San Rafael Swell

We left Montrose early this morning, heading west. We're trying to get across Utah and partway across Nevada before stopping, so there wasn't much time to stop for photographs.

Lunchtime came when we were near Green River, Utah and we were both craving a hamburger. So we checked out Ray's Tavern. My blue cheese bacon burger just might be the best burger I've ever had. And on this hot day, bottomless iced tea tasted pretty good, too.

Thirty miles west of Green River, I-70 bisects the region known as the San Rafael Swell. We've stopped eastbound on a previous trip to Colorado, to walk out to the edge and enjoy the vista. It's an amazing landscape, different, but every bit as beautiful and interesting as the national parks and monuments to the south.

Utah.com says this about the Swell:

Eons ago, tremendous geologic upheavals formed a giant dome of rock- a "swell" in the earth's 

surface. The harsh elements beat against this dome and eroded it into a wild, broken array of 

multi-colored sandstone. Wind and water carved this jumble of rock into incredible formations 

as buttes, canyons, pinnacles and mesas emerged, making the Swell one of the most ruggedly 

beautiful pockets of terrain in the world. A part of the Colorado Plateau, the San Rafael Swell is

high desert country, and in some sections, it is a sweeping country with towering mesas, buttes, 

and pinnacles rising from flat desert floors. In other areas, it boasts rolling pasture lands 

populated with antelope and wild horses. And just around the bend it can become an incredibly 

wild, broken land with streams cutting through slot canyons that open up to panoramic vistas.

We stopped at all the overlooks heading west; most had an earthcache to find, and we also shopped the Navajo jewelry and pottery vendors there. And took pictures. One last stop before getting back on the road was designed to bring people to a place of scattered black boulders, each with a pictograph. It was an unexpected and very cool stop on the shoulder of the highway.

My favorite antique shop in one of the tiny Utah towns was also a must-stop; DW dropped me off and bought gas, then picked me up. I like the retired man who owns the place. He moved there to be close to family, but eventually they all moved away and he was left alone in a place he'd come to love. I but didn't find anything to buy this time, but loved it when a man asked the price of a large bowl, just like one he'd broken recently. The shop owner said "in that case, it's free," and wouldn't be budged when the customer protested.

We made Ely by nightfall.

North rim...

It's an 80-mile drive from the main side of the park to the more remote north rim, but it's worth every mile. We headed out early, caught the sunrise lighting up fresh snow (the first this season) on the San Juans.

Very cool (and slightly eerie) Needle Rock stands 800 feet above the valley floor near Crawford, Colorado.

The painted wall from the north rim (and much better light today)

Yep, he really did go out there, but it wasn't as dangerous as it looked. Still, I nearly had a heart attack until he walked back to a safer place.

The scrub oak was turning bright red on this side of the canyon.

There was an earthcache here, so Mac the rock-climbing travel bear rode out to the lookout in my pack.

The last overlook on the north rim is also the only place where horses are allowed (except for the commercial handlers, with permits).

My first golden eagle. He was sitting out in the field as we drove by, and when I gasped, DW hit the brakes and turned around. Just as I got the camera focused on the eagle, it took flight.

Black Canyon

We spent the day exploring the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. The canyon is literally in Dave's uncle's back yard; you can see the black cliffs jutting above the lower adobe hills right from his fields. We've done plenty of exploring out in these mountains, but I'd never seen the part of the canyon that makes up the national park.

The canyon gets its name because of the steep sides of the canyon walls, so steep that sunlight has trouble penetrating into its depths. This lack of light makes the walls appear black. At its narrowest point, the canyon is only 40 feet wide at the river.

The park protects the deepest part of the canyon, where the sheer walls come the closest together. Park entrance and visitor center are on the south side of the canyon. The narrow road tracks close to the edge, with turnouts and viewpoints to walk to, for a closer look.

The aspens are turning color here, so is the scrub oak. The blaze of color contrasting with the dark rock was spectacular.

There are places inside the canyon that are thick with dark green pines, wide rocky shelves of rock that have collected enough soil for trees to grow.

One of my favorite features in the canyon is the Painted Wall, on the north rim of the canyon, but visible from both sides.

Before we left the park, we drove down the extremely steep blacktop road that goes all the way to the river's edge. Spooky, steep, windy, vertigo-inducing road. Not for the faint of heart, or those without low gears... you could overheat your brakes easily. When we reached the canyon floor I stopped holding my breath, and enjoyed the view.

This house-sized boulder was half in, half out of the river. The trees have grown up around it, and the river is doing its thing. In a million years or so, it will be reduced to a pebble.

Heading west...

A foot race in the city nearly derailed our attempt to get to a favorite breakfast spot of Mandy's, but we finally succeeded (driving 20 blocks out of our way).

We dropped Mandy at her apartment, then headed west over the mountains. We stopped in Blackhawk for a look around, then got distracted an hour later by a steam train running alongside the river. We waited and waited, and finally it arrived. Because of the grade, it had to be towed the last mile into the station by a diesel switcher engine. DW was disappointed, but the engine was very cool, and worth waiting for.

We watched the altimeter as we climbed one particularly high and rocky pass, and cheered when it went over 11,000 feet. The mountains were clear of snow and trees this high, but the elevation didn't stop some very ugly mining activity and tailings piles.

One of the old caches we were looking for was near the headwaters of the Arkansas River, near an old log cabin. Hunters were camped there, so we did the cache and walked back to the truck. But I couldn't resist a steep rocky scramble down to the riverbank for a few photos.

We drove for a couple of hours on a Colorado highway that runs right along the continental divide. Range after range of mountains, rising from a broad, flat plain of green fields, each with a 14,000 foot peak in the center. It was some of the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen. And completely impossible to photograph.

We climbed up over Monarch Pass to Durango, then finally came to Blue Mesa Lake. The sun was low in the sky, and the light was beautiful on the rocky basalt cliffs.

A long day of driving, but we saw some spectacular scenery.

Elk and golf

Talk about a double take! As we drove into Estes Park, we spotted a huge bull elk standing in a yard on the edge of the road, and slowed down to watch. I glanced to the right, and told DW to turn around, now. I guided him back to a side road, watching ahead, then pointed toward the golf course. We found the rest of the herd.

There were three big bulls in the herd, including this guy who was close enough to temp a few guys to walk out onto the golf course. Not a great idea.

This guy was roaming around in a golf cart, trying to herd the elk together and off the course. Good luck with that. When he saw the three guys photographing the bull, he headed their way and tried to shoe them off the course, too. Here he had better luck. The elk just ignored him.

When we retraced our steps, the original bull elk was still grazing his way through the yard of this small house. I love having deer visit my yard occasionally, but I'm not sure I'd like having elk visit me.

All this just strengthened my belief that if you don't want to miss out on these unexpected sights, never go anywhere without a camera.

Hiking to the old ones...

We're spending the weekend with our niece, Amanda, who lives in Denver. We suggested hiking in the mountains, to look for more fall colors and pick up one of Colorado's oldest geocaches.

First we went to her favorite breakfast place, which does make-to-order steel-cut oatmeal. Sort of like a sub shop, where you choose the toppings you want. She eats here several days a week, and I can see why. It was yummy.

Then we headed toward Estes Park and our trail. The trailhead was a simple wide pull-out along the highway, and a small trail sign. We scrambled up the rock switchbacks to the open meadowland, then walked through pine forests with distant views.

Dave kept us on track to the cache, and we finally got close enough to send Mandy off to make the find. We signed the log and let Mac, the travel bear, pose for a photo with the original log. Mac has taken a TB to a lot of old caches on this trip, then we'll send the TB on it's way with a lot of miles in its log.

Also in the area is a collapsed homesteader's cabin, and an odd log cabin-type structure build over a pit in the granite. It was fun to explore a bit, before we had to head back down.

What a beautiful day for a hike in the Rockies!

Chasing Aspens...

We headed out early this morning with one goal: search out the best fall colors we can find. When we went to Telluride a few days ago, the aspens were starting to turn from yellow to orange, so decided to head in that direction again. When we turned west out of Ridgway, the morning light was just reaching the top of the San Juan mountains, ready to spill light down the valleys. We couldn't have had better timing.

We joined a bunch of other photographers at a wide pullout, each ready with tripod and some with huge telephoto lenses. I'd have preferred a wide angle landscape lens; maybe when I get home I'll invest in one. But my 18-250mm Sigma lens plus polarizer is great for this kind of light and bright landscape.

We stumbled upon Last Dollar Road by accident; it was a good parking spot to photograph a hillside with a rustic wood fence in the foreground. When we decided to drive up the road just a ways, to see what was back there, we struck photographic gold.

It's miles and miles of dirt road through broad parkland with creeks and grazing cattle, old homesteads, and the occasional cluster of ranch buildings. We forded creeks more times than I can count, and the road got steep and rutted and a bit dicey in places. It's not for the faint of heart, or those without four-wheel drive. I was glad to be in the Tundra.

We leap-frogged with a group out for a photo tour, and when they stopped to walk through this old and twisty stand of aspens, we joined them. These trees were huge... for scale, check out DW on the hillside taking a picture.

The more we drove, the more beautiful the mountains and rivers of aspen trees, flowing down the ravines. And as we climbed, the colors deepened from gold to orange, copper to burgundy.

I could have spent all day here. As it was, we were out on the back roads more than six hours, just chasing aspens.

There are more aspen photographs to come.

The Black Canyon on horseback

We visited one of Dee's oldest friends today, and visiting his ranch brought back such a rush of memories. Besides farming, Ron also runs a pack horse service, mainly hauling gear into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison for fly fishing and river rafting outfitters. The fishermen and rafters drive to the rim on a 4x4 road, then hike the last steep mile down to the river. All the gear (rafts, food, tents, cooking gear and so on) is taken down to the river on the backs of horses.

Years ago, on another road trip that led us to this part of Colorado, Dee arranged for me to ride down into the canyon with the pack horses. I rode a cute quarter horse mare, and the cross-country ride to the rim was a blast.

DW met us at the rim in one of the ranch trucks, and that's when we learned that the outfitter cancelled the trip. So we tossed the gear into the back of the pickup, and we all rode down to the river on horseback. The guides rode the pack horses; I can't believe that was comfortable, but they didn't seem to mind. When we rode back up to the rim, Dave and I drove the truck back to the ranch. The guys turned the pack horses loose, and they headed back to the ranch at a fast lope.

Even though I had my own horse back home, and rode nearly every day, this was a thrill for me, and it will always be one of my favorite memories.

Especially seeing my non-horsey husband on horseback. That's something I'll never forget!

Telluride

So... I admit this is not my favorite town. I've only been here at the height of tourist season, both winter and summer, when the streets are crowded and crazy and noisy. It's just not a fun place to be.

But it's also one of the most picturesque settings for a town I've ever seen, and we took a chance that this would be a good (quiet) time to visit. I've been craving the chance to photograph the aspens turning color, but fall is coming late this year. So I thought going to a higher elevation just might do the trick.

It did.

We walked around town, then rode the gondola to the upper village for a brew and a flatbread pizza.

After our fun on the ski slopes, we decided to see the rest of the box canyon that Telluride sits in. And found a very cool (scary) road that climbs out the end of the canyon, with stupendous views. Not a word I use often, but completely appropriate.

At the top, above a pair of waterfalls and a sheer cliff, is a power plant that once provided power for the big mine at the end of the canyon. It now provides part of the power for Telluride. The road was closed from here to the top of the ridge, so it was the end of the line for us.

We took a different road home, through high parkland with the San Juan mountains in the background. It was absolutely beautiful.