Gorgeous Gorges

It has been a busy week and a spectacular week. We crossed the Continental Divide and headed west to almost the Utah border where we paused to view one of the great places of this world.  The Black Gorge of the Gunnison.  The Gunnison River slices through the hard black granite rock and gushes along the bottom some 2700 ft below the top. Not quite as deep as the Grand Canyon which is 4000 ft, but much narrower, much more rugged, much more remote and an unforgettable site under the dark blue sky.

To appreciate it even more we hiked down into the gorge further up river and went on a boat trip into the gorge as part of the Gunnison Gorge has been dammed for irrigation as the land around is very dry. No more than 18 in of rain a year and lately only 9 ins. 

Then we headed south following the Sam Juan Skyway as it crossed the beautiful San Juan mountains that are rugged and jagged unlike most of the rest of the Rockies which have been well weathered. One spectacular vista after another. We stopped for a few days near Cortez in the 4 corners region where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona all meet up at one point. It is very dry here too. To see the San Juan Mountains even better we caught what is probably the most famous Steam Powered Narrow Gauge railway in the world, the Durango Silverton Railway and at a sedate 15 mph followed the course of the Animas River upstream to the old gold and silver mining town of Silverton which nestles in a remote bowl of the mountains at some 10300 ft. More thin air!

As the river descends from the 13000 ft San Juan peaks it carves a gorge through the rock along which the railroad clings to. It really is one of the great wonders of railroad engineering. The huff and puff of the engine labouring up the steep slopes, the very very narrow ledge holding the tracks hundreds of feet about the river below add to an unforgettable day out.

The trip up takes about 3.5 hours until finally out of the narrow gorge the valley opens up and the old authentic mining town of Silverton appears. After a two hour browse, the whole journey is repeated back downhill.

Cortez is famous for another of the great sites in North America, the cave cities of the Ancestral Puebloans, sometimes called the Anasazi. Built around 1250 AD, they were mysteriously abandoned 70 years later and remained only in myth and legend until 100 years ago when they were 'found' again.

There are over 600 such cave dwellings in the Mesa Verde National Park. Built in natural caves formed in the soft sandstone and with dwellings made of mud, stones and sticks they have lasted well in the very low humidity of the area. It is amazing to learn that average life of expectancy of a woman was around 22 and a man around 30.

 Narrow winding tracks lead down into the caves. There are lots of ladders to climb and in the hot sun at 7500 ft it can be quite an ordeal.  But it is amazing how well preserved the cities are with the most famous being Cliff Palace. The cave tours are led by knowledgeable rangers who must get very fit doing the tours every day.

Tomorrow we are crossing back over the continental divide as we spend our last few days in lovely Colorado visiting The Great Sand Dunes National Park and doing more tripping up into the high Rockies before heading South to New Mexico, our last state of this year's trip.

It's rather Deer in Colorado Springs

It has been a busy week here in the vicinity of Colorado Springs. We have been in a lovely campground in the foothills of the Rockies so the air is not as thin as it has been higher up which makes breathing a bit easier.  And as an added surprise we are surrounded by mule deer which feed around our RV all day long. Obviously not too many mountain lions in this area to cull their numbers down a bit. A mountain lion eats one deer a week. 

The air is a lot cooler now than it has been and we seldom need the air conditioning and it can even get a bit chilly in the evenings. Higher up the slopes autumn is already showing its hand.  On our first day here we visited the Royal Gorge. The waters of the Arkansas River on their way to the Mississippi River,  flow through a thousand foot chasm that is scarcely 20 metres wide at the narrowest point on the river. And across it all stands a suspension bridge.

It's more of a theme park these days but worth seeing as you can take the world's steepest railway to the bottom, cross the world's highest suspension bridge and 'fly across' on an aerial tram all for the one admission price as well as seeing an illusionist perform his tricks and view a variety of wildlife.

The highest peak in this part of the Rockies is Pikes Peak and on one day we took a cog railway up to the summit which at 14110 ft is only a few hundred feet shy of the tallest peak in the Rockies.

Luckily it was a good day though hazy, and we had fabulous views. On the way up the mountain we saw loads of Big Horn Sheep, Yellow Bellied Marmots (looks like a cross between a cat and a prairie dog) and two black bears. The air was very thin at the top and it really did take your breath away looking out at the land far below.

Then on our last day we went riding.  Off to the Garden of the Gods for a fantastic horse ride around this unique region. The so called Garden of the Gods is called that because it was discovered by two men, a German and an Englishman. The German wanted to set up a beer garden there and the Englishman wanted it as a reserve for the local Indian Tribe the UTES to serve as a place of worship to their gods. So a compromise was reached and it was called the Garden of the Gods and made a reserve.

We saddled up, me on Smokie and Wendy on Winnie and rode out into the park surrounded by the most amazing sculptured red rocks.

With Pikes Peak as a backdrop and the red rocks all around us and the horses leading us effortless up and down hills it was a great way to see this heritage site.

The horses were well behaved but I guess they knew the way pretty well. It was a glorious day with no haze and not too hot. A few mule deer darted to and fro, but as there are mountain lions in the park there were not too many of them.

We leave Colorado Springs tomorrow and cross the Continental Divide for the first time heading for the Black Gorge of the Gunnison River which flows eventually to the Pacific Ocean!  Already around Colorado Springs it appears more like South Western America than around the Denver area with Adobe Houses, cactus and dry red rocks.  We will be crossing the high Sangre de Christo Range of the Rockies,  (Blood of Christ) so called because of the red rocks that abound here.

The Majestic Rockies

We left Devil's Tower on a hot sunny day and headed South through Wyoming. It is very dry and dusty and filled with oil and gas wells as far as the eye can see.

Our destination was Douglas, a small town servicing the oil and gas industry. Just out of town there is a lovely natural bridge crossing a creek called Ayres Bridge, where the locals come to picnic and swim. 

We passed by old Wild West Towns like Laramie and Cheyenne nestled into the foothills of the Rockies which were quickly looming up ahead of us. At Loveland we stopped going down Interstate-25 along the edge of the Rockies and turned sharply right and drove into an almost invisible Canyon that was barely 50m wide. We followed the canyon with its small roaring stream slowly uphill, with each corner providing an even more remarkable view. Then suddenly we entered a basin in the mountains surrounded by high peaks. We had arrived at Estes Park, the gateway to the Northern part of the Rockies and the fabulous Rocky Mountains National Park. We had a lovely campsite with mountains all around. We even had Elk grazing on the roadsides.

There was lots to see and do in the RMNP and there were hordes doing it as well. The first day we drove over the Rockies along the Trail Ridge Rd which crosses the mountains at 12200 feet. The views as you can imagine are formidable.  There was almost no snow on the Rockies. They were rugged and well rocky. Not as high as we had thought because they rise from a 5000 ft plain. There are 55 peaks over 14000 ft in Colorado. The nearest one to Estes Park is Longs Peak.  But truly one of the great places of the world.

On the second day we went for an early morning walk around Bear Lake. At the foot of a glacier, the water is clear and in the early morning light looked tranquil and serene.

After a five lovely days at Estes Park, we drove down south to the Denver area and stayed at the Golden Gate Canyon State Park which at 9200 ft was a very high campground. We were not far from old abandoned gold mining towns like Black Hawk and Central City which when we visited we were most disappointed as they had been turned into gambling dens with the ostensible aim of raising money to preserve them. Preserve them HA HA!

Then more travelling through the Rockies following narrow canyons again, passing through the Eisenhower Tunnel burrowing through the Rockies at 11000 ft until we crossed over into  a big valley in the middle of the Rockies where the Arkansas River begins. We camped near Buena Vista and drove up into the mountains following another narrow creek for magnificent views of Mt Princeton.

The road ended at the old ghost town of St Elmo, formerly housing 2000 people at the height of the gold rush.

On the way back we stopped by a cascading water fall and ate our lunch to the sound of the rushing water.

From Buena Vista we head to Colorado Springs where we will see first hand the ravages of the terrible forest fires that swept through there very recently.

The Rolling Hills of the Dakotas

We left Lake Itasca in Minnesota on a drizzly morning and headed West.  The miles passed as we sped past myriads of lakes until near Fargo on the border with North Dakota, the skies cleared, the trees receded, the lakes disappeared and mile after mile of rolling hills appeared. At first they were covered in crops, but as time passed they turned into rolling hills. It was a long drive of 340 miles but eventually we pulled into our destination of Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park near Bismarck, the state capitol of North Dakota.  We were right by an old Indian Village made of grass clods placed on a wooden frame. Very cosy in winter and cool in summer. In the distance you can see the Missouri River which we were camping right along side.

Fort Abraham Lincoln is an old fort and was the place where General Custer left to beat up the Sioux Indians at Little Big Horn and got killed for his trouble. His house is still there where he and his family lived, or at least a reconstruction of it.

We stayed a few days here in the lovely State Park and did day tours to look at Indian Villages and the fort where the great explorers Lewis and Clark stayed for their first winter after leaving St Louis along the Missouri River in 1804.

We left Ft Abraham Lincoln State Park on a glorious day and headed South and West through hundreds of miles of rolling grasslands.The further we headed south, the drier it all became. After a long drive we arrived in Rapid City, South Dakota and set up camp at Lake Campground next to some Australians Tom and Betty who were doing the same sort of your we are doing but were going West to East rather than our East to West. We enjoyed a few beers and wings with them and their friends Robie and Sharon.  There is a lot to see in Rapid City as it is on the edge of the very beautiful Black Hills of Dakota, the ancient tribal lands of the Sioux Indians. There was no doubt we had left the East behind with the forests, and the lakes. This was the Wild West with ranches, cowboy hats and wide open lovely spaces and hills!. Our first excursion was to the old western town of Deadwood near to where Gold was found in the 1800s. The Sheriff there was a man by the name of Wild Bill Hickock and it is believed he gunned down 34 men before he was killed in a shootout. We visited his grave at Mt Moriah high above the town before having lunch in the saloon where he was killed.

The saloon still looks the same and has sawdust on the floor.  There was a huge motorbike festival on in a nearby town of Sturgis where tens of thousand bikies congregate each year for a good time. The whole area was saturated with middle aged rockers reliving their youth. Amazingly 95% don't wear helmets. Obviously they think they are invincible.

The next day we visited the famous Mt Rushmore with carved faces of four of America's famous presidents. Seething with bikes too.

We drove from Mt Rushmore across to the Custer State Park over the Iron Mountain Rd. What a road! Narrow, steep with many switchbacks and lots of tunnels including this one framing the Presidents perfectly.

Custer State Park had herds of bison roaming everywhere and lots of Prong Horned Antelope.

Wild Burros roamed freely and it is permitted to feed them even if you can't feed any other wild life in the park.

We also visited Jewel Cave, the second biggest cave in the world. You will remember a few weeks before we visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, which is the biggest cave in the world.

On our last day we drove 70 miles to the Badlands National Park. Like scenes from Mars, these eroded hills and valleys were like nothing we had ever seen before. It was high noon when we drove through the park. I imagine in the evening they would look eerie and wonderful as the setting sun accentuated the reds in the land.

Then it was time once more to move on. This time to Wyoming and our first stop was Devil's Tower. A thousand foot monolith rises from the land and dominates everything for miles. Formed as the basalt plug of an ancient volcano, it has has lasted whilst the outside part of the volcano has eroded away over the years.

We have now left the plains and our path now takes us South down through the High Rockies.