Adirontreks

For anyone interested...

We will be keeping a record of the rest of our summer adventures, which always seem to be in the Adirondacks, at a brand new blog:

http://adirontreks.blogspot.com/

Happy Summer!
 

Back to my Champlain Valley Home...

Upon leaving Chicago, we drove south through Indiana which had marginally fewer tolls than Illinois. Continuing east, we were glad not to hit traffic in Cleavland at rush hour and we grabbed some Mexican cuisine outside of Erie, Pennsylvania. We stayed the night, just outside of Fredonia, New York at Lake Erie State Park.

After a muggy night in the car, we packed up and headed to New Hartford, New York where we would visit my Great Aunt Ruth, who is ninety-six and never seems to age! After chatting for a while, we went to visit my cousin Leslie and her cute son Jacob in Canastota. We had a great time, ate some fantastic food and noticed that Jacob is ready for a road-trip:

We drove to North Lake and spent the next two nights at camp with my parents. We enjoyed sailing, canoeing, reading and eating a S'morgasbord (that would be a smorgasbord of S'mores) around the campfire. It felt nice to relax in a familiar place again, and we got to catch up with my folks!

Our trip home wouldn't have been complete without one more stop: Wadhams! We went to the Dogwood Bakery for lunch, where I consumed a Peanut Butter, Jelly and Cheddar sandwich. The rest of the afternoon was filled with music as we got to reunite with Kevin and Elizabeth. After a feast in Plattsburgh, we boarded the ferry and arrived home where we were greeted by a mouthy cat.

We're home for a day, but looking at the weather it looks like a kayak trip may be in order. It's going to be hot and muggy and we can hear the lake calling! 

Just after returning home, we jotted our trip onto the same map that included our 2010 trip. There is some overlap, but Colorado certainly looks much better explored...and that was our goal!

My Kind of Town...

No sooner had we arrived in Chicago when our friend Maria (who's apartment we would crash) decided that instead of lunch, we should go out for ice cream. She knows us well! We fought through brain freeze together and then went our separate ways for the afternoon.

Lisa and I headed over Wrigley Field for what turned out to be the ultimate old-time baseball experience. As we arrived at the ticket office, we were greeted by a five-piece dixieland band dressed in Cub's uniforms. From our seats, located just behind the right fielder, we enjoyed the clever interlude choices of the organist. While admiring the ivy covered backstop and manual scoreboard, we ate Chicago style hot dogs, with all the fixins. The game went into the eleventh inning before the home team won. If they hadn't, it would have been a shame...

For dinner, we wandered over to Dagostino's Pizza for some deep dish deliciousness before strolling back to Maria's apartment. We enjoyed seeing the fine neighborhoods just north of Wrigleyville.

The next day, we lounged around for most of the morning and headed towards downtown Chicago. We disembarked at the Field Museum of Natural History and were greeted by Sue, the largest and most complete T-Rex fossil ever found. We got to tour Lascaux Cave, a reproduction of the famous prehistoric art cave in France which has been masterfully recreated with laser technology. John (Maria's boyfriend) met up with us to see mummies of ancient Egypt, and mammals of Asia and Africa.

After we had our fill of natural history, we wandered down the boardwalk on the shore of Lake Michigan while admiring the skyline. John gave us a great tour of the parks that lined downtown Chicago and we took an apparently obligatory photo into "the bean:"

We don't have these things at home...

The Windy City

For dinner, it was back to Maria's for a buffet; she claims that she likes to have options. With bellies full, we went for a walk and found baby bunnies that must have been born earlier that day. We moved them off of the sidewalk with frisbees, hoping that their mother would come get them. SO FUZZY!

We've certainly been spoiled by our stay with Maria and John but will be heading east tomorrow! Until next time, go Cubs!

Iowa

We awoke  in Grand Island, Nebraska and began driving east and soon found ourselves in Iowa. Despite our best hopes, the landscape of Iowa had not become more interesting since our last visit:

Our destination for the day (don't laugh please...) was the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. It surpassed our wildest dreams for the location, although we didn't expect much after seeing cornfields for eight straight hours. Many of the original buildings remain, including his childhood cottage, his father's blacksmith shop and his schoolhouse. The national park service has yet to let us down. Even the sites that sound completely bland have been set up well and include interesting historical tidbits.

We are spending the night in Walcott, Iowa intending to make Chicago by tomorrow evening!

Rocky Mountain National Park - Part II

Our last full day at Rocky Mountain National Park was Independence Day. Throughout the day, we watched the campground transform from sporty hiker types to large family caravans with RVs. What a difference a day makes...

We awoke early and with surprise pineapple and raisin bran muffins in our bellies, we set out for our final hike of our park experience. We headed to the Fern Lake Trailhead where we set out on a meander through the moraine until we ended up at "The Pool." From there, we took a southerly route and looped back through a recently burned forest that still retained a charcoal smell and wandered near Cub Lake and some other small ponds.

The Glacial Moraine

Burned Trees

We ate our lunch on a shady set of rocks while we watched a herd of thirty elk bathe in a nearby pool. We broke out the binoculars and watched their heads bobbing while some splashed in shallower water. This marmot was sunbathing on a rock next to us:

After lunch, we returned to an increasingly full campground with unexpected cars parked on our site so we decided to catch the shuttle into town to try the last advertising malt shop in Estes Park. As we arrived in town, we were glad that we traveled by shuttle as we witnessed the gridlock occurring on Main Street. The malts tasted great and we dodged crowds before catching the shuttle back into Rocky Mountain National Park.

We whiled away the rest of the afternoon between playing games and music. One family set up their camp seats in a row facing our site so we went to their site and played for them. We have been making sure to not play after 8:00 so that we don't disturb those wanting to sleep in the early evening. However, we could tell by the noise in the campground that we were not going to be going to bed early...

Instead of fighting the crowds for fireworks viewing in Estes Park, we went to the evening ranger program at 8:45 on the effects of climate change on the national parks system. They desperately need some colder winters and wetter weather to combat the effects of the pine beetle in Rocky Mountain National Park or they will be losing most of their trees in the coming years.

Equipped with earplugs, we went to sleep and awoke early the next day. Before we left the park for good, we made a quick drive to Sheep Lakes hoping for the off-chance that we may catch a herd of bighorn sheep. We didn't see any, but Lisa was happy that she got to see a prairie dog!

We reluctantly left the park and began to head east as the elevation dropped and we drove through a narrow canyon. Eventually, we ended up in the flat lands with the rocky mountains to our west.

After a brief cut into Wyoming, we were in Nebraska where we headed for Scotts Bluff National Monument. It turned out to be a sandstone bluff rising hundreds of feet into the air which was an important landmark on many historic trails. It was used on the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer and even the Pony Express trail systems.

Scotts Bluff National Monument

Lisa, basking in Nebraska's glory!

We grabbed lunch at Rosita's Mexican Restaurant, which had a great statue in the parking lot:

For the rest of the day, we drove through the prairie, following multiple trains pulling more coal than we have ever seen before. We are spending the night in Grand Island, Nebraska intending to make the drive across Iowa tomorrow. Wish us luck! 

Rocky Mountain National Park - Part I

Arriving in Estes Park, we saw a banner for a Big Band Extravaganza. We headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park and snagged a campsite at the Moraine Park Campground before driving back into town. We spent the rest of the day meandering between the free concerts that featured local Big Bands and the ice cream shops for malts! Yum!

That evening, we made some dinner and broke out our instruments for an early evening jam and we drew a crowd! We enjoyed meeting some of the people that were camping around us, and no one seemed to be unhappy about our music (yet...).

The next morning, we awoke and got on the shuttle for Bear Lake, which is a popular hiking spot in the eastern part of the park. There was a chance of showers and as we had realized in previous national parks trips, the chance that they give you is equivalent to your chance of surviving the storm. We hiked through hail to Bear Lake, Dream Lake, Emerald Lake and Nymph Lake before turning back to the shuttle stop when we heard rumblings from above.

We lazed around for the rest of the afternoon at our campsite and had another early evening jam with a similar audience. A jazz guitar player came over and I broke out the trumpet for some tunes that probably razzed the neighbors. Since he used Lisa's guitar, we gave full disclosure that a bird pooped on it last week. It was early to bed though because we wanted to beat the storms on our next hike.

We got up early the next morning and took the shuttle to the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. In much better weather than the previous day, we hiked to Mills Lake, Jewel Lake and the Loch. Each of these lakes had a much more sweeping vista than the ones we visited on the previous day. After a picnic lunch at the Loch, we headed back to our campsite for another lazy afternoon.

Huffing, at 10,000 Feet

Mills Lake

The Loch

That evening, much of our original campground audience had left so we felt better repeating songs...

The next day we embarked on the Trail Ridge Road, which is the scenic drive that cuts across the park. We enjoyed the scenery along the way and got to explore trails in the tundra. We found it interesting that plants in this area may only come an inch above the ground but have a five foot taproot! It's amazing how nature can adjust to harsh climates.

Longs Peak in the Distance

Tundra

On the return trip, we got to see a few elk herds. One elk that seemed to be sniffing towards our car made us think that it was time for a shower, so we headed back into Estes Park. We will be camping in the park for two more nights before we start heading east.

Sniffles, the Elk

Denver

Lisa and I are not generally city dwellers when we take road trips. We usually camp at state and national parks whenever possible and that keeps us away from urban areas. Today was a little bit different though since we ended up in downtown Denver for the day. I suppose that a road-trip through Colorado wouldn't be complete without some time spent in its largest city.

Our first stop was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science where we toured exhibits on space, mummies, wildlife of North America, gems and mining. It was an extensive collection and we could have easily spent a week within the museum walls and not seen every part of each exhibit. It was the first time that Lisa and I had seen a mummy in its linen wrappings - gross.

For the afternoon, we headed to Coors Field and picked up tickets for the afternoon baseball game. Unlike our major league ballparks on the east coast, we were able to find an affordable ticket on the day of the game. There were plenty of hits and few runs as the Colorado Rockies beat the San Francisco Giants with a run in the bottom of the ninth (with two outs!).

Heading up the road, we're staying in Louisville tonight intending to camp in Rocky Mountain National Park for the next few nights.

Aspen, Leadville and Fossils

Aspen is the worst place. We knew immediately by the amount of signage, the number of private jets in their airport and the perplexity of their municipal parking policy that we would not be fitting in. After walking by the Prada and Ralph Lauren stores we found a $200 pair of jeans outside another shop....and that looked like their sale rack...

The situation became absurd when we noticed that the town offers valet parking on the streets. We buckled over in laughter when we noticed a sign warning that winter conditions may exist on a playground. We skipped down the pedestrian mall after seeing a sign that instructed us to walk. It is apparent that the town is administered by those used to micro-managing individual's behavior. Sadly, what may have once been a nice skiing town has turned into a strip of glamour shopping for the one percent of the one percent.

On the positive side, we did find some delicious (and expensive) ice cream and headed for a forest service campground on the Independence Pass road. The campground was aptly named "Difficult."

 We intended to explore Aspen but it seemed too difficult to get around without spending an entire offshore bank account so we decided to head east over Independence Pass, the highest paved pass in North America!

We met some geology majors from Dartmouth working at the ghost town of Independence for the summer. It was a picturesque community, which originally served as a silver mining town at 10,900 feet! Lisa was happy to see prairie dogs...or were they yellow-bellied marmots?

We continued over to the summit of the pass and stretched our legs at the 12,000 foot paths. Since we were above the treeline, we had ample opportunity to enjoy the view.

On the other side of the mountains, we arrived in Leadville and breathed a sigh of relief to be in a much more reasonable community. The architecture of the town reminded us of Port Henry, New York which also had a mining heyday around the turn of the 20th century. We parked on the street (for free) and wandered around the town, learning some tidbits of local history. In the evening, we visited the Silver Dollar Saloon, which has been a fixture in the town since 1879. Armed with our cribbage board, we spent the night playing cards and tickling the ivories (the few that were left) on the saloon piano.

We camped at the Silver Dollar campground, a forest service site which was fairly mosquito-infested so we hid in the tent and packed up quickly the next morning.

Since we didn't want to cook breakfast among the insects, we headed to the Golden Burro Diner for french toast. Holding our sides as we left, we meandered south along the Arkansas River Valley.

Crossing over two easy mountain passes, we arrived in Florissant, home of the Florissant Fossil Bed National Monument. We were surprised to see that the park contains some of the largest fossils that we have ever seen: fossilized redwood stumps. These were the result of volcanic mud flows which preserved the bottoms of the trees while the tops died and rotted away. This impressive petrified forest is not the main focus of scientists, for there are incredibly well-preserved insect, fish and plant fossils among the shale deposits in the area which date to the Eocene period (roughly 34 million years ago), when the climate was warmer and more humid.

Petrified Redwood Stump

Flutterby!

Continuing east, we stopped for a peek at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. We walked among the large vertical sandstone monoliths and admired Pikes Peak in the distance. Some of the area was bustling, but a short walk brought us to solitude (or duatude?).

Defying Gravity...

Garden of the Gods

We struck out on finding open camping for the evening, so we grabbed a hotel room in Castle Rock. Tomorrow we will be heading into Denver to explore!

Moab and Grand Junction

As expected, Moab was hot. After stopping in town, we headed directly to Arches National Park, which is only a few miles north. We had been there before, but had not spent as much time as we would have liked. We had also forgotten how popular the park was when we found packed tour buses at the visitor center and a campground with no vacancies.

We made some chicken sandwiches with Arby’s sauce at the picnic area and headed back to the Park Avenue Trail for our only hope of a shady hike. With the towering monoliths on either side, we were able to have a temperate walk, with massive sandstone sculptures at which to stare.

The nearest state park was also full, so we started to drive northeast on the road that follows the Colorado River until we found an empty Bureau of Land Management campground called “Upper Drinks.” I think that we found the only shady campsite in Moab with pinyon pines and scrubby oaks surrounding us. A path led down to the river where we dipped our feet and sat for the afternoon. We also played some music, which ended with a bird pooping on Lisa’s guitar…obviously not a songbird.

Looking for something cold to drink, we headed back into town and found malts! We sipped them while wandering down the shady side of the street before we headed back to our campsite for an early night.

We awoke at 4:30 the next morning intending to hike to delicate arch, the unofficial Utah state symbol. It is an incredibly popular destination and we wanted to beat the crowds and the heat. We arrived at the trailhead as the sun was rising and enjoyed a comfortable hike into the arch. There were only a handful of visitors and we enjoyed the view until the arch was in full sun.

A National Oddity

Looking up at Delicate Arch

When we returned the sun was getting higher in the sky and the heat was getting more intense. We decided to head east since we knew that a heat wave was coming and as Vermonters, we are not really used to sunshine for more than twenty minutes at a time. We grabbed a hotel room in Grand Junction and spent the rest of the day lounging around.

The next morning, we headed to the lower monument trailhead at Colorado National Monument. We hiked to Independence Monument and looked up at the view that we saw from the campground three years earlier. When we climbed onto a rock for a picture, we saw words chipped onto the flat face of the stone, an odd mystery.

With the sun getting higher in the sky, we downed some water and headed back to the car with our shirt collars raised over our necks. The high temperature in this area would be in the hundreds for the next few days and as much as we would like to spend more time exploring Moab and Grand Junction, the heat is rather stifling.

We grabbed some burritos smothered with green chili sauce in downtown Grand Junction and we are currently climbing in elevation on I-70, heading towards Aspen. The high temperatures in the mountains will be in the eighties and we will be able to explore much more freely!

Black Canyon, Ouray and Telluride!

--> After departing from Gunnison we were treated to one of the most beautiful drives that we have ever taken. The road followed the Gunnison River and followed the rim of the Black Canyon. We have apparently reached a new level in our marriage since Lisa let me drive on the canyon road!

We stayed the night at Crawford State Park where we were able to take showers for the first time in four days. It was getting to be an imminent problem. The next morning, we headed to the north rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

We briefly visited the south rim on our 2010 trip and we were excited to see the canyon from a new perspective. The north rim is certainly the road less traveled with its dirt road access, sometimes open ranger station and primitive campsites. We parked and hiked to exclamation point where we realized how sheer the north side of the canyon is. It turned out to be a gorgeous outlook with striking views, which was fortunate since we picked the hike based on the name.

For the rest of the afternoon, we drove the road along the rim stopping at each overlook along the way. I enjoyed playing the trumpet across to the visitors on the south rim lookouts; I’ve been ruining wilderness experiences since 1982. We ate our lunch huddled under one of the few pinyon pine trees that we could find. Natural shade is not a common phenomenon in these parts of Colorado.

A Little Bit of Dixieland

The Same View Without Trumpet...

Easing on down the road, we made our destination to be Ridgway State Park, which was at the crossroads of Ouray and Telluride. We set up camp for the next two nights intending to explore these towns over coming days.

Driving into Ouray, we weren’t sure what to do. We walked up the street, down the street and finally headed to cascade falls, which is accessible from the town. Admiring the high falls, we decided that we needed a longer hike for the day.

We stopped in at the visitor center where the Ouray perimeter trail was recommended to us. It was a five-mile trail, which took us along the cliffs that surround the old mining town. We were taken to the top of cascade falls and along a suspension bridge over a slim box canyon. Just as we were getting tired, we ended up back in town where we stopped in O’Brien’s Pub for a bite.

After lunch we went to the Bachelor-Syracuse mine for a tour. We walked along the tracks into the old silver mine and learned about the terrible working conditions associated with mining, especially in the late nineteenth century. It made us appreciative of the way that we earn our living because we didn’t die of rock-lung at the age of twenty-five. Interestingly there are two mines that may be opening back up in Ouray.

In the evening, we attended a “talk” on “geology” which turned out to be someone showing pictures of their hikes around Ouray. The “talk” contained no actual geology. It was a bright night back at Ridgway State Park because of the full “super-moon” which was supposed to appear closer to the Earth than a normal full moon.

In the morning, we packed our tent and headed toward Telluride where we were told to park in the mountain village. We did as told and got a shady spot in the parking garage. Since our car was at the ski resort, we got to ride the free gondola into downtown. Apparently it is the only public transportation of its kind in the United States.

We got to Telluride on the last day of the Bluegrass Festival and after looking at the lineup for the day, we were determined to get in. We found two guys selling tickets since they had to drive home and we headed for the gates. Since we have been traveling like hippies for the entirety of the trip, we figured that we may as well hang with hippies for the day.

As we entered the festival we sat behind a group dressed as pirates and enjoyed listening to Bela Fleck’s virtuosity on the banjo. At times it was hard to realize that he was playing the banjo and not something with more strings like a lute.

We took the gondola back to the car and got our seats and some snacks for the rest of the day where we got to listen to The Infamous Stringdusters, Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, Hot Rize, and Jackson Browne. It was an incredible lineup of high caliber musicians and at times the people watching were as eye popping as the stage show. At one point, there was an all-festival marshmallow fight. Oh to be back at UVM again…

Since we didn’t have a plan for camping for the night, we headed back to the car before the last act: the Telluride House Band. We were sad to miss it since it threw together many of the top acts of the festival to perform in an all-star bluegrass band. When we were driving out of Telluride, I flipped on the radio and was excited to hear that there was a live broadcast from the festival. We didn’t have to miss the last band at all!

We found a Bureau of Land Management campsite about twenty miles outside of Telluride and fell asleep listening to the last part of the festival on the radio. Our next stop will be Moab where we plan to explore Arches National Park.

Crested Beauty

On top of one of the dunes, a girl from Denver suggested that we visit Crested Butte as one of the most beautiful places in Colorado. It was a few hours of driving which started as open prairie, and eventually became a windy mountain pass. Arriving in Gunnison, we grabbed some barbeque and headed north on the one road into Crested Butte.

As we approached, we could see that it was in fact a very beautiful place, on of the most picturesque that we’ve ever visited. Mount Crested Butte imposingly rises on the eastern side of town while higher mountains with snow in the peaks surround the area. We parked the car and walked down main street looking for something to do, and wandered into the Mountain Bike museum. It had a piano and we couldn’t help playing some ragtime!

It turns out that Crested Butte is the mountain bike capital of the west (or possibly the world). We rented some bikes, grabbed a trail map and headed off on some of the not-so-hardcore trails just outside of the town. We took a break and dipped our feet in the river, which was instantly numbing.

We decided to camp just outside of town where we found “Oh be Joyful,” a Bureau of Land Management site which was on a road that the prius could barely navigate due to the ruts and boulders. We set up camp in view of the snowy mountains and played some music before going to sleep early. Due to the chilly evening we set up the car for sleeping. Oddly enough, we were one of the few campers to have a roof over our heads. We soon noticed that many of the other people around us were setting up their sleeping bags on the ground….and the low was in the 30’s…..sheesh!

 

The next day, we awoke and hiked the “Oh be Joyful” trail towards two tall waterfalls. It required fording the numbing river, which I calculated to be at 32.000000001 degrees. Those with trucks and SUVs were driving across it. After gaining feeling back in our feet we hiked up to the waterfalls, wondering how this area was not a national park.

Waterfalls

After navigating back up the “road,” we headed to the ski town where we would hike through Snodgrass meadows and into the aspen groves. After crossing ten thousand feet in altitude we headed back to the car, huffing and puffing

After some music in the park, we went to Teocalli Tamale for burritos that should fill us up for days! I learned that their hot salsa was very hot as a turned bright red eating their burrito.

We’re headed in the general direction of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, looking for a campsite for the night.