Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado ~ Day 1

(Yes, we are a few days behind on blog posting - we've been hiking so much that there hasn't been time to go through photos! 😀) 

So Day 1 in the Rocky Mountain NP - let's call this Lake Day.  We began thinking, "Let's have an easier day, just a few miles." Well, that turned into about 12 miles (and 7.5 hours) since we just kept going and going!

We started in the Bear Lake area and hiked about 1/2 mile to Nymph Lake:

Then another 1/2 mile past Nymph Lake is Dream Lake:

About 3/4 of a mile past Dream Lake is Emerald Lake:

The trail ends here, so we went back the way we came, turning a bit south at Dream Lake to hike 1.1 miles to Haiyaha Lake:

 

Just a  cool tree - probably a few hundred years old - no exaggeration.

 Lake Haiyaha......

This was our intended stop for the day, but we were so enamored with the scenery and enjoying the hike so much, that we decided to continue on to some more lakes in the area. From Lake Haiyaha, we hiked 3.6 miles to The Loch:

(Not The Loch - just an unnamed lake along the route.....)

 

We were minding our own business as we walked along the trail, when an elk walked right in front of us:

We let her take her time passing in front of us, then then continued onto The Loch:

Here we are!

We continued towards Sky Pond, but decided not to hike up the waterfall to Sky Pond - yes, you climb up a flowing waterfall. If it had been earlier in the day without so much run-off, we may have tried it, but it was about 2pm by this time and the water (which comes from a melting glacier and it was a hot day) was pretty strong (and cold). (You climb up the right side of the water in this photo.)

We were rewarded for our decision, as we were hiking back to Glacier Gorge, we saw this elk. (We actually passed him lying down earlier in the day - he was in tall grass and we could only see his antlers, but now he was up-and-about.)

 

Then it was 4.6 miles to Glacier Gorge...

Past Alberta Falls....

So it was a great hiking day with lots of wonderful scenery! We hiked by four different elk along the way, which was also cool. Our highest altitude of the day:

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado

Nope - we've never heard of it either, by this park was on our way from Mesa Verde to the Rockies, so we decided to break-up the drive and stop here for a few hours and spend the night in the nearby town of Montrose. It was nice - good views - lots of car stops along a road to see the views. The most surprising thing, quite honestly, was that there were a lot of people here and the campground was fairly full. Huh. 

The drive to Montrose was quite pretty - we drove through some beautiful scenery, including the town of Telluride. 

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

When we were (much) younger and dating, we went on a road trip to the southwest national parks and Brad loved Mesa Verde and always wanted to go back; we finally did today. 

We started with a 9:00 am ranger tour (reservations through recreation.gov; $25 each) to Mug House - it was limited to ten people, and lucky for us, the other eight people on the tour (two families of four) were very nice and enjoyable to spend 1 1/2 hours. (Let's be honest - usually people annoy us - especially children and teenagers - and therefore, their parents.) It was a short and steep hike, maybe two miles RT - what is cool about the entire Mesa Verde area, is that these cliff dwellings are hundreds of years old.  Mug House housed about 80 - 100 people during 1100-1200 CE.

 

We then took a quick one mile jaunt to Step House:

 

 

We then got into our car to drive to the "other" area of Mesa Verde where there are mostly car stops to see the ruins.

Square Tower House - the tallest structure at four storeys (1200 CE - 1300CE):

A couple more cliff dwellings that were in use around 1200 CE:

The crown jewel of Mesa Vede - Cliff Palace. From the Mesa Verde website:

Recent studies reveal that Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. Out of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park, 75% contain only 1-5 rooms each, and many are single room storage units. It is thought that Cliff Palace was a social, administrative site with high ceremonial usage.

Finally - Spruce Tree House:

(Mesa Verde website): Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff dwelling, was constructed between about 1211 and 1278 CE by the ancestors of the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest. The dwelling contains about 130 rooms and 8 kivas, or ceremonial chambers, built into a natural alcove measuring 216 feet (66 meters) at greatest width and 89 feet (27 meters) at its greatest depth. It is thought to have been home for about 60 to 80 people.

Another fun day and Brad has now had his fill of Mesa Verde! 😀

Monument Valley, Arizona

Today was a day of driving, and our first stop was The Glen Canyon Dam. Here are our reactions:

Suzanne: Yawn. Where are the bathrooms?

Brad: This is so cool!  Do you see/think ............(This is when Suzanne stopped listening).

Suzanne did take a couple pictures on the way to the bathroom - Brad was still talking.....

We then drove through Monument Valley as we made our way to Colorado.

The last stop - the famous view from when Forrest Gump stopped running:

In case you've forgotten:

 

And this is just a cool picture that Suzanne noticed while taking pictures our the window as we drove through Monument Valley......