The Light at the End of the Scary Road (Glenwood Canyon)

The Colorado River begins like most rivers, a trickle high up on a mountain pass, in this case La Poudre Pass in the Front Range of the Rockies. It descends some 10,000 feet as it races down the Colorado Plateau, seeking, as all good rivers do, the path of least resistance to sea level. (Too bad it doesn't actually reach the sea anymore, but that's a topic for a different post).

The Colorado River in its infancy, a mild-mannered little stream

It is possible to leave the western entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park and follow the course of the Colorado River all the way to Moab, Utah, just west of where the Colorado converges with the Green River on its journey towards the famed Grand Canyon. (Unless you're me, of course, and you get a little off-course for a while. But eventually you're forced back to the river to head west out of the Rockies and into the high, dry inter-mountain region.) 


But to do that, you have to go through the canyons cut by the river, with the river. Suspended over it, in fact, through Glenwood Canyon (click the link for pics, because I was too scared to stop and take any). There are over 40 bridges and tunnels and other crazy feats of engineering that make is possible for humans to drive this route, but if you're not expecting it (which of course I wasn't), I-70 in western Colorado can be a scary thing. At one point, you can clearly see that you're going west, somewhere below you are the eastbound lanes, and below that is the train, everything cantilevered above above the surface of the river. 


If I were in charge, I would have just gone around the mountains a different way. It was the creepiest feeling ever to be at the bottom of this towering canyon (which may not have been all that towering, but was definitely the deepest canyon I've ever been at the bottom of) with the river, which at least seemed raging, right there. No recourse if there was an emergency situation-earthquake, fire, random wildlife herd stampeding across the road-unless you were prepared to climb straight up the mountain. 


But like many situations in life, once you've passed through them and survived, you start to think to yourself, Hey, maybe I could do that again. And this time, since I know I won't be swallowed whole by towering canyon walls, chewed up and spit back out into the mighty river, maybe I could stop along the way and enjoy the scenery. Because for all its scariness, Glenwood Canyon is also spectacular, especially to a sea-level-dweller like me. 


The best part of all is that after you leave Glenwood and squeeze through De Beque  Canyon, you head out onto a flat plateau with mountains rising in the distance all around you, the river now your cherished friend. Driving west through this country at the sunset golden hour was breath-taking.

Heading towards the mesas of Arches & Canyonlands country, just off of I-70

Until I realized that I'd better hurry the heck up and get to civilization-which in these parts is limited to Moab, Utah-before scary, nocturnal desert things started crawling around the road. But that's a story for tomorrow...

Rocky Mountain National Park (or An Ode to Mountains)

I love mountains. When I was a kid, I thought I lived near some nice mountains. Then I went to Europe in college and stayed at a hotel on the summit of Mt. Pilatus in the Swiss Alps. Those were Mountains compared to what I had grown up with. But it wasn't until I drove through the Big Horn Mountains on my first cross-country trip that I really found out what mountains were. And now I am addicted to them. So Rocky Mountain National Park was a much-anticipated stop, which did not disappoint.

See? Mountains everywhere you look. It's like God took two-thirds of Colorado and crumpled it up like a piece of copy paper and then tried to smooth it back out again, only you can't really smooth paper back out; thus, the many ranges and peaks of the Colorado Rockies were formed.

Mountains so tall that nothing grows on top of them. Mountains that are, well, rocky.

And mountains that are covered with snow. Even in July.

Bear Lake was probably my favorite place in the park. I went later in the day, finishing up my short hike around the lake just before sunset, so it wasn't too crowded. The altitude kicked my butt a little, even though I had just slept at 8,000 feet in Yellowstone a few days before. I just love how the blues were so blue and the greens were so green, especially against the stark gray of the mountains. And how the mountains stand so proudly and resolutely above the rest of the world, like sentinels watching over humanity and nature.

RMNP also has some cool wildlife. Here's a Stellar's jay, which is so brilliantly blue and beautiful.

I also saw a TON of elk. At the top of Trail Ridge Road, which runs over the mountains at a top elevation of around 12,000 feet, I saw about ten bull elk grazing in a field.

This guy was my favorite, even though he wouldn't pick his head up for me.

Up at the Alpine Visitor Center on Trail Ridge Road, a huge herd of mamas and babies congregated.

On the other side of the mountains, I saw several moose grazing along the banks of the teeny, tiny Colorado River, more like a stream at this early stage of its journey.

Another thing I was really looking forward to was seeing tons of wildflowers. I didn't see tons, but the ones I did encounter embodied everything I love about wildflowers; they were sweet, colorful, delicate yet hardy, bringing a mini-party to the harsh mountaintop.

I definitely plan to return to RMNP one day, hopefully earlier in the season so I can see even more flowers. And one day I'd like to come in the fall to hear the elk bugling. It's really a beautiful place.

Where Has All The Time Gone?

So this summer is half over, and I was meant to be updating this blog with my 2011 travels. So I'm going to start doing that, at least one post per day, before my ever-aging brain forgets what happened!