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Published: August 11th 2007
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Motoring through Kansas and into Colorado, we again saw how each individual state appears to have it's own distinctive physical landscape. Within an hour of crossing the state line into Colorado, the barren plains were replaced by the fragmented foothills and uncountable mountain peak silouettes contributing to the Rocky Mountain range which stretches over 3000 miles to form the physical spine of America. If you think of the furthest distance possible between two points in the UK (i.e. Lands End to John O'Groats) you end up with 874 miles so the Rockies is some expanse of wilderness in comparison.
For the last week or so, we've abstained from Youth Hostels (through necessity rather than choice), so when we found from the Internet that Denver had two hostels, we penned down the details and went on a mission to find them. Consistent with our bad luck of finding hostels on the road so far, the hostels in Denver materialised as dishevelled dumps so we were pretty disappointed and really didnt fancy asking for rates let alone spend the night in those places. Nevertheless, while checking one of 'em out, we had a lucky break by overhearing someone talking about a hostel in Boulder City, 20 miles North West of Denver and a sort of "gateway to the Rockies" kind of town. So in keeping with our spontaneous traditions, we buckled back into the Dodge, hit the gas and aimed for Boulder.
On arriving in Boulder City (after a 2hr search for the hostel) we realised that we'd made the right decision by finally finding a decent place to crash out located within the University of Colorado college district in amongst the fraternity and sorority houses. A pretty cool find with a young crowd buzzing about and some decent bars and restaurants. Once checked in, we met another couple of road-trippers (Matt and Renay from Boston) on the porch and got chatting before all heading off to the pub together. This was a cool night spent debating American politics (controversial!) and getting drunk together before heading back to the hostel to play cards and drinking games with some more hostelers. One of the places being bigged up by Matt and Renay was a town called Moab in Utah that we're going to try and check out next week or so.
The next day, Trung and I somehow managed to shake
off our hangovers and head up into the Rockies for some hiking action. We'd been travelling together 24/7 for over two weeks now so we decided to find a trail in the mountains , head off on our seperate ways and meet up back at the car in a few hours (sounds ominous already eh?) After ascending in the car for an hour, we found a damned reservoir (and I do mean 'damned' in every sense of the word) and decided to trek around with each of us heading in opposite direction. Lucky for Trung, he took off East to cross the damned dam about 15 minutes from the car. Unlucky for me, I took off on the 2 hr hike through difficult wooded shoreline to the far side (that pathed trail I mentioned didnt last very long by the way). When I finally (and thankfully) made it to the dam after a good hike and watching crazy thunder and lightning coming down over the next valley, I frustratingly found that the dam was fenced and gated at my side with no way across! So I had to trek all the way back round again from the way I'd came.
Doh! Nevertheless, I made it back to the car in one piece, albeit pretty shattered, very dirty and with a few minor surface wounds.
That evening, Trung drove us further into the Rockies in search of a town called Estes Park where his sister had spent a summer with BUNAC. This was a pretty little town, elevated about 9000ft and nestled within a plateau of peaks with buildings and hotels dotted around the stubborn and everlasting mountain vista.
The day after, we delved in deeper still to the actual Rocky Mountain National Park in an effort to find another trail. Following a stunning drive through alpine tundra (snow and ice at the roadside but warm and sunny in the sky) we came across a car park for Mount Ida, a 13,800ft whopper of prime Rocky Mountain trecking. Lucky for us, the car park was already at 11,000ft (I can hear you heckling Fowler!) so once our backpacks were primed, we set off up the steep trails for a glorious walk in the wilderness. We only passed 3 other walkers so we gained this great sense of solitude, especially near the summit where we enjoyed views afar across the
valleys to other giant mountains around us. We also saw loads of indiginous and tame wildlife roaming around including marmots, chipmunks, chinchillas(!), elk and deer. The area is also home to bears and mountain lions but thankfully, we didnt come across any of those guys.
We'd climbed about 2,000ft and had the summit in our sights when from over a crest about 200 metres ahead, we saw some strange looking animals appear together. "Hmmm..." we said to each other as we uncertainly sized up the situation. After watching their movements for a minute, we realised that these things (whatever they were), were making a bee-line straight for us - at high speed! Within no time at all, this heard of wild beasts (can't beat some blog dramatisation) were within 50 metres (or suspense) so by the time we realised there was no way on Earth that we could outrun these things (or action!), so we resorted to the worrying tactics of spreading our arms to look big and yelling out to these things. This did nothing and they continued to bear down on us, saliva dripping from their blood-thirty jaws (ok, now im getting carried away). Within about 15
metres, all of a sudden, they changed course and flanked around us and down the glen - phew! Trung reckons they were mountain goats . I havent seen anything like them before, but I definitely didnt fancy our chances given the sharp horns these things had primed from their skulls. With the weather brewing up some thunder over the summit ahead and the prospect of being gored by a pack of demented wild beasts over, we headed down off the slopes to continue our journey across the Rocky expanse.
Over the next days, we were plainly blown away by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains National Park and the surrounding landscape - absolutely stunning! We also managed to pay a visit to the selubrious resort of Aspen (a la 'Dumb and Dumber') but we didnt stop long before heading back on our way towards the Western fringes of the Rocky range and closer towards our next waypoint: the canyon lands of Utah...
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Eric
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Elk??
Hey Steve, Glad to see you guys are having such a good time. I'm pretty jealous. Just had to let you know that the picture you have marked 'Elk family' in Colorado, yeah, they're definitely moose, not elk. But that's just a small detail!