I am going to write a blog post after a while, but last week was full of such exciting colors and adventures that I cannot miss to write about them.
I took a trip to Colorado with my old time buddy Ashutosh Sharma. We together came to US for our masters but we were on opposite coasts. Its been 3 years since we met so we decided to take a week off and randomly picked Colorado for our adventure trip.
Starting of with trip :
Day 1
Saturday July 9,2011
Arrived at Denver International Airport, met Ashutosh and rented out our third accomplice "Jeep - The gas guzzler".
Without wasting any time we headed out to Estes Park in Rocky Mountain National Park. Rocky mountains is a huge chain of mountains that runs from Alaska to Mexico. We reached our campsite at Moraine park and set up tent [Moraine park campground, Loop D campsite 36] and head out for a small hike to fern lake.We had covered only half a mile when we met a couple who informed us that there is a "Mamma bear and baby bear" on the trail, after listening to them we decided to move back as I was carrying quite a bit of food in my backpack and it was not a good idea to go close to bears as they can smell food and might attack you for food. After that we decided to go around the park and visit "Bear lake" , it was such a beautiful crystal clear lake.We did get some nice shots of the evening just like the one below.
After taking some pictures we went back to our campsite and had some home cooked food which Micky Didi had cooked for us and after that we went to sleep, bringing an easy end to day 1.
Day 2
Sunday, July 10, 2011
We started early around 4 am and headed out on trail ridge road, its a pretty steep and nice drive up in Tundra region of the Rocky mountains. We stopped at Alpine visitor center [highest visitor center of NPS] and took a small hike around in the cold and waited for the sunrise. After sometime we went back to the car and drove to the continental divide [one side of water merged into Pacific and the other side into Atlantic ocean]. Then we drove back to the visitor center, had a light breakfast and headed out for a ranger guided tour of the Tundra region of Rocky's [Lava cliffs]. It was pretty cold at the peak of summer, temperature 25F and winds at 30 mph, it was becoming tough to stand out in the cold but a very good learning experience about Tundra region.
Here is a glimpse of the cold morning at Rocky mountains.
After sometime we headed back to the valley and started hiking around bear lake and did a 1.75 mile hike to Emerald bay.It was a good hike , we passed couple of beautiful lakes and some snow too.In the afternoon we started our journey from Estes park to Mt. Evans. Mt. Evans is at a height of 14,265 feet and there is a drivable road to the top of Mt. Evans. With clouds leading our way to the top it really looked beautiful and surreal.
After that we came back and set up our tent at the Echo Lake campgrounds. We had 10 dry minutes to set up our tent, as it started raining after that, which continued through the whole night. We munched our home cooked food and tried to go to sleep. It was a really cold and wet as it rained throughout the night.One of those nights where we didn't get much sleep.
Day 3
Monday July 11, 2011
We woke up early and it was still raining, we packed our stuff hastily and headed to our longest ride of the trip [300 miles] south towards Black Canyon of Gunnison national park.As usual we would stop at a convenience store to brush and grab a coffee for a kick.On our way we passed some really beautiful towns like Vail, Glenwood, Idaho springs etc. The terrain changed quite a bit while moving from north to south.We reached Black Canyon of Gunnison at around 11 am [its close to a city called Montrose].We headed directly to the visitor center to check out the hiking options available.We were told about that this place is mostly about look out spots but if you want you could hike to the bottom of Canyon [1.75 miles], but that is normally very strenuous and has a elevation drop of 1800 feet. Anyways we decided to do the hike to the bottom of Canyon.It required to sign up for a back-country permit to do this hike, I could smell something fishy [back-country permit for 1.75 miles of hike].We were brave enough to sign up for the permit and then we started our hike to the bottom.Normal time to complete the hike is 1:30 hrs to reach the bottom and 2:30 hrs to climb back to the top. The hike started with couple of switchbacks, followed by a long chain and then a completely rocky terrain. Being a back-country trail it wasn't marked so you had to make sure you mark your path or leave some indications at places where there are multiple options. We took help of our camera to take pictures of the path at every diversion but that didn't help a lot on the way back.What actually helped us were a pile of stones which were placed by some other hikers to indicate the correct trail where there were multiple options.It was really difficult to get a grip on the terrain while going down.It was a tiring journey down to the canyon but we completed in 2 hours.Reached the bottom, rested for a while,had some fruits and started our hike back. Here is a picture from hike that gives you an idea about the hike.
The way back was really strenuous as it was very difficult to walk on the small rocks.We got so tired that we used to literally stop after ever 10 steps.Then after an hour of climbing we reached a place where there were multiple routes and there were no stone indicators, looks like somebody moved them. But we listened to our gut feeling and choose the middle route through the a dry ravine which had an inclination of about 75 degrees and was all mud. Imagine climbing a muddy hill with 75 degree inclination. We really pushed hard to get grip and move up on the dry ravine but we couldn't seem to move after 100 or so feet. We could smell that something is not right, we were clinging to hill like rat for about 15 mins, we were scared also as the clouds were forming and if it rained the ravine would fill up and it would be impossible to reach the top today.
But suddenly then we heard a voice from the bottom and someone said you are going the wrong way. I was angry and happy at the same moment, angry as I had to slide back to the bottom to start again upwards, happy that we won't have to go this muddy route, as we would have never been able to go up this route.We came back sliding, clothes filled with mud,Ashu developed a cramp and I scratched my leg but thats not the concern right now. We started climbing again through the correct route and took a sigh of relief after seeing the chain, which was a symbol that now we are on a correct trail and closer to the top [chain was one third the distance from top].Here is an image of Ashu on the chain :
Just fearing rain gods we were moving quickly to get back as soon as possible [ I was almost wobbling on the chains].We finished 6 quarts of water that we brought along, we drank till the last drop. Finally we reached back all dirty, tired,cramped,scratched but Thanked God for bringing us back safely.
We were dirty so we had to take a shower today [ after 3 days ]. We found a shower at a nearby truck stop and had a good refreshing shower [ first experience of shower at a truck stop, not bad]. Then we head out to the town of Montrose for dinner and found this amazing Mexican place. After dinner we went back to our campsite to find out that it was still raining, so we decide to sleep in the car but wasn't comfortable, so went back to the tent. We were so tired that rain didn't bother us at all and we slept for around 8-10 hours. One of the best days of our trip ...should say memorable one
Day 4
Tuesday July 11, 2011
We started around 8 am from Gunnison towards Mesa Verde National park which is more towards the south. We drove through the scenic San Juan skyway aka "Million Dollar Highway". We crossed the towns of Ouray, Silverton, Durango to fianlly reach Mesa Verde National Park.Here is a picture of the beautiful San Juan Skyway
After reaching Mesa Verde we reserved our campsite at Morefield campgrounds and decided to set up our tent first and then head out for excursions.After setting the tent we went to see spruce tree house,balcony house and cliff tower which were all cliff dwellings used by Indians during the early 1200's. The cliff dwellings left us in awe, their architecture and it did leave us with quite a few questions like how they got to these cliff dwellings etc. Here is an image from Cliff tower
After these tours we had our dinner, had Novajo Indian taco [pretty different from a regular taco] and went back to our campsite. We set up a bornfire and sat under the clear sky for the first time during the trip [it was raining every night before that]
Day 5
Wednesday July 13,2011
We got up at 6, packed our stuff and headed out to Durango. We had breakfast at Durango Diner, Ashu had a nice political discussion with an old lady from Silverton. I do remember some of her awesome quotes.
After a nice breakfast we rented bikes from Hassle free bikes and went out for mountain biking in the Durango mountain resort trail.We had the time of our life biking on the mountains, it was a medium level track but it was awesome. Ashu fell into this small dry ravine and scratched his left arm when he was coming down the hill as couldn't control the bike even after applying the brakes.We didn't give up,went back to our car to apply some medication and then set back for another biking trail "Horse Gultch". It was way too rocky for us to even get started and we were a bit scared from the last incident, so we went back to our older trail and did another round on the one which we fell, but we came out victorious this time finishing the trail and without slipping.
After biking we strolled in the downtown area of Historic Durango and had lunch at this Himalayan/Tibetan/Indian joint [ Not the best food but the most expensive of our trip].
After that we headed over to Pagosa springs, we headed directly over to our campsite in the wilderness of San Juan Forest area. After setting up the tent we came back to the city of Pagosa springs, had Mexcian food and then sat in the hot spring pools at the "Springs Resort".There were 23 hot spring pools with temperatures varying from 99F to 119F. We smelt sulphur for the rest of our trip because of the dip in hot springs. While in the hot springs pool we saw the lightning and it again started raining.After that we went back to our campsite, and you guessed it right it was still raining, another wet night .
Day 6
Thursday 7/14/2011
Woke up early at around 4 as usual, packed and headed out east towards Great Sand Dunes National reserve. Sand dunes in the mountains, sounds weird but yes these sand dunes have been formed from the south westerly winds flowing and depositing sand over a period of time.These sand dunes cover an area of 100 square miles, pretty big !!
We reached around 7:30 am, the visitor center hasn't opened yet, so we went around to look for our campsite, and also came to know about a 4x4 12-mile track. We started on the 4x4 track for couple of miles and then turned back as we decided to gather some information about the track from visitor center before traversing the track.
After sometime the visitor center opened and we looked for options to explore around the area. The ranger totally scared us about the 4x4 track, told us that especially if you have a rental then he won't suggest going on the track and it would cost us $1000 to pull us out if we got stuck. That was lot of money ,probably the whole budget of the trip. So, we decided not to do the 4x4 track.
We started the day by hiking the great dune, it was mile hike on to the top of dune and believe me its really tough to hike up on the dune, but nevertheless it was fun going up.But more fun and exciting was coming down, we ran down the sleep slopes of the dunes.
After that we went to Zapatta falls , it was less than a mile of hike, small falls but really fast and cold.We were tired now so we went back to have lunch at this place called "Oasis", same place where we had our breakfast. After lunch we went to this lake close by where Ashu slept for around half an hour and then it started raining again .....it rained almost everyday on our trip but here it was much needed because it was really dry in the dunes. After the rain stopped then we went back to the dunes and played friz-bee in the dunes, it was lot of fun.
We were supposed to camp at Pinyon flats campground at Great Sand Dunes but we made an impromptu change in our plan and started driving towards our next destination Canon city up north .After driving for around 3 hours we reached Canon city amid showers and booked a room in a motel. We had our dinner at Pizza Hut and finally got to sleep on a bed after 5 days [ We camped the last 5 days], I felt the importance of the bed and slept like a log.
Day 7
Friday 7/15/2011
Started of the day with white water rafting in the big horn sheep river.We were dressed in wet suits topped with jackets as the water was very high because of the snow melt.It was mostly level 3 rapids but it was lot of fun as we were sitting in the front and cold splashes on the face did bring a spark in the body.
After finishing the rafting we had our lunch at this Italian joint in downtown Canon city and then headed out to Colorado springs [ we missed on Royal Gorge, just had a glimpse of it].
After reaching Colorado springs we booked a room in the motel and then headed out to see "Garden of Gods" and "Cave of winds".
Garden of Gods is pretty unique in terms of all the weird rock formations but amazingly beautiful.
Heading on to cave of winds we took the "Lantern tour" [ adventure level :: wild]. Our only source of light through the caves was our lantern, and the caves were pretty big. We had to bend and walk up stairs to move around the caves. The scary part was when the guide turned off all the lanterns and it was pitch dark [ even darker than with your eyes closed]; to make things worse he was telling ghost stories about these haunted caves. It was a good tour but it would have been great if guide would have shared more information about the different formations in the caves.
After that we had Thai food and blasted Punjabi music on our way back to motel.
Day 8
Saturday July 16, 2011
Last day of the trip. Time to travel back to Denver to catch a flight back to California.Reached Denver airport , returned the rental car [happy they didn't catch the crack on front glass pane] and took the flight back to Cali.
I was really in love with Colorado with such beautiful terrains and especially for someone who loves to stay and play in hands of nature , this place is heaven . I may not get so much time again to spend in Colorado but definitely plan to come back again.
Special thanks to Ashutosh Sharma for joining me on this fun,adventurous,scary and memorable trip to Colorado.
I know whoever reads this blog would be hypnotized to visit Colorado. But if don't get a chance to visit Colorado, you can view it through my camera lens. Here is the link to to some of the pictures from our trip :
https://picasaweb.google.com/116774270994619278830/ColoradoTrip
