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Published: April 21st 2010
Rocky Mountain "Frozen" Lake
Trust me, this lake isn't as frozen as it appearsFrom Arches our next destination was Boulder in Colorado. This involved crossing the Rocky Mountains and with a planned detour to Aspen we were looking at about an 8hr drive so we were up before sunrise to get an early start on the day. We packed up the tent and watched the sun come up before having breakfast and heading off.
The road from Arches to Colorado wasn't the most scenic or inspiring we have been on but the fact that we were on an Interstate Highway meant we could cover the ground fairly quickly. We arrived in Aspen and it wasn't quite what I was expecting. It wasn't as quaint as I thought it would be. This is probably attributable to the fact that we are out of winter, and whilst there was still snow on the hills and skiers on the slopes, the town was quiet and had lost any alpine feel. We didn't spend too long dwelling around and started out for Boulder.
The route from Aspen to Boulder takes you through places like Vail and through over the mountain pass. The road took us up over 10500ft (3200m) and the mountains were still covered in
Following the trail
We have been fortunate to take some walks in some beautiful surroundings deep snow. It was all quite amazing to see. Along the way we passed through a number of small ski villages and towns and saw loads of people flying down the ski slopes. It would have been nice to have joined them but I think the slopes here are a little bit above our modest skill levels.
We finally arrived in Boulder. We were staying in an Inn just on the outskirts of the town. There are a lot of farms and open spaces around and it reminded us a little of an English town. The inn was pleasant enough and we had booked a room with a kitchen so that we could do some cooking rather than eating out. We had dedicated most of our time here in Boulder to relaxing and recovering from our escapades in the national parks. We spent the next day walking around the town. Boulder is a nice little town with a pedestrianised shopping street so we looked around but didn't really get anything. We went back to the inn and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on world events and typing up blogs.
The next day we went to
Rocky Mountain National Park. This is about an hour north of Boulder. We had planned on driving from one end of the park to the other and cross the continential divide but unfortunately not all the roads in the park were open yet so we couldn't do this. We started doing a walk to and had intended to go to a lake about 2.9 miles away. The paths were very icy and covered in about knee deep snow. The path where we had to walk wasn't very well marked and we had to try follow the footprints in the snow and the layer of compressed snow where previous walkers had gone. Before we started on the trail I went to put my shoes on as I was wearing my slops (flip flops) and realised I hadn't brought any socks so had to go without. Soon after we had started up the trail we saw that most people were actually doing the trail with snowshoes. The fact that I was doing it in trainers without socks just proves that they must have been amateurs. About half a mile up the track we came across a little frozen lake. We weren't quite
sure where the path went and it looked like the footprints went across the lake and up the slope. Sandra decided to walk around the lake to explore the otherside whilst I investigated the footprints on the ice. As I investigated the depth of the snow and thickness of the ice beneath it I heard an unusual sound. It sounded like ice cracking but it couldn't be because that would mean I was standing on cracking ice. As my foot broke through the ice and into the frigid water, two thoughts ran through my head. One, I was glad I didn't have socks on or they would have gotten all wet and secondly I was glad that the water wasn't to deep. I proceeded to break my way through the ice until I finally got to more solid ice. The upside of this experience is that my shoes are now nice and clean. We carried on walking for about another 30 minutes but then the weather started turning with the wind picking up and snow starting to fall. With the state of the path we decided it would be more prudent to turn back.
We drove around the rest
of the park and the scenery was quite lovely. I didn't feel that this part of the Rockies is as dramatic or stunning as the Canadian Rockies but it is beautiful in it's own right. We got back from the park at about 4pm and made a great supper of steak and fried potatoes with cheese and ham.
Today we drove from Boulder to Hot Springs in South Dakota passing briefly through Wyoming. It isn't the biggest town in the world and it is more a stop on our way to Mount Rushmore which we should see tomorrow.
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mom
non-member comment
You both looking as good as the scenery! Looking forward to seeing you back