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July 10th 2009

Published: July 24th 2009

SarahandRob

Ouray, CO

The path up through the valley to the old mines

Day 127 - Ouray, CO - Arkansas River, CO

We got up nice and early so we could do a cooked breakfast. I took the reigns in the kitchen as no-one else seemed to want to take responsibility for running the skillet so I cooked up a feast of fried eggs and bacon.
After a scrumptious breaky we headed over to Box Canyon falls for a short walk up and down a spectacular, unique glacial waterfall. We then headed across town to do a longer 5 mile walk on The Beer Creek Trail up to an old mine. The initial climb was pretty tough as we started at nearly 2000m above sea level but once we were up the views were beautiful with the valley, snowy mountain tops and waterfalls to take in.
We stopped to take a look at Ouray, the town we had spent the night in, before setting off on the fairly long drive to the Arkansas River where we set up camp for the night. We had a BBQ for dinner which was rather tasty compared to previous group’s concoctions!

Day 128 - Arkansas River, CO - Denver, CO

Half

Denver, CO

The state building in the city centre

the group were going rafting this morning so we had the morning to do as we pleased so Rob and I went for a run and had a nice relaxing morning. They got back from their rafting at midday and we set off on our way to Denver.
When we arrived in Denver we took a walk around the centre of the city and up to the Colorado State Building. It has a really nice city centre with a pedestrianised street and some good shopping centres. We then went on to Tim’s sister’s house where we set up camp in her garden.
That evening Tim’s sister and her housemates held a house party for us. It was really fun, drinking cocktails on her outside decking area and dancing to old school tunes in her living room. The Italians are not used to drinking anything other than a glass of wine so one cocktail went straight to their heads which was very funny!
At about 11.30pm we all decided to trek to a pub with live music but to be honest I should have stayed back at the house because the mixture of too much pizza, alcohol and home-sickness was not

Rocky Mountain NP

good! I had to sit down the whole time we were at the pub and I was not much fun. We got a taxi home at about 1.00am.

Day 129 - Denver, CO -Rocky Mountain NP, CO

Everyone was feeling a little bit special when we woke up so packing up was a rather slow event. We then went onto "the best breakfast burrito place in Denver" but I couldn't stomach one. After a couple of hours drive we arrived in Estes Park which is one of the gateway towns to Rocky Mountain NP. We stopped at "The Stanley Hotel" which was where Steven King lived whilst he wrote "The Shining". Much to his annoyance the hotel was not used in the film but was in the TV series he made a few years ago.
We then went off into the park and did a couple of walks, one to Alberta falls and one around Bear Lake. It was quite surreal to be walking over drifts of snow and we had to wrap up nice and warm.
Once we got back down into Estes Park we started making dinner. About 10 minites later the heavens opened

Rocky Mountain NP

up and it started blowing a gail. Everyone else was trying to get a canopy up over us whilst 3 of us were carrying on with dinner. Not ideal conditions for making dinner but it was still really nice.
After dinner a few of us decided to go into town and find a bar to watch the NBA play-offs. It was Game 4 of the finals and I had been watching the semi-finals quite religiously in the evenings whilst we had been driving round California. We found a bar with some really strange staff and even weirder locals. The boys enjoyed the game (apart from the fact that LA won) and the girls enjoyed people watching.

Day 130 - Rocky Mountain NP, CO - Steamboat Springs, CO

We woke up to very wet tents so we had a bit of a drying session before heading into Rocky Mountain National Park. We ended up climbing Deer Mountain as the Trail Ridge road was closed due to snow. It was a good hike but the scenery was not as stunning as the day before and we did not have a very good view at the top as it was cloudy.

Rocky Mountain NP

Up on the highest road in America - it was snowing and freezing cold

On the way up one of our friends, Chris, went over on his ankle and I don't think I've ever heard anyone swear so much or so loudly!
Once we were all down the Trail Ridge Road had re-opened as all the snow had been cleared so we set off on the highest road in America (goes to higher than 2 miles above sea level). The road takes you through the whole of the park providing amazing views of the mountains. At the highest point of the road it was snowing! We continued on the road through the park and onto Steamboat Springs, one of the ski resorts in the area. We arrived at our camp site, Strawberry Springs, and it was pouring down with rain. We waited out the rain before setting up camp in the worst campsite yet (it was more of a patch of land next to their hot springs...and there was no space for any other campers!). We built trenches to direct the rain away from the tents, made dinner and rather hastily hit the natural hot springs. They were pretty nice and very hot but getting out was horrible because you had a long cold

Steamboat Springs

The interior of the "bomb-shelter" bathroom facilities - the worst anywhere on the whole trip!

walk to the showers and the only shower was in a building that could easily be mistaken for a bomb-shelter!

Day 131 - Steamboat Springs, CO - Jackson, WY

We woke up and found that we'd been locked into the hot springs. We got all packed up and then went looking for someone to let us out but we had no luck. A few off us then realised that we could unhook the hinge of the gate so we did that and bailed.
It had been another wet night and when we finally got into Jackson (after a very long day of driving) we decided to pay $5 a night for some cabins. The were just wooden cabins with a heater and 4 beds but they seemed like absolute luxury. We headed straight out into the town which is a typical cowboy town that turns into a ski town in the winter. We went to a family style steakhouse and all was good until Sarah decided to spill a whole tumbler of diet coke in my lap whilst I was enjoying my pudding!
After dinner we went to the Rodeo in town which was great. They had some

Jackson Hole

RODEO!

bull riding, bronco riding, single calf lasooing, tag team calf lasooing and the best event ever where they invited all the children under the age of 12 down to the arena and then let a small calf loose and they had to tackle it. The was about 100 children chasing down this little calf and they just could not catch it - it was hilarious!
After the Rodeo we went for a few drinks at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar which was pretty cool and even had saddles and stirrups instead of bar stools. In the taxi back to the campsite our driver was from Oklahoma and said he was Carrie Underwood's cousin!

Day 132 - Jackson, WY

We had an early wake-up to get away by 8.00am. Some of the group were going mountain-biking but the rest of us either went hiking up a mountain (to a very bad view as it was so cloudy!) or spent the morning exploring Jackson.
After our hike we also went to have a look around town which was a real mix of boutique shopping and rubbish t-shirt shops. We also stopped in a really nice little coffee shop for a

Grand Teton NP

A classic view of Jenny Lake

hot chocolate and a cookie (the Americans really know how to make hot chocolate!).
We were all picked up from town at 1.00pm and we were taken back to camp for some lunch. We also had some time in the afternoon to do some laundry, relax etc. Rob, Chris and I choose to go and see The Hangover in the afternoon which was very funny!
It was my turn to cook in the evening so my group got cooking a stir-fry. We spent the rest of evening at camp and we spent some time with another Trek-America group who were also staying there (lets just say we were very lucky with our group!!).

Day 133 - Jackson, WY - Yellowstone NP, WY

We said goodbye to our five star cabins and headed a few miles north into Grand Teton NP. We did a 9 mile walk around Jenny Lake which was really nice; we had the wide Wyoming plains on one side and the beautiful picture perfect Grand Tetons on the other side.
Once we had finished our walk we continued into the adjacent Yeloowstone NP. We had to drive through half the park to get to our

Yellowstone NP

campsite which whet our appetite for the following day. Once we got to the campsite a storm had kicked up so we had to get the canopys up and then get on with cooking. Once again it was my turn to cook in treacherous conditions. After I made my super tasty Tacos the rain had eased off so we could pitch up camp, have some smores and then hit the hay.

Day 134 - Yellowstone NP, WY

We woke up early to ensure a full day in the park. It is HUGE so it is best to drive to the key attractions and to do short hikes from there. This was the main drawback to the park compared to the other parks that we had visited, as it is much more rewarding to hike to the amazing views.
We still had a really good day and we were able to see loads of the park. We stopped off at Norris Basin (where there is loads of thermal activity going on), Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon (where we hiked to Artists Point to get a great view of the canyon and waterfalls), Yellowstone Lake (largest alpine lake in the world) and

Yellowstone NP

Old Faithful

Old Faithful (which lived up to our expectations, providing us with a really good geyser show right on time!). We also drove through Haden Valley spotting wildlife such as elk and bison, which seem to like to roam around on the roads. .
We all had a shower at Old Faithful Village (as there were none at our campsite) before heading back to camp. We had another very random dinner of pita bread, hot dogs, tuna, raisins, salad and pineapple! The Europeans seemed to love the gross frankfurter sausages!
We spent the evening by the campfire toasting marshmallows - they were well needed after the inedible dinner!

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