Those bells, those bells...!

Not the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the Maroon Bells.  Located about 9 miles southwest of Aspen, Colorado, are a pair of peaks called the Maroon Bells.  When the light is right (seldom, during my visit) the maroon color is pronounced.  Viewed from Maroon Lake, the jumping off point for most visitors, the bell shapes are clear.

 

For those willing to take a few steps, a trail leads around the lake, opening fresh perspectives with each step and with the ever-changing light.

 

Above the end of the lake, two trail systems exist.  The left takes you to the inflow,

(Watch the birdie...)

The trail to the right goes to Crater Lake.  It is a more challenging hike.  Along the way, there are views back to Maroon Lake.

At Crater Lake, the air was still and the colors seemed muted, almost pastel, perhaps due in part to the overcast sky.

The moment that REALLY draws photographers is early morning, looking for the color of the rising sun on those Maroon peaks.

I am now in New Mexico.  Five days after I left the Maroon Bells, all those soft green aspens in the valley below the Bells turned golden, and the Bells got a dusting of snow.  I need to figure a way to get back to Maroon Bells in the end of September rather than the middle.  Maybe next year...

Independence Pass

Route 82 in Colorado runs in a NW-SE orientation between Glenwood Springs and Route 24 south of Leadville.  Along the way, it passes through Aspen, providing the only way in and out of that town.  To the southeast of Aspen it begins to climb and in places, narrows to as little as 14 feet in width, with vertical cliffs to the left and vertical air to the right.  Vehicles longer than 35 feet are prohibited from using this part of the road.

Fortunately, my Forester is less than 35 feet long, and I went exploring.

The roadway rises through aspen and pine forests, reaching the Continental Divide at an altitude a bit above 12,000 feet.  Right there, right at the Divide, is a pond.  Looking across that pond to the northwest, it was as if the world just dropped away below me.

It was raining lightly when I was there.  I stood to the southeast of the pond, and wondered at the concept that the rain, falling on me, would make its way to the Atlantic while rain falling in the pond right in front of me would drain to the Pacific.

The water draining from that pond joined other watercourses, reaching a high alpine meadow alongside the highway, where the headwaters gave birth to the Roaring Fork River.

The river seems placid enough in that high meadow, but gravity will not be ignored.  As the river dropped, it cut its way into the bedrock to form the steep-walled canyon that gave the highway a way up the slopes.  Part way down, it passes over granite that resisted its cutting enough to form a series of waterfalls.

The water was cold, but not too cold for some.

Adventurous I may have been in younger days, but I don't know that I would have felt very comfortable swimming above some of those drops.

Wild Rivers

Well, I am back in Colorado, but let me tell you where I have been. 

In northern New Mexico is a little town called Questa.  A few miles to the west is an area called Wild Rivers at the junction of the Red River and the Rio Grande.  This is what Google Earth says it looks like.

(The red arrow shows the start of one of the trails you will see later.)

This is what it looks like from the ground.

 

(Yep, that's my toes at the edge)

In general, the top area is high desert plateau.  The two rivers form steep-sided canyons.  Trails have been built leading down those canyon sides.  Looking down from above, the trails form a series of switchbacks.  I marked them with red to make them easier to see.

The hiking is, in general, challenging.  The trails drop steeply, with little or no shade.  Sometimes the edge is protected.

More often, the only protection is your balance.

The steepest points have steps to help a bit.

But the operative instruction is "Watch your step!"

And what goes down, must come up...  800' from the bottom to the top.  More than once, I gave water away to hikers who had not planned well.

The campsites were nice.  Most were set right at the edge of the canyon, affording beautiful vistas, and New Mexico skies are often rewarding.  The obvious view was toward the setting sun,

but looking the other way could also be impressive.

On three nights during my stay, thunderstorms rolled through, within 20 miles or less.  The second night, lightning was concentrated about 8 miles to the south, where I had a good view of the sky from my site.

What a great way to end the day.

Waaay away in Colorado

It has been a while since I have had enough of a signal to be able to post.  I have been boondocking in the San Juan mountains in Colorado.  It has been a 3 week tour rather than a 3 hour tour, but I have had "no phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury, like Robinson Crusoe, as primitive as can be".  ... and I loved it.

That's the up side.  The down side is that I have had rain almost every day.  That meant marginal photography, not a lot of hiking, and a very muddy TOAD.

Anyway, here is a sampling of some of the areas I have been exploring.

My last post was from the Cimarron area.  From there, I headed south to Owl Creek Pass.  If you are a John Wayne/True Grit fan, this spot should look familiar.

 

This spire rises from the top of one of the peaks west of Ridgway.  It dominates the big views in the area, both from the east and the west.

Near where I stayed, the rock formations were impressive, and dynamic, changing by the moment with the light.  When those aspens turn gold in September, this must be glorious.

I headed south from Ridgway, driving through Ouray, up to Silverton.  Along the way, the road south out of Ouray is a long, uphill pull, winding, two narrow lanes, with no shoulder, no guide rail, and a looong way down if you drift off to the right (my left in this shot).

I bummed around South Mineral Creek near Silverton, meeting friends there and doing my best to ignore a pulled back muscle.  For most of my stay, rain clouds drifted through the trees on the sides of the peaks.  

The colors of the rock were dramatic, when the weather cleared enough to see them.

When I left Silverton, I swung south through Durango, then east and north to the Creede area.  There were three attractants - South Clear Creek Falls,

North Clear Creek Falls,

and the headwaters of the third longest river in the lower 48 - the Rio Grande.

But here's the thing - these places are HIGH.  That means the weather can change fast.  The above shot of the Rio Grande headwaters was shot late morning, with air temps in the high 60's.  Later that afternoon, I was hit with the first snow of the season.

Cool, huh?  This is as much snow as I saw all last winter in southern New Mexico.

So now I am in Chama, NM, with a few spots near here that I want to explore.  I will return to southern Colorado briefly in September, then back to New Mexico for the winter.  I want to thank my friend very publicly for pointing me to some great places in Colorado.  It has been a treat.

Well, THAT didn't work...

Last year, I explored the Black Canyon of the Gunnison - from the rim.  There were few trails down into the Canyon, all to challenging for me.  I was told that there were no trails that traversed the bottom of the Canyon, as it was impassible.

Well, I am back - briefly.  I found a trail that seemed to lead into the Canyon and decided to give it a try.  The trail began where the Cimarron River flows into the Gunnison River.

Across a footbridge, the trail then led downstream among and through boulders on the slope above the river.

The trail became very narrow as it progressed toward increasingly steeper walls.

At one point the trail was about 8" wide, on slightly sloping, loose surface.

The plan here was to move smartly along.  That has two meanings - move briskly, and move intelligently.  Before I entered the narrow, loose section I noticed an area rubbed clear where someone had apparently slipped and slid about 10 feet down the slope.  I wanted to be sure I would not repeat that maneuver, so I planned every footstep, then I made the steps briskly, not waiting to give the stones much of a chance to slide.

The trail dropped toward the river, with less and less space between the wall and the water.

Finally, I got to the trail's end.

Beyond, the vertical walls dropped into the water, leaving no place to walk.  So - I didn't get far into the Black Canyon, but I gave it my best shot.

Crested Butte

Hiking in the Tetons, I was impressed by the profusion of wild flowers.  After I left there, I worked my way south to Crested Butte, CO, called the Wildflower Capital.  Set among the mountains, this would be a really nice area without any flowers.

The flowers were here, though, in abundance.

Sweet

On The Road To Colorado

Not with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, nor with Brian and Stewie... just me, moving along.

After leaving the Tetons I stopped in Riverton for a few days to deal with rig maintenance stuff.  I left there, heading across southwestern Wyoming, for Crested Butte in Colorado.  I stopped on the way at Flaming Gorge in Utah, the place at which I stopped last summer.  Then, I stayed at the Firefighters Memorial campground, with a long view over the region.  This time I stayed at Rim Campground, about 150' from a cliff edge dropping well over 1000' to the waters below.

The daytime view is pretty grand, but the lighting at dusk was much more impressive.

The last rays of the setting sun lit one rock formation before darkness crept in.

The morning sunrise was a great way to begin the day.

This beats the crap out of sleeping in a Walmart or Cracker Barrel parking lot!

On to my next stop, Rifle Gap State Park, then on to my destination.