Travels Outside the Box

High times

I was so happy to see Gishani on Friday when she arrived. I had been in Colorado since Tuesday for our annual company meeting and Gish and I made plans to spend the weekend enjoying the mountains.

Saturday morning after a hotel continental breakfast and bad coffee we headed off towards Estes Park, about 45 minutes west of Boulder. The town of Estes Park is the jumping off point for Rocky Mountain National Park. After grabbing some lunch in town and wandering around the Stanley Hotel ("The Shining"), we headed off into "Rocky".

The Park is at about 7,500 feet above sea level, with some of the roads going as high as 12,000 feet. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground at the higher elevations and I suddenly had to remember how to drive on snow and ice. We both had headaches and were groggy from the elevation. But the scenery was spectacular. Unfortunately it was a blustery, overcast day so the higher peaks weren't visible and our forays out of the car were limited to quick dashes with the camera.

Our first stop was Bear Lake (el. 9,500 feet), a small alpine lake that has already frozen over and was set against a panorama of pines and peaks. The snow is dense and dry, like confectioner's sugar, due to the absence of much moisture at that altitude. After some photos at the lake, we stumbled back to our car for the drive down.

We took some other side roads in the Park, to an area known as the Alluvial Fan, where a "fan" of boulders had spilled out of a valley, presumably from a flood or glaciers eons ago. Along the way, at numerous points, we would see huge herds of elk along the roadside. The elk were easy to spot, due to the throngs of cars and tourists parked nearby.


Longing for thicker air, we descended out of the Park and headed back towards Boulder via the Peak to Peak Scenic Bypass (Colorado Highway 7) which heads south, past Longs Peak and Mount Meeker, both invisible behind the clouds. The drive was like a sportscar commercial - miles of descending paved switchbacks between huge rock outcropppings. It was a thrilling drive and our rental Dodge Neon did its best to live up to the venue.
Back in Boulder, we parked and enjoyed the relatively oxygen-rich air and warmer temps and wandered Pearl Street, visiting the myriad of shops and cafes. When our stomachs started rumbling we happened to be in front of a hip little sushi/sake bar and thought, "why not?" and went in. Turns out it was happy hour and we enjoyed some really good calamari and some sushi rolls and a flight (4 samples) of sake all for a minimum of yen.


Sunday we checked out of the hotel and headed back to Boulder. Some local intelligence told us to go to Foolish Craig's for breakfast and we enjoyed heaping plates of eggs and good coffee before setting off for a few hours of hiking in the Flatirons. The day was gorgeous - temps climbed up to the 60's with ligh winds and hazy sun. We hiked out of Boulder at the historic Chautauqua Park on a trail that climbs and climbs, up through a golden meadow into a forest of pines and finally up switchbacks to the lower slopes of Flatiron 1, 2 and 3. We rested there and spotted numerous teams of rock climbers high above.




We hiked back down to Boulder, had some lunch and then it was off to the airport for our flight home. Every time I spend time in Colorado I start to get carried away with thoughts of moving to Boulder and I roped Gish into the same thinking. But on our walk home from the train last night we agreed that we have what we want right here and can go to Colorado for the experience whenever we want.

posted by Outdoor2some @ 8:32 AM