Rocky Mountain High 2009

We are slowly catching up. Same drill as before - older pictures at the bottom, newer ones at the top. We recommend starting at the bottom and working your way up. Hope you enjoy your trip through Colorado as much as we did!

October 14 - On our way to Arizona, we passed by Shiprock, NM, a 1700 foot high volcanic plug that stands tall above the desert floor. It served as a landmark for early pioneers and as a sacred site to the Navajo.

October 13 - On our way to Vallecito Lake, one of the largest lakes in Colorado, we discovered the Carvings Project. During the summer of 2002, over 70,000 acres burned at a cost of $40.8 million. Over 4,000 firefighters and support personnel fought the blaze and only one man's life was lost when a tree fell on him. The community went on a mission to pay tribute to the firefighters and restore tourism to the area so they hired a local wood carver who used actual photos taken during the fire to carve images of firefighters, animals and equipment. This was Carving #1 - Fireman with Shovel. There are 14 carvings in total found in various locations around the lake.

Riverside Resort and RV Park just north of Durango where we spent nearly a week. It was a really nice campground with the Animas River running through it and of course, being October, it wasn't very busy. It was a beautiful place to stay and close to so many places to go and things to do.

Ancient wood lying amidst the ruins of a large kiva.

One of the hallways connecting several rooms together in the north wall of the West Ruin. The West Ruin was the largest of the great houses with at least 400 rooms rising to 3 stories.

We then drove south of Durango to Aztec, New Mexico, where we toured the Aztec Ruins National Monument, the remains of an ancient Puebloan settlement that included a large number of large public buildings, smaller residential pueblos and kivas (ceremonial buldings). Like Mesa Verde, these Puebloans left in the late 1200s. These ruins are part of the West Ruin.

October 12 - After spending a lonely Canadian Thanksgiving (although we did have turkey and all the trimmings), we set off for a day in northern New Mexico. Our first stop was just outside our campground near Durango where Ted investigated this mysterious but beautiful geological phenomena. We learned that it is part of Pinkerton Hot Springs - a geothermal hot springs. The water flowing down the rock is very warm. Aren't the colours incredible?

Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff dwelling in the Park. We hiked down to get a closer look. It contains 114 rooms and 8 kivas built into a natural cave. In 1200 AD it was thought to house about 100 people.

The Square Tower House viewpoint

Square Tower House - the tallest structure in the park at 26 feet. The four-storied tower was part of a large dwelling with about 80 rooms and 7 kivas. Most of the other high rooms collapsed after the dwelling was abandoned.

Here is one of the cliff dwellings I mentioned before that you could see from one of the viewpoints.

Here we are climbing up 60 feet of stone steps. At least we had something to hold on to.

Ted can't believe I was willing to put this picture on the blog. I just wanted to prove that I actually crawled through the 12 foot long tunnel. No jokes about my big butt; I'm already well aware of it. At least I didn't get stuck; that would have been humiliating.

Here you can see the length of the cliff dwelling and the various rooms that were built into the cliff side.

Our tour guide gave us a lot of information about the life of the Ancient Puebloans. You can see him standing next to a kiva while the rest of us checked out the rooms and a couple of caves that were found behind the brick rooms. What a job it must have been to build these dwellings.

The climb was worth it. Balcony House is a smaller cliff dwelling but cannot be seen from the road. There were several passages, rooms, kivas and balconies. I just can't imagine living on the side of a cliff; you sure wouldn't want to walk in your sleep.

As I said before, we chose the more "adventurous" tour, Balcony House, and they weren't kidding. We climbed a 32 foot ladder, crawled through a 12 foot long tunnel and then climbed up a 60 foot open cliff face with stone steps and two 10 foot ladders to exit the site. Call me stupid! Here's our group climbing up the 32 foot entrance ladder.

Cliff Palace - Two of the cliff dwellings required tickets for a ranger-guided tour. We chose to do the more "adventurous" tour - Balcony House, but had an excellent view of Cliff Palace from above. There are over 600 cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. It's amazing to see what the Anasazi accomplished with just a few simple tools. We'd stop at a viewpoint, look across at the cliffs across the valley and see two or three of these dwellings clinging to the side of the cliff. They were architectural geniuses as far as I'm concerned. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde National Park - About 1400 years ago a group of people chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived here building elaborate stone communities in the shelter of the canyon walls. Then in the late 1200s they left their homes and moved south to Arizona and New Mexico leaving no written record as to why. Archaeologists called them Anasazi but they are known as Ancestral Puebloans. The Mesa Top Loop Road is a 6 mile loop which gives you easy access to mesa top dwellings and views of cliff dwellings. This is an example of a pithouse from the 900-1100 AD period. The houses were round with benches and ventilators and included areas for cooking and sleeping. Other round pits were known as kivas and served as gathering places for various activities and religious ceremonies. The purpose of the towers is unknown. They were connected to the kiva by an underground tunnel. They may have served as watchtowers. On the mesa top the Puebloans grew beans, corn and squash and hunted deer, rabbits, squirrels and other small game.

Four Corners Navajo Tribal Park - the only place in the U.S. where four states come together at one point. I have one hand in Arizona and one in New Mexico, one foot in Colorado and the other in Utah. This time I can honestly say I don't know exactly where I am. Glad I didn't have to pay all four state taxes while I was there.

October 9 - Some of the unusual rock formations south of Cortez on our way to Four Corners.

October 8 - One section of the winding road through the San Juan Mountains on the way to Durango. Pulling a trailer through some of these narrow roads can sometimes prove to be a challenge. Good thing Ted's up for it!

Ouray, once a thriving mining community, now the home of Ouray Hot Springs and the Ouray Ice Park, the world's first ice climbing park and host of the Ouray Ice Festival, the premiere ice climbing event internationally. There was no ice there yet, but people were busy setting up sound systems in preparation for the January event.

Statues throughout the Village depict the various outdoor activities and the history of Telluride. Obviously snowboarding is very popular.

Once you reach the end of the second lift at Station Mountain Village you can take the gondola from one end of Mountain Village to the other. Here you're looking at high end condos and chalets instead of the houses you see in town.

From the town you can reach the ski lifts of Mountain Village via two lifts and a gondola. This is the view of the town from Station San Sophia.

Bridal Veil Falls (I think every state and province must have at least one or two Bridal Veil Falls) is a 365 foot two-pronged waterfall situated at the end of box canyon overlooking Telluride. The building at the top of the falls was once a power plant used to supply power to the Smuggler-Union mine and is now a private residence. There is a switchback road up to the house and we made it about 2/3 of the way up but our truck proved to be too long to make it around some of the corners. You can also access the house from the top of the canyon. Quite the home, hey??

October 7 - Telluride, CO. Telluride was once a Ute Indian hunting ground, then a rough and tumble mining town and then a ghost town. Now it's a town known for its outdoor adventures, film and music festivals and laid-back mountain atmosphere.

Dragon Point - I thought the tree was really unusual and worthy of a picture!

The view of the Painted Wall from the Painted Wall Viewpoint (makes sense, doesn't it?). The sun was starting to set so it added a mystical feeling to an already spectacular view.

The view of the canyon from Devils Lookout. It's impossible to capture the depth of the canyon, but trust us, it was deep and narrow!

October 6 - After setting up camp at Ridgeway State Park, we drove to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison State Park. This Park was one of the best surprises we have encountered in all our travels. It was awesome. This canyon is so deep (2000 ft.), so sheer and so narrow that very little sunlight can reach it - hence, the name Black Canyon. Unlike the Grand Canyon, the gorge shows no sign of ever having been inhabited by people, even native Americans, If early settlers thought the Grand Canyon was a deterrent, can you imagine what they said when they saw the Black Canyon??

Further south we stopped for a break at Glenwood Springs Rest Area. As you can see the snow had disappeared and this man was fly fishing in the Colorado River.

October 5 - On the road again. We encountered snow at the Eisenhower Tunnel (Loveland Pass) and stopped for lunch at Vail. People who love to ski were happy to see snow accumulating on the ski runs. October 4 - We spent the day driving around the Golden/Denver area. We took the Lookout Mountain drive west of Golden and saw beautiful homes high in the hills. We saw winding rivers, beautiful fall foliage and ended up in the town of Blackhawk. We then drove back to Denver where we checked out the State Capitol buildings and, of course, Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium where the Denver Broncos were defeating the Dallas Cowboys - final score 17-10. Looks like a packed house!

Back to civilization - Estes Park. I'm not sure how civilized this place is, however. It was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel "The Shining". Staff consider Rooms 217 and 401 and the ballroom to be the most haunted. Although Kubrick's movie was not filmed here, portions of the 1997 mini-series were.

As we continued along the road towards the Continental Divide, the snow got deeper and deeper and the road seemed to get narrower and narrower. On the way back I was on the cliff side and I'm surprised I didn't put a hole through the floorboards of the truck as I kept trying to brake going around the curves. Good thing Ted was driving!

From this height we had an incredible 360 degree unobstructed view of the Rocky Mountains. Wow!!!

At the top of the spires is what appears to be a giant compass. It is actually a large disk that points to various locations around the world. By the time we got there Ted was extremely winded and feeling the effects of the high altitude. The medication he is on contributed to this shortness of breath and light-headedness so while we were in Colorado he quit taking his medication. It was quite pleasant to not be the one panting for air and lagging behind for a change. The temperature here was only about 35F (+2C) so Ted was not only dizzy, but cranky, too!!

The paved Tundra Communities Trail starts at an elevation of 12,110 feet - well over 2 miles above sea level. We climbed another 260 feet to get to the granite spires at the end of the trail. The trail is paved to protect the tiny delicate plants that grow at this elevation.

The scenery was incredible as we drove the winding Trail Ridge Road through the Park. Nearly one third of the Park is above treeline - 11,400 feet of elevation. The Park has 72 peaks above 12,000 feet. Long's Peak rises above 14,000 feet. This is just one of the many lakes and peaks we could see from the road.

Just a few miles past the Rocky Mountain National Park Visitors' Centre near Estes Park, we came across a herd of elk, one of several herds we saw in the Park. When we left the Park at sunset we saw people crowding into the park and setting up lawn chairs (and tripods) so they could watch the entertainment - elks bugling and sparring in the annual fight for the females known as rutting season. Personally I can think of better things to do on a Saturday night.

A few miles south of Estes Park we came across the beautiful Chapel on the Rock. In 1916 Monsignor Joseph Bosetti and two friends saw a meteor fall from the sky. The next morning they found a large rock on the property and Bosetti vowed to some day build a chapel on the site. It took him 20 years to raise the funds, but in 1936 the church was completed and his dream came true. The land was donated by the Malo family and they also paid for the church's maintenance for decades. In the background you can see a giant statue of Christ. It is a beautiful church in an incredibly beautiful setting.

October 3 - On our way to Rocky Mountain National Park we took a short drive off the highway just north of Nederland to check out Red Rock Lake (above) and Brainard Lake. Both lakes are quite shallow and were already starting to freeze over. Brrrrr!

The view of Denver from the top of the Red Rock Amphitheatre.

The view from the top of the amphitheatre looking down at the stage. The girl you can see part way up is actually jogging back and forth across the rows from bottom to top and back again. Now that's exercise! I was exhausted just walking up to the top. I saw an interesting sight on the way up. From a little alcove part way up came the sounds of a piano. I peaked around the corner and there was a man playing a small electronic piano. Rose petals were scattered all over the cement floor and sitting on a ledge were a young couple sharing a bottle of wine! I think I was witnessing a very romantic proposal. Something to tell their grandchildren about!

Look at the size of the amphitheatre! It will hold over 9000 concert-goers. I think I'd bring a pillow though! Not exactly soft cushy seats!

Welcome to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre located a few miles southwest of Denver. I love the Moody Blues album "A Night at Red Rocks" but never realized where it was recorded. Now I know and what an incredible location for a concert! The outdoor theatre is set between 400-foot-high red sandstone rocks and the acoustics are said to be incredible! Other bands playing and recording live concerts at Red Rocks are U2, Neil Young, R.E.M, Coldplay and Phish to name just a few.

The packaging room. Thousands of cases of beers hurtling down the conveyer belt to trucks which distribute the beer to bars, stores and restaurants all over the country. Just watching it was enough to build up a real thirst. The entire tour was quite an experience. We highly recommend it!

Mashing is the final process of converting any remaining starch into fermentable sugar (which means nothing to me). The mashing process takes place in large copper kettles called mash tuns. Rows and rows of these copper kettles was an incredible sight! As Homer Simpson would say - "Beer!!!"

We were surprised at the number of different brands of beer that is made by Coors. We even had a Canadian connection - Molson Canadian that is! The secret of Coors' success is the crystal clear Rocky Mountain water and two-row barley - both of which are readily available in the Golden area.

As soon as we got settled into our campground in Golden, our first stop was the Coors Brewery. I'm sure this isn't a surprise to anyone who knows Ted. Besides the tour we got three free beers each as a bonus! Coors was founded in 1873 by Adolph Coors and Jacob Schueler. In 1880 Coors bought out his partner - a very successful move on his part. In 1959 Coors was the first brewery to use all aluminum beer cans.

October 2 - Our first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains as we headed into Colorado.

Cheyenne is home to Warren Air Force base which initially had 200 Minuteman I missiles in 1963. These were replaced by Minuteman IIIs by January, 1975. Warren is now left with 150 Minuteman III missiles which were reduced from 3 warheads to one by 2001. Several missile sites similar to this one can be seen from local highways. I'm not sure if this collection of missiles inspires confidence or fear.

October 1 - Cheyenne, Wyoming - We spent one night in Cheyenne, a city with a colourful history of lawmen and outlaws. Today it is Wyoming's state capitol and largest city. Downtown Rapid City has statues of presidents on its street corners; Cheyenne has 8 foot tall cowboy boots beautifully decorated by local artists.