Copeland Falls, Calypso Cascades, and Ouzel Falls

July 17, 2011

I would rate this trail pretty high on the difficulty to scenery scale.  Roundtrip this trail is about 6.5 miles and it's easy in the beginning but gets a little steep just past Calypso Cascades.  It's not a hard trail and we got to see three beautiful waterfalls!

Copeland Falls

The first waterfall is only .2 miles into the trail.  It's Copeland Falls.  Considering the amount of snow the mountains had this past winter I bet this waterfall isn't typically this raging, but it was still beautiful.

Calypso Cascades

Calypso Cascades is the next waterfall we came to.  No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the entire cascades into one picture.  This is the best I could do.  Across this waterfall is a cute wooden bridge that made for perfect pictures above the falls.

The final waterfall, and the end of the one way trail is Ouzel falls.  Again, I couldn't get the whole view into one picture, but it's tough to take a bad picture when this is your scenery.

I enjoyed this hike very much.  It's on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park so the elevation is pretty low, which makes it a hike you can get to easily.

Arches National Park, Moab UT - Best Trip So Far!!!

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

Delicate Arch

This is not a photograph out of a magazine or photoshopped, this is a picture I took with my little point and shoot camera.  This formation is called Delicate Arch.  It's the most popular destination in Arches National Park, so of course it was a busy trail, but well worth the 1.5 mile strenuous hike to get there.  This hike is ROUGH!  Straight up the side of slick rock and along some very narrow cliffs.  We got to the park at sunset, which put a beautiful orange glow on the rest of the park.  I wish we could have seen this arch at sunset, but the drive along with the difficult hike made the trip too long to get there that early.  Still, can't beat this view!  

After this hike we kept going, approximately 8 miles along other hikes.  These are just a few placed we saw:

Petroglyphs

Me in Front of Unnamed Arch

Landscape Arch

Pine Tree Arch

Double Window Arches

North and South Windows

Double Arch

Rich and Me in Front of South Window

Colorado Monument National Park & Grand Junction

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

This park was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  The views are spectacular and you feel like you're driving on the rim of the world.

Colorado Monument National Park is located near Fruita in Western Colorado.  Rim Rocks Scenic Byway was on our list of things to do in Colorado and it's located in this park.  All along this beautiful drive you are above canyons and fascinating rock formations.  

Independence Monument 

This is Independence Monument, the center of the park.  It's a spectacular rock formation in the middle of a huge canyon.  Absolutely breathtaking and the first rock formation you see along the Rim Rock Drive.

Devil's Kitchen

There are several hikes along Rim Rock Drive.  We stopped and took in a few, but my favorite was the hike to Devils' Kitchen rock formation.  It's towards the other side of the park and I would call it an easy to moderate hike.  Along the trail we saw lots of lizards!  You have to hike up rock slabs to get into the formation but once you get to Devils' Kitchen you can climb around inside it and the views are amazing!  I love to scramble up and down rocks so I really enjoyed this trail, and the whole park!

It's a definite must see in Colorado!!!

After the long day of playing on the rocks we decided to take in some of Colorado's wine country in Grand Junction.  We visited several wineries in Grand Junction and the Palisades and tasted many wines.  All of which were so wonderful!  My favorite wine was from Whitewater Hills Winery, but they do not offer tours.  We toured Grand River Winery, which offered a very nice tour, but the wine wasn't as good.  Then we ended the day at Two Rivers Winery, which by far has the best views to enjoy while sipping wine but again, not my favorite wine.  We ended up leaving Grand Junction with four bottle of wine that day.  It was a fun trip!

Two Rivers Winery