A Rocky Mountain High

We got an early start this morning and headed for the Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park. The scenery was amazing! It seemed like every time we went around a corner we wanted to stop and take another picture. It was very hard to limit the pictures I posted today, so you get a fairly large collection to review, starting with this view of entering the park from the east. Two more scenes are below, one of the many mountain ranges and another showing a peaceful valley.

But, having said that, we also saw a lot of wildlife today, including 4  bull elk, not 50 yards away! While we were watching the elk graze, they sat down and posed for pictures.  It was fascinating to see how un-nerved they were with dozens of people fairly close by taking pictures.  Then a deer wandered by, along with a small marmot. Once we moved on, we came around a different corner and saw a doe elk cross the road in front of us, but she hid in the woods before we could get a picture.

As we exited the park we saw another crowd of stopped cars so we stopped and caught a glimpse of a large bull moose.

So it was a very good day for animal spotting.

After lunch we headed to Echo Lake where the highest paved road in the world, leading to the top of Mt. Evans, starts. It was getting late in the afternoon and I'd had enough of mountain driving so we passed on driving to the top and headed for our very plush Residence Inn, courtesy of a Marriott special promotion.  After settling in, Mary treated me to a birthday dinner at Casa Bonita.
Now it's time to pack up and think about heading home tomorrow.

Heading to Estes Park

Today was a big driving day, traveling from Snowmass to Estes Park, about 250 miles. 

Rather than revisit Independence Pass, we choose the Glenwood Canyon route which was as magnificent as always.  This canyon never fails to impress us as we drive through it.  For one, I find the design and engineering of how they fit a 4 lane highway in this narrow canyon is very impressive since in many cases, the westbound lanes are bridged above the eastbound lanes.  Every corner brings a new picture possibility.  

We enjoyed seeing many rafters enjoying the high water levels in the Colorado River.  We took a break at a rest stop to enjoy the views and vistas where Mary took this picture.

Our next stop was Georgetown where we, of course, visited the post office and then had lunch in the building where the Red Ram used to be located. This restaurant played a role in John Denver's The Christmas Gift movie which was filmed and set in this town.
The building dates back to 1893 and, after the Red Ram closed, a new owner opened Lucha Cantina in the same building.

After being delayed by over an hour due to heavy Sunday traffic and road construction on I-70 east, we arrived at our hotel in Estes Park with plenty of time to get settled in before attending our 3rd concert in 3 days! This one was  by Brad Fitch, known online as "Cowboy Brad".   Mary corresponded with him and he said if we identified ourselves he would work some John Denver songs into his cowboy music free concert.
The concert was set in a park in the open air. True to his promise he included two JD songs, then closed with Rocky Mountain High.  Overall it was a great way to spend a lovely evening in the Colorado mountains.

Deaf Camp Concert

Well, we sure had an afternoon and evening full of music!  Today was the Aspen Deaf Camp Concert and it featured a number performers.  We skipped the first one and wish we had arrived later 'cause the second one was hard rock and about blew out our ear drums!  But waiting for Pete, Mack and Chris was worth it!!  They took turns playing their favorite songs. In this picture Pete is playing Santa Rita Connection with Chris. He also re-told the story of how he was challenged to play Stevie Wonder's Superstition on solo guitar before playing it.  Mack did Rock Me Grandpa, He and Jack, Lucky man and a couple of other favorites.

There were several other artists who performed before the headline group, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but we were unimpressed with them. After sitting on a blanket on the ground for 5 hours, hearing these other groups was getting pretty old.
But the promised John Denver themed finale was worth the wait! All performers (and a few extras) came on stage and sang Country Roads and Back Home Again, wrapping with Mack singing the verses of Rocky Mountain High.

Off to Estes Park tomorrow!

Independence Pass

We had another glorious sunny Colorado day today so we decide to head to Independence Pass. This is the view from the top of the pass looking back towards Aspen.  The road to the pass is, understandably, quite twisty and very narrow in places.  When you see the center line disappear you know you're in for a VERY narrow stretch and you pray you don't encounter an RV going the other direction!
The pass is at 12,095 feet (Aspen is at 7,950) so the air is rather thin up there.  We both rested as we climbed the paved trail to see the view and take more pictures.  It was very nice to be able to walk the trail without it being covered in snow and ice like it is in October.

The second picture is looking to the southeast (away from Aspen).  Yes, that is a patch of snow in the foreground and no, I did not climb down to it!  No snowballs this trip.
BTW you can click any picture in this blog to see a larger version.
After leaving the pass we ate lunch at an Aspen favorite - the Main Street Bakery and Cafe, then headed back to Snowmass Village.  Next we're headed for the pool.  Mack, Pete, and Chris are on stage at 4:00 pm so we've got some time before heading over there. 

Concert via Gondola

We enjoyed a super concert by Mack Bailey, Pete Huttlinger, and Chris Nole tonight in Snowmass.  It was  an open air concert in the center of town and was a free concert for the benefit of the Aspen Deaf Camp. The camp had a free will offering and also a silent auction while selling tickets for tomorrow's extended show with these and many more artists.

One intriguing part of this concert was arriving by gondola!  We are staying in Upper Snowmass Village and the town operates a free gondola service to connect the upper and lower parts of the town.
The three guys put on a great show, playing for an hour, taking a break, then coming back for another hour.  Mostly John Denver favorites, with a few other tunes thrown in for good measure - Pete did a rendition of his song McGuire's Landing.
They had several area guests join them on stage, with the most famous being John Oates.  They closed with a very moving encore of "Wings That Fly Us Home".

Mary took some great closeups of the guys.

After the show we hung around a while to give our congratulations, then Chris Nole and his wife joined us in our gondola ride back to Upper Snowmass.

The Bells by Bus

Mary and I had a very nice day today.  After flying to Denver yesterday and enduring a rather harrowing drive on I-70 through some very heavy thunderstorms in a very under powered rental car we got to Glenwood Springs early in the evening.  After checking in we headed to the Glenwood Springs Brewing Company for Mary's birthday dinner.  They had a great selection of "pub food" and Mary had fish and chips while I had bratwurst and kraut, but the best part of the dinner was discovering Hanging Lake Honey Ale!  We normally share 1 glass, but in this case we ordered a second and, with my encouragement Mary enjoyed the better part of a glass.  After enjoying this excellent dinner we headed to the Glenwood Hot Springs for an evening dip.  After getting very relaxed we called it a night.

We woke this morning to clear blue skies so we decided to head to the 'Bells. We had to take a bus there due to the large number of summer visitors, but found that quite interesting as the trip up the mountain was narrated. We learned a lot about the geology of the valley and the wildlife that lives there.
It was quite different to see the Bells in the summer after having seen them in October for 5 years. There were lots of wide flowers and it was so green!
We had a nice time walking around - and taking way to many pictures - and enjoying the warm sun.  As we were preparing to leave the clouds rolled in so we were very glad we went when we did. On the way down the mountain we saw a deer crossing the road in front of us as well as several marmots sunning themselves on the rocks.

Our next stop was the John Denver Sanctuary. As with the Bells, seeing it with all the flowers was amazing.  A summer camp group was around the original part of the sanctuary (where the song words are written) so we wandered around the new sanctuary.  I thought you'd enjoy seeing the "new" sanctuary while it is in bloom.
After this we made our first visit to the famous Hickory House for a lunch.

It's been a very good day!