Mount Evans: Narrow Drive!

July 24, 2011

The drive to the summit of Mount Evans is a must do!  It's a pretty scary drive though.  The road is steep, crowded, and in some parts very narrow.  When you get to the higher elevation the steep cliffs and lack of guard rails can really make you feel uncomfortable, but the view from the top is one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen!

Fishing at Echo Lake

The first stop on the drive up is Echo Lake Lodge.  This was a good bathroom break, but we also tried our luck at fishing.  I found myself a comfy rock, but had no luck with the fish.  Still, a bad day fishing with beautiful mountain views pretty much beats any other day anywhere!





The next stop was a view of the Bristlecone Pine Trees.  These trees are the oldest living thing on Earth!  The Bristlecones on Mt. Evans are believed to be at least 1,700 years old, while the ones in California are even older!  I know, trees aren't really that exciting, but these trees were just so neat to look at!

Bristlecone Pine Trees

All along the drive to the summit of Mount Evans there is wildlife.

This is a deer we saw when we stopped to view the Bristlecone Pine trees.  He didn't seem skittish around people at all.  We were able to get close enough to snap a really nice photo of him.

This is one of the many marmots we saw along the drive.  They seemed to be everywhere sunning themselves on the warm rocks.  These animals are large rodents and members of the squirrel family actually.  I always thought they looked more like a beaver.  They only live on plains or in mountain regions so they can be hard to spot.  I think they are so cute!

We saw lots of these guys too, mountain goats.  When reading about these goats I discovered that they are actually not native to Mount Evans, or Colorado for that matter.  The first goats were brought to Mount Evans in the 1950's and now there are an estimated 90-100 mountain goats roaming the mountain.  They don't scare easy and we were able to get close enough for a few pictures.

Another lake you pass a long the way it Summit Lake.  There is also a rest area here for a nice, but chilly, picnic lunch and a restroom break.  If there was a mild winter there can be trout found in this lake in the summer months, but unfortunately we had a pretty cold winter so there were no reports of trout in Summit Lake when we were there.  We didn't try out luck, but there were several fisherman trying it out.

Summit Lake

Finally, after 15 miles of winding switchbacks, narrow roads, and a lot of stopping for pictures you reach the summit.  Well, as far as you can drive anyway.  Once at the top you can hike the short 130 feet to the true summit, which of course I had to do!

 The views from the top are magnificent!  It feels like you can reach out and touch the clouds.  I was at a loss for words, but it was peaceful.

A few tips:

1. Very limited parking at the top.  Either go on a weekday if you can, or go early!  
2. Plan to go straight to the top, stopping for pictures on the way down.  This way you will get parking easily and give your brakes a few rest stops on the way down.
3. Bring your own picnic.  Past Echo Lake Lodge there are no food vendors, and odds are you will under estimate how long you spend on the drive
4. Drive down in low gears, mostly 1st or 2nd.  Give your brakes a brake!
5. Finally, DON'T FORGET THE CAMERA!!!  This tip holds true for anywhere in Colorado.  

Enjoy!!!

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

Poudre Canyon

March 18-20, 2011

This trip started out rocky.  The cabin we were supposed to stay in at State Forest State Park was completely buried in the snow.  We were not aware that the roads would not be plowed in the winter, so we had to make a quick change of plans.

We drove back down to lower elevation in Poudre Canyon and found this little cabin available.  It actually worked out better.  We were on a mission to see a moose and kept hearing that State Forest State Park was the best place in Colorado to spot one.  We must have drove up and down Cameron Pass 5 or 6 times, not to mention we drove all the way to Walden.

Finally, we had given up and driving back to the cabin I glanced towards the river and there he was.  We finally got to see a moose!  They are interesting creatures, so cool to look at.  Mission accomplished!

Breckenridge, Frisco, & Keystone - Skiing

February 18-21, 2011

Well, we tried skiing back in February.  It went about how I thought it would, but the good news is I came home without any broken bones.  Breckenridge, Frisco, and Keystone are all really neat little towns.  Skiing is the main attraction, obviously, but we managed to find plenty of other things to keep us occupied.

Rich Skiing

Angie Skiing

First we tried skiing.  We took the all day lessons offered through Breckenridge.  Skiing is NOT a cheap sport, but I will admit that I enjoyed it for the first 3-4 hours.  Beyond that it hurts, and I was cold, and I fell off the lift.
This is me pretending to fall, which I actually ended up doing several times along the way.  Luckily, Rich didn't have the camera. Rich did much better than I did.  It was a good day though and I'm glad I can say we tried it!

Rich Snowshoeing

Dad Snowshoeing

 Rather than skiing again we found a snowshoe trail.  The Keystone Nordic Center has well maintained trails and it was really easy.  The scenery around there along the way was amazing!!!

     

 
So skiing and snowshoeing are fun, but the best thing you can ever try in the snow is tubing!  Frisco has an adventure park and we had a blast!  It's a little pricey to tube for an hour, but there is a belt that takes you back up the hill, so you get more time on the hill.  This was the most fun I've ever had playing in the snow!!!

Recommendation - The more tubes you can tie together the faster you will go down that hill.  We really got moving!!!

Dad, Rich, and I all going down together.  We went FAST!!!

Canyon Loop Trail, Boulder CO

January 29, 2011

Today we hiked the 3.2 mile Canyon Loop Trail.  Best things about this trail are it's close and we could take our dog Molly with us.  She had a great time!

This hike is west of Boulder off Canyon Loop Road on your way to Nederland.  It's a well known trail so we weren't the only hikers, but it's so spread out that you don't feel over crowded.  I recommend doing this trail on Saturday or Wednesday since bikes are not allowed on the trail on these two days and it looks like it might be a very popular mountain bike trail.  We may try that this summer!

When you start the trail you can go either direction.  We started to the right and this is the first beautiful view you see, looking over Boulder.  It's amazing.  The views throughout the trail are beautiful.







Canyon Loop Trail and Molly



The trail is steep in some places and narrow in others, but I would say all in all it's a mild trail and pretty easy to navigate.



The Family



Since it's January there was some snow and a few slick spots, but we had excellent weather for this hike. 

I highly recommend this hike.  It's not full of spectacular mountain views, or rushing waterfalls, but it's peaceful and you can bring your best friend for a long walk together.