A new adventure

The office contacted me and had an "emergency" drafting of a site that needed to get done.  So, after a few days in Estes Park, I needed to find a cheaper choice for accommodations.  I found a hostel in Fort Collins for one night,  and they were awesome.  Sadly they only had room for me for one night.  But, they let me work two days at the dining room table.  (very early check in and a very late check out) I still wasn't done with the site, but had to move on.  Luckiky, I found a B&B in Drake so headed back out to the mountains.  I got the "Moose" room.  Another two expensive nights there working, then I headed back through RMNP today.

I came into the park from the southwest entrance this time.  Quite a bit different feel than the front range.   Found a nice camp spot, paid my money, threw a couple personal items on my site, and headed out for a hike. One of the rangers at the visitor center suggested Lone Pine Lake.  An 11 mile total hike, but I was up for it having a couple days of rest for my feet and knees.  What a pretty hike!  Started off with a large lake (Grand Lake) then a nice roaring waterfall, than beautiful open meadows and wetlands, and finally up, up, and more up to the snow and the lake. I was a little worried about timing, so headed back down right away.  I was pooped and couldn't wait to get back to my campsite to put my feet up and relax.  I saw some nice wildlife on the way back to my campsite.  Lots of elk, a bull moose crossed just in front of me, and also a cow moose.  Score!  What a lucky day.  I would have stopped to take more pics,...

I really thought I would find a campsite for Saturday night just south of Rocky Mountain NP. Silly me.  After driving out to some really beautiful spots, I discovered Fathers Day is really popular to go on a family camp out here in Colorado.  The third campground I went to luckily had one site open.  And that was only because the people who made the reservation could not fit both tents in the site, so they had left ro find another place to stay.  Lucky me! There were tons of little kids running around, laughing and having a great time.  But after the sun went down and bed time came, meltdowns galore!  Screaming and crying for what seemed like hours.  Finally at 11:30, the young ones quieted down, and then the teenagers started roaming the campground.

I decided to splurge a little and see what all the hub bub is about for the town of Aspen.  Here are my results from the two days: The good: beautiful homes, amazing flowers in front of homes, an awesome staff at the hostel, free coffee most of the day, free wine from 4-6pm,  beautiful grounds, a 92 degree pool/jets, a steam room, free breakfast, very safe. The bad: drivers were rude even when you were in the cross walk, there are not actual big mountains around the town so not the pretty views I expected, the people staying at the hotel were very stand off-ish and I couldn't get any of them to strike up a conversation with me, I said hello or good morning to people on the street while I was walking and most ignored me.  Sigh.  The facility and staff were so nice, I decided to stay a second day and work some more.  I finally got a guy to talk to me at the pool, and once he got going, he was hard to stop! But he did share a beer with me and was super friendly ...

Well, driving my little Sentra around all the mountain roads in Crested Butte really aggravated the already leaking exhaust.  So, I headed to get that fixed up.  Although it was kind of fun sounding like a race car... After a crazy high fix estimate ($1000+) and talk of it taking 4 days to get all the parts in, I decided to drive to a  bigger town & try my luck. I found a local guy that was willing to get me in the next morning and for the low price of $75.  He was awesome.  Since the repair was done by 9 am, and Colorado National Monument is the back yard of Grand Junction, I decided to do a drive thru.  Really pretty canyon and nice hikes out to look at the formations.  I ended up camping in the park and was rewarded with a beautiful view of the valley till the sun went down.  The weather was good so I slept with my rain fly off my tent and enjoyed looking up at the stars.  Drawback? There were these tiny gnats called no-see-um....

On the advice from a new hostel member in Crested Butte, I headed over to a little town called Marble.  Very interesting place.   The first thing I noticed was that as I was driving along, there were giant pieces of white marble scattered through the trees.  What?! Then I noticed many people marked drive way entrances and mail boxes with large random chunks of white marble.  When I got to town?  You guessed it, tons of marble everywhere.   Some was carved into beautiful sculptures, but most seemed to be random sizes and shapes. Pretty cool.  I found the old mill remains from where they originally housed all the quarried marble and shaped it into pieces to be shipped out across the country. You know the beautiful white marble used for the tomb of the unknown soldier?   The marble came from that quarry.   Neat! I also managed to get into the popular BBQ place in town.  Some of the best brisket I have ever had. ...

I arrived in Crested Butte and hit the visitor center first.  While there, I asked if they had a hostel in town.  They did!  Which made me happy because I could really use a shower and a bed for a night. Since it is early in their summer season, the hostel had weird staffing hours and while I could call and pay for my bunk room, there was no one to let me in.  I would have to wait for 4 hours until someone would be at the front desk.  Frustrating, since I had planned on getting work done that afternoon.  I noticed a laundromat next door, so decided to make use of my time cleaning clothes.  After that, I wandered around town and found a place to sit and have a beer and some nachos for an early dinner. Once I got settled in,  I realized what a nice facility it was, and quit whining to myself that it was more than twice what the hostel in Moab has cost me.  Since Crested Butte is known for its downhill mountain biking, I expected there would b...

So, I had originally planned to head towards Rocky Mountain NP after visiting Black Canyon, but on impulse decided to drive down to the Ouray area and checkout the little mountain town with its famous hot springs.  I stopped at a local outdoors shop and got advice that the Amphitheatre campground was the best choice if I wanted to explore the local trails.   Got a spot and ended settling in for two nights.  Beautiful little hike in spot with a clear view of the mountains from my tent door. Did a couple of smaller hikes to two local waterfalls, and then opted for a big 6 mile hike with a 1200 ft vertical.  Wow.  Talk about sucking air.  The steep switch backs and the thin air at 10k feet nearly did me in.  But I stuck with it and was rewarded with amazing views and a fun exploration of an old mining cabin perched on the side of the mountain. The next day was a spontaneous "I think i will drive to Silverton for some coffee".  I heard it was ...

This is a return visit, but has a totally different feel from the last time I was here. This canyon is stunning.  The sheer walls dropping 2700 feet to a roaring river is something you will not see anywhere else.   I spent a little more time learning about the history of the canyon and the early explorations.   I really have an appreciation for how hard it must have been to survey this canyon.   And the engineering feat for the 6 mile water diversion tunnel is quite amazing.  The water in this area really has changed the landscape and the possibility for humans to thrive in an otherwise dry, hot environment. I was able to camp inside the park at the upper campground.  Lots of wildlife.  I had a couple of deer hang out for a while, a cottentail rabbit visit, a ground squirrel,  and more birds than you can imagine.  And after dark, the bats were busy catching bugs. Nice relaxing day.  Now to get back to civilization to ...