A Weekend in the Mountains

The Colorado International Teachers Exchange League (CITEL) had organised a jeep trip for us, in the 'Back Country'.  There were over 25 Aussies, and Americans who are involved with CITEL who signed up to go on the trip - the largest group they had had, ever.  I am sure that us with our 5, and the Black's with their 5 contributed in a big way to the numbers, as the majority of people that exchange seem to be single people, or empty nesters.  So, we all assembled at Keystone, in the mountains, for an early start.  There were a number of drivers, and you had to organise your groups, with drivers who had enough seats.  The boys all decided they wanted to go together, so Phil and Warren were with Luke, Ryan, Quinn and William,

in a pretty flash jeep that had leather seats, and a DVD player (which they weren't allowed to watch, much to their disgust - they had to look at the scenery!)  I went with Sue and her two girls, Arnica and Astrid.  There were two tracks up the mountain - one that was a bit hairy, and an easy one.  We decided that we should take the scary one, or we would never hear the end of it from the boys, but when we met up the top for lunch, we found out that they had taken the easy one!  The track was steep in parts, and very narrow as well.  We drove up and over rocks, through creeks and up inclines - it was lots of fun, and not too scary.  You can see in the photos the way the jeeps manouver over the rocks, and hence why is called rock crawling.  The people who took us were volunteers through a jeep club.  The guy who drove our car was a security guard down at the Airforce Academy, and had not done this trail before.

 We all travelled in convoy up the mountain, and you could see trails of other vehicles across the mountains, so it is obviously a pretty popular activity.  There were a few guys on motorbikes, and quadbikes who came up and overtook us, but everyone was pretty well behaved on the tracks.  You can see in some of the photos, there is still snow on  some of the mountains - mainly in areas that don't get enough sun to let it melt.  Everyone had to take their lunch to have on the top of the mountain, as we planned to be gone all day, and they had warned us that it could be really cold at the top, when we stopped for lunch.  We were lucky, and it was quite nice, and good to stop and see how everyone had fared on the way up!  

The scenery was just beautiful up in the mountains, and just after we had packed up our lunch, a herd of mountain goats came up over the ridge, so we had to stop and take photos.  They were a pretty mangy looking bunch, and had lost only parts of their winter coats, which you can see in the photos below.

 

 

 

 It is an old goldmining area, and we stopped at an old mine on the way down, as well as the remains of some old shacks, that the miners must have lived in.  Here the boys are in a photo with Adelaide, the daughter of an American couple who exchanged to Australia a few years ago, and who organised the Jeep day.



The village at Keystone

At the end of the day, most people went and had dinner at a brewery in Lake Dillon, which was really nice to be able to catch up on everyone's summer break, and plans for the rest of the year.  We had planned to stay the night in Silverton, as we had wanted to take a look around the ski villages in summer, and the Black's were also staying, as they had a long trip back to Durango on Sunday. We had a reservation at a hotel, which had been messed up, so ended up at another place, where one room had two queens, and another had a King and two queens up in a loft.  We were in that room, and William came and joined us for the night, after they had all been for a swim in the pool.

The next morning, we went back down to Keystone, and had a look around.  It is a lovely little ski village, and the Black's have booked a week skiing there for Christmas, so wanted to check it out.  They are mad skiers, with Warren having spent 6 or so years as a ski instructor in Europe, when he was younger.  The kids had a great time just looking around the village, and like most of the ski resorts, they offer summer activities.  You can get the chairlift up, and just take a look around, or a lot of places offer mountain biking down the hill.     Phil was pretty interested in this, and plans to come back another time to have a go! 

The Black's left around lunch time, and we continue up the mountain, driving past Lake Dillon, which is really pretty -it is the picture below, and a place for lots of summer activities.  We kept driving, and ended up stopping in Breckenridge for lunch, which is another 'ski village' town.  We had a bit of a wander around, and were just going to go and get on the Gondola to ride to the top of the mountain, when they closed it, as a storm was coming in, and there had been lightening.  As there was no way of knowing how long it was going to be closed, we headed off, down the mountain on our way back to Castle Rock.  

View of Lake Dillon

One of the things that are on the 'must do' list when you come to Colorado, is climb one of the 14ers.  Colorado has 55 peaks, that are over 14,000 feet high, and apparently is a hikers paradise.  Mount Evans was on our way down the mountain, and we decided to go and do our '14er', on the way home.  It is also the highest paved road in America, at 14,240 feet, so thought it a good one for us to do!  A lot of the peaks you need to hike up, but this one you can drive almost all the way.  It is a really pretty drive, through the mountains, and past Echo Lake.  Then, once you head into the National Park, and you climb this road, the landscape changes.

You pass through 3 life zones, as you go by ancient trees, lakes and forests, to the land above the tree line.  The road is narrow and windy, with no guard rails to be seen!  It was a bit hair raising, especially when it started to drizzle, but Phil did a great job, getting us to the top of the mountain!  As it is at such a high elevation, the weather is often a lot cooler up there, than in Denver.   We were prepared with our coats, gloves and hats, as we thought we might have needed them yesterday for our jeep trip, but there were some women up there in summer dresses, and they must have been freezing!

This is the view when you get to the top - it is like you are on the top of the world, and we had a clear day, so could see for miles!

It was a short walk once we got to the car park, to walk up a trail to the top - not that Quinn was very interested!  I had to stay back and encourage Quinn to get to the top, while Phil had to go off ahead with Luke and Ryan, so that they didn't fall off the edge.  They were more that happy to climb to the top, but getting them to stay on the track proved a little more difficult - of course, they wanted to go up and over the rocks!  We did make it to the top, and it started to snow very lightly on our way back to the car.  The University of Denver also has an observatory up there.  I have just read that the top 5 miles of the road to Mount Evans was closed on the 3rd of September, for the 2013 season, so we were lucky to get there before it closed!

It doesn't take long for the weather to warm up as you come back down the mountain.  You can see in the photos below, we stopped to take some more pictures, not even half way down, and the boys didn't even have their coats on (although, this is not always a good indication of the weather, just their lack of sense some days!), but it was certainly not as cold as at the top.  This was a trip well worth doing, and hopefully you get a little sense of how beautiful and amazing the Rocky Mountains are!  It is difficult to capture it through photos, but I am doing my best through sheer quantity, in the hope that at least one will show it.