Contemplation

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Telluride - Via Ferrata

It was a whirlwind weekend, cold and wet for part of it but totally worth every moment. Making a last minute decision, we decided to head to Telluride Friday night with some friends. Our objective was to accomplish the Via Ferrata. John and I had never done it but our friends had a couple of times.

It was the perfect weekend as the fall colors were at their peak in most places. And it was GORGEOUS!

You might be wondering what a Via Ferrata is. It is a path with a steel cable bolted to the rock, and you walk along a narrow path, and sometimes you are literally on the side of the rock using ladder rungs to cross. Below are several hundred feet of air.

It was so much fun. We took so many pictures. The view was amazing. The weather was nice at the time of the hike. And we made it to the end alive. It was a great weekend. Short but great!

Kiki

Ed and John making their way across the sketchy part

On our way home we to take the Last Dollar Road for more amazing colors and scenery

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Random Colorado Day Trip

Last Saturday John and I decided to take a drive to see the fall colors. There was no real plan set, just drive. I had a general idea on which direction I wanted to head. We took off towards Leadville, CO. As we got closer to Leadville I opened the USA Atlas and found a road that went west from Leadville. I figured that since it was on the USA Road Atlas that the road must be passable. I knew it would be a dirt road but I had no doubt that our Mazda CX5 would be able to handle it. My plan was once we were finished with the dirt road, we would loop back down to Aspen and then back up to Leadville to go home.

All was good for a while. As we round a corner on this dirt road the terrain suddenly changed from a nice smooth road to jeeping road (a road for high clearance vehicles). We debated on whether to turn around or not. We walked up the road a bit to see if it got worse. We decided that we would try and go as far as we could with our car. If we had to turn around, so be it. We SLOWLY made our way up and over the pass. I'm pretty sure we could have walked faster than what we had to drive to make sure we didn't scrap the bottom. We were very successful in not scraping once.

By the time we got up and over the pass and back on to pavement it was really late in the day. Plans needed to change once again. We headed north to Glenwood Springs and then back on I70 to home.

This day turned out to be an 11 hour drive with all the stops we made along the way. We were tired but it was beautiful and well worth it.

Here is the map of our drive and some pictures from the trip.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Glacier National Park

Every year a group of our friends try and determine where we would like to go for the 4th of July (these trips are always camping trips). We have gone camping near Gunnison, CO. Another place was to the Holy Cross Wilderness (south of Vail). And last year we went to Mt. Sneffels (it was an epic trip since that is where I got engaged :)).

This year we decided to go north. Our destination would be Glacier National Park. I have always wanted to go but never have had the opportunity to. It is about a 13-14 hour drive depending on which side of the park you are headed to first.

All in all it was awesome. I only wish I had more time to explore. Oh, and to get a grizzly bear picture. We only saw one small brown bear from a ways away while driving. One day I will get my grizzly bear picture (from a safe advantage point of course).

Here are some pictures from my trips. Note that they are not in any particular order.