Remember when we sat there in sunglasses, T-shirts and shorts when most of you were in the depths of the UK’s pre-Christmas winter blast? Well the tables have turned and we have experienced how cold it can be in May, 8000ft up the Rocky Mountains. We have spent two exciting weeks in Colorado as the weather has see-sawed from winter cold (3C day, -12C night!) to beautiful spring days with reasonable nights. With snow everywhere and some very scary high road passes we have slowly and carefully followed our route north. Mile after mile on narrow roads with 8 -10% gradients in 1st or 2nd gear up and down hill, it needed a lot of concentration in something so big. (PS I did hear Jane muttering about it being warmer in Arizona on at least one occasion.)
The weather was unpredictable all across the US, bad storms, tornadoes and either flooding or heat waves. The way things are politically the weather is also likely to be seen as Obama’s fault : ) Virtually anywhere that we have had really cold weather we have had a power hook-up which means that although frozen up outside, the inside temp has not dropped to freezing like it did one night in California.Some nights we have just had to ‘do a Shakespeare’ and wear all our clothes in bed : )
To keep warm we did watch the Royal Wedding (no TV so via Internet)… well watch was a relative term. We were at a state park with very, very limited connectivity and it took over an hour to download 5 mins of video! So we had a complete (cold, snowy) day of 5 min snippets of the big day etc and followed it with champagne and strawberries to toast the happy couple… and ‘Her Royal Hotness’ as Kate’s sister Pippa was labelled by the UK Press. It was a real surprise how many Americans have asked us about the wedding one way or another. Many of them got up at 4am to watch it on TV! Some however have no idea - one even asked us “So how do you like your new Queen buddy?” obviously a colonial peasant!
Colorado is a beautiful green state. It has wide-open, big blue skies, crisp mountain views everywhere (snow covered at the moment) and a wide, open, conservative, common sense approach to life and the environment. Colorado seems to care about most things (environment, nature, local food, quality food and wine etc) just that little bit more than many of the Southern states we have visited… could it be all those months snowed-in their pretty log cabins?
There is real money here with exotic, expensive houses perched on mountain tops. We are only 60 miles from the rich and famous ski hang outs of Aspen and Vail but I bet you that the ‘in crowd’ spend most of the winter somewhere else. As we were some of the only tourists mad enough to be travelling north we had nearly everywhere we stayed to ourselves and we got to see and hear a lot of wildlife close up. You know that there are very few tourists around when the deer start taking photos of you! At Vega State Park the lady Ranger was so pleased to see someone that she offered to lend us some snow-shoes to do the walks in as the snow was still 3ft deep in places… real friendly in Colorado.
Talking about wildlife… we parked at a remote location (called High Point) in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park to do a walk recommended by a very bored Ranger (only a couple of visitors that day) who had time to chat and exchange jokes about a so called ‘problem bear’ in the park. After lunch in our RV (a packed lunch is not recommended as apparently bears can smell food from 5 miles away) we were already outside locking up the RV only to hear Jane shout ‘BeeaAR!!’ and pointing. A big black bear was making his way towards the empty picnic ground only 15ft from the RV… he heard us… stopped, looked, sniffed and carried on ambling across the picnic site in front of us and disappeared into the undergrowth.
I was so surprised that by the time I had got the camera out of my pocket (Jane had quickly opened the RV door) the bear had gone behind a bush and we never got a clear shot of him – Damn! We thought about it for 5 mins and decided to do a different walk… closer to the Visitors Centre… The bears are just coming out of hibernation and are pretty hungry. There was only one other empty jeep at the High Point trail head – let’s hope the occupants didn’t take a packed lunch with them : ). It was an amazing experience that we have not stopped talking (or dreaming) about. OK, we had hoped to see bears on our travels… at Yellowstone maybe … a 100ft away… from inside the RV… but this unexpected encounter will make us a bit more wary for the rest of the journey.
The big surprise about Colorado is not the cold, the stunning mountain scenery or the bears but the amount of conventional agriculture at altitudes where in Europe it would just be Alpine pasture? Colorado, starting at 4,000ft with 54 peaks at over 14,000ft and a very short growing season (May – Sept)... we were stunned to see so many vineyards, farmyards and orchards (peaches etc) there are – something in virtually every mountain valley. Other surprises include the number of birds you get with blue colour in them at 5000ft (Blue birds, several types of jay, painted bunting etc) and coming across lots of huge brown velvet butterflies when walking at Vega (8000+ft) when everything was still dormant and covered in snow?
Having spent our whole lives at sea level we have suffered from the altitude even after 5 weeks. They say that at 5000 ft the air carries only 70% of the oxygen it does at sea level. We found we got out of breath quickly, with headaches and chest pains and felt weak especially walking in the heat… so with that and the colder weather our walking average has come down to around 5 miles a day since Utah.Our journey through Colorado…
Cortez… Mesa Verde NP… Durango… Ridgway… Back Canyon NP (South Rim) Crawford… Back Canyon NP (North Rim)… Vega… Grand Junction… Colorado National Monument (National Park).
Mesa Verde is a World Heritage park/site with some amazing well preserved Pueblo cliff dwellings. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park…South Rim - remote, (a very remote campsite, 103 site but just 2 RV’s camping) rugged 2000+ft sheer dark grey cliffs with coloured streaks. The North Rim was similar – but no visitor Centre here - just dirt tracks and more like being on safari than anywhere else we have been in the USA. We only saw 2 trucks and 3 other people all day - not a good place to break down etc. Colorado National Monument – we spent a day on the 22 mile scenic drive and walked the trails to the various lookouts – some great monoliths and canyons.Our best bits? Easy this time round… close encounter of the Bear kind!
Seeing that the source of both the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers are here in Colorado has made us think that our journey so far has been a tale of two rivers. First we followed the Rio Grande west and then the Colorado north. Both these mighty rivers (sadly tamed by numerous dams) would have been both barrier and highway for untold numbers of people during the history of the discovery of North America. Unlike many of these explorers who settled along the way, we have to find our way back home… or Kate will come looking for us! : )North into Wyoming next…
Take Care
Den and Jane X
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