for a shadow impression of a wolf before her nap. Crater Lake is about 4 miles RT with an elevation gain of a bit over 500 feet (from our starting elevation of 9,600 feet).

Bebop and Deer Staring Contest

The Maroon Bells, Bebop Wolf Shadow Impression, and Crater Lake

Seven years ago I hiked the 10 mile and 3,000 foot climb up to Buckskin Pass, so Crater Lake was easy by comparison. In the afternoon, we rested and walked along Maroon Creek in the shade of the trees. I took Bebop out for a walk, and we saw the giant male moose across the way. He was backlit, so we named him The Black Moose - like The Black Knight from Monty Python. Later that evening, Elena and I went for a hike and saw a beaver swimming and grazing. 

Beaver Swims; Beaver Eats

That evening we then went searching for the local bull moose. From a distance, we spotted him in a willow thicket near the trail. We walked the trail slowly and cautiously, keeping a careful eye into the willows. Just when I thought we were past his location, he stepped out onto the trail right in front of us. The big moose stopped in the creek and had a standoff with a frozen fisherman. The fisherman finally waded across to safety and the moose posed for some photos. Later, the moose stood guard at the bridge and said, “None shall pass.”

The Black Moose - steped out just in front of us on the trail

We visited the area once more the next morning before we departed for other adventures. It’s a stunningly beautiful place.

- Paul

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Rocky Mountain National Park

We elected to spend five nights at Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), as we haven't been here in about 17 years. We booked three nights at Glacier Basin Campground in RMNP, one night at Mary's Lake in Estes Park, and one night in Aspenglen Campground back in the park. Mary's Lake was our amenities night - power, water, dump, showers, and laundry.

Glacier Basin was fantastic. It's right in the heart of the most visited areas of the park - Bear Lake corridor. While others hoped to get a timed permit to enter the corridor, we were already past the gate and free to explore the area. The park, like many, has become so popular they have to limit entries via a permit system. There are two levels of permits - one to enter the overall park, and another permit to enter the Bear Lake corridor.

The first evening we took a short hike to Sprague Lake. There was an older female moose grazing in the lake, and we sat and watched for a while. Human impact on the ecosystem weighs large. In the 1900s hunters killed off the last of the top predators - wolves and grizzly bears. In the 1980s the state of Colorado brought in 24 moose to the state for tourism and hunting. The moose have proliferated without the top predators to manage their population. Moose eat the willow trees, which the beavers need to make dams and lodges. The beavers are essentially gone from the park now. Years of fire suppression, to protect nearby communities, has resulted in many invasive species growing in the park. And climate change is wiping out the glaciers and stressing many species as they seek higher ground.

Sprague Lake near our campground

The next morning, we got up at 5:15AM and drove to the most popular trailhead parking lot at the end of Bear Lake Road. We went for several hikes. The first one was a 6 mile, 4 lake visit. We gained about 1,200 feet on that hike - and it started at 9,500 feet of elevation! After passing the smallest lake (Nymph) we headed up to Haiyaha Lake. It was the most colorful because it has fresher glacial sediment suspended in the water. We then came back down to Dream Lake and on to Emerald Lake. Near Emerald Lake, there was a very large elk grazing at the side of the trail. It seemed oblivious to all the people streaming past.

Nymph Lake

Elena the mountain climber

Haiyaha Lake

Elena at Dream Lake

Elena and Elk

Paul at Emerald Lake

We returned to the van and had lunch, then headed back out to loop around Bear Lake. This one was only a mile with minimal elevation changes.

Bear Lake

 We then decided to hike to Alberta Falls. That added another couple of miles and 230 feet of elevation gain.

Alberta Falls

When we arrived back at the campsite, we decided to add another couple of miles back to Sprague Lake to see if the moose was out. It was.

The next morning, we got up early and drove a few miles to the Bierstadt Lake trailhead. We hiked up about 700 feet and around 4 miles total. As we came to the first lake view, we saw a moose mom and baby on the other shore. We eventually got around to that side, and they were both out in the lake by that point. We watched them for a long time and visited with an off duty park ranger who was out taking photos on her day off. 

Bebop at our campground

Paul climbing to Bierstadt Lake

Paul & Elena at Bierstadt Lake

Mom and baby moose at Bierstadt Lake

Duck trying to get people to look at it instead of the moose.

We slowed the pace the final few days with several visits to Sheep Lakes to see if the Bighorn came down - they did not. However, we caught a great photo before and during a rainstorm.

Mountains from the Sheep Lakes

Same mountains in the rain with a layered effect

 We also visited the Alluvial Falls, which were formed in 1982 when an upstream dam (man made) failed and sent a cascade of water, mud, and boulders down the river bed. 

Alluvial Falls

Our final night was in Aspenglen Campground in RMNP. The next morning, we drove across the 12,000-foot Trail Ridge Road to the west side of the park. We made several stops and hiked to Rock Cut at 12,300 feet for a top of the world view. We only saw one Elk, but watched many marmots and pika dashing around. We also saw a coyote right along the roadside. Eventually, we descended the west side and are at Stillwater Campground on Lake Granby for the night. 

Paul with Longs Peak in the back

Paul & Elena at 12,300 feet on Trail Ridge Road

Scenic Vista

Our Winnebago Travato getting us up and down the mountains

Marmots on a rock

Pika having lunch

It was a great five days at Rocky Mountain National Park.

- Paul

 

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Colorado's Front Range

This will be a catch-up post covering a few days along the front range in Colorado. We left off at Trinidad Lake in Colorado. The following day we were headed to Lake Pueblo to camp. An old friend suggested we detour past Bishop Castle in the mountains southwest of Pueblo, CO. So we did. I will save you the details, but the owner of the place, Jim Bishop, was a bit of an eccentric fellow. You can read his family accounting of the place at their website. https://www.bishopcastle.org/. 

Basically, he built (over many, many decades) a stone and iron castle. No one lives there - it's not a habitable structure. It's more art than it is practical. He apparently worked on it most weekends, but is about 80 now, and his son won't let him work on it any longer. He does not care for rules, as the many signs posted on the property will attest. The place is open all the time for people to stop and tour at their own risk. There were a few dozen vehicles of tourists there on a Thursday late morning. As we drove away, Elena and I were both thinking about how he could have used his talent to build interesting, but habitable structures.

Bishop Castle

We had a nice camp site at Lake Pueblo - an easy walk to the water. We watched some monstrous thunderstorms to our NE, but it was clear over us. She inflated her paddleboard, and we got it to the water, but the wind was blowing at over 25mph making it difficult to paddle. She swam around in the lake instead, and we carried the board back to the camper. A short time later, new cells developed over us, including a strong hail storm. It only got to marble size, but it was quite loud. 

UL: Trinidad Lake; Others: Lake Pueblo

The next morning we drove in early to Colorado Springs and visited Garden of the Gods. We arrived about 8AM and the crowd was very small. It grew rapidly over the next hour. We started in the popular central garden area. On our way out, a large group of teenagers gathered around to pet Bebop. They were lined up a few people deep for their turn. She always draws attention when we are hiking.

Bebop always the center of attention

We decided to try and shake the crowd by visiting the Siamese Twin rock feature, as it required a small hike to reach. There were less than a dozen people there, which enforces our observation that crowds dwindle exponentially with distance from the parking lots. This theory was again validated when we later drove down past Balanced Rock. This feature sits just feet from the parking lot and there were a several hundred people gathered around trying to take photos in front of it - from every angle. We drove on past.

Garden of the Gods

We went to the Red Rock Open Space in the late afternoon and got a couple miles of hiking in before another round of afternoon storms chased us back to the camper van. There were only a few other people there. We had some heavy rain and a tiny bit of hail at our campground that evening. 

The next morning, the skies were clear, and we tackled the 19-mile horizontal drive (and about 1 1/2 miles vertical) up Sun Mountain (Pikes Peak). As we approached the entry gate, we saw about 18 old Ford Model A cars lined up to go in. They were all meticulously restored. We saw one Model A break down in the road at about mile 15 and another broke down near the bottom as we departed. Overall, their success rate was not bad for a 90-year-old vehicle. Our camper van handled the nearly 8,000 foot vertical climb nicely.

Mountaintop Bebop

As we reached the top at about 9AM, we saw the mountain begin to perform its weather making show. It was a sunny morning, in the upper 40’s with fairly light winds. As those winds blew across the top, they created negative pressure and updrafts of the leeward side. This drew valley air upward, and the moisture began to condense into clouds. We watched the swirling clouds forming directly in front of us. By the time we got down in the early afternoon, some had built into thunderstorms nearby.

Up top for us and the caravan of Ford Model A cars going up

Sun Mountain (Pikes Peak) top and bottom

We drove to the Florissant Fossil National Monument next. This area had a very large amount of petrified redwood trees. Much of it was removed before it became a monument, including an entire stump that Walt Disney took to Disneyland for display. They have excavated around some of the other enormous stumps that were just below the surface. As we arrived, we had to dash into the visitor center to avoid another heavy thunderstorm. This was three days of storms in a row, but we missed the hail with this one. After the storm cleared, we walked around the observation trails. The visitor center has an excellent display of a rich trove of fossils of plants and animals that have been found at the site.  It was a great look at the ecosystem from about 34 million years ago when a warm and wet climate allowed giant redwood trees to grow at 8,000 feet elevation in what is now Colorado. Bonus Points: The visitor center was also similar to our house with SIP walls, solar water heating, solar electric, and natural daylighting.

 

On day six of our trip we visited the Dinosaur Ridge in Golden. This is the site of a number of 100 million year old fossils and bones. In 1877 several dinosaurs were discovered at Dinosaur Ridge, including Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus. After a couple of miles of hiking we headed to the Museum of Earth Science at the Colorado School of Mines. An amazing display of geology - many rocks. Then we checked into our creekside campground in Golden and watched approximately one million people tubing in the adjacent creek on an Sunday afternoon. We walked to town and met my longtime friend Lara Wallentine Hussain for dinner. 

 

Fossil Ridge in Golden, CO

Clear Creek in Golden, CO

 Next up, Rocky Mountain National Park. 

- Paul

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Westward and Upward

We departed DFW at noon on Tue, July 11th. Elena and I had to dodge morning rain showers to get the van loaded up, but once we got west of Denton, the sun broke through with a vengeance. We spent several hours driving west in 105 degree F temperatures with the sun beating on us through the front window. We stopped at a rest area to stretch our legs and a car pulled in beside us. The driver got out and used an infrared thermometer to check his tire temperatures. He then aimed them at ours. Our front tires were 145F, back was 158F. His car tires were 138F.

We arrived at the Amarillo Travel Center, where there is a nice parking lot for sleeping. And the good news for our 5-week trip - we got the longest drive day (363 miles) and the hottest day out of the way on day one!

Daily miles drive plan

On day two, we completed our 3rd longest drive day. About 450 miles from home, we finally got out of Texas. We made a couple of stops in NE New Mexico to break up the drive to our campsite at Trinidad Lake, CO. The first stop was at Clayton Lake to view the dinosaur footprints. Bebop enjoyed checking them out and noted that they were even older than me. No treat for Bebop after that remark.

Clayton Lake Dinosaur Footprints

We then visited Capulin Volcano. A relative youngster, it last erupted about 60,000 years ago. Bebop was not allowed on the trails, but she got plenty of love outside the visitor center from a mom and 4 girls. We drove up to the top parking area and hiked the rim trail around the cone. We were above 8,000 feet and the trail was 1.1 miles with a 350-foot elevation gain. Great views in every direction.

Rim trail at Capulin Volcano

We are settled in to our campsite at Trinidad Lake in southern Colorado.

View from the back of our campsite - Trinidad Lake

And some bonus sunset walk photos too.

Sunset at Trinidad Lake

- Paul

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