Mt. Evans

Mt. Evans (14,265 feet, 4,348 m) is the closest fourteener to Denver. The road up there is the highest paved road in the US and is only open in the summer from the Memorial Day to Labor Day. The road is indeed paved but is not in great shape and might be quite frightening to some as it's really narrow, quite bendy and has great drop-offs.

 

Me and my parents went up there on Sunday the 27th when it was an exceptionally cold day even down in the foothills. When we reached the gate, we saw that up in the summit it was only 2 Fahrenheit, i.e. -16.7 C with the wind chill factor. I had told my parents to bring something warm with them but even I wasn't really prepared for that kind of level of coldness in late May.

You can't drive to the pinnacle of the mountain and have to hike the last 130' or so (38m) from the parking lot. Given the brutal wind, we quickly decided to skip that part since even a minute outside of the car totally froze your fingers and made you want to get in some place warm. I will definitely have to revisit this place once the conditions are better.

Echo Lake as seen from above

The summit is right there. So close but yet so far away.

The remains of the Crest House which was destroyed by a fire in 1979

Well, you could if the absolutely freezing winds didn't force you to run back to the car

Random mountain lake all frozen up in late May

This guy is crazy. Those tires are incredibly wide though.

Mountain goats

Summit Lake up at 12,836 feet (3,912 m)

View 05/27/2012 3:35 PM in a larger map

Ouray, Million Dollar Highway and Colorado National Monument

We spent the night in Ouray, an old mining town that's pretty much boxed in by mountains in every direction. It is appropriately called the Switzerland of America.

Our hotel right next to the river.

The main reason to come here was the Million Dollar Highway which runs from Ouray to Silverton. It's a roughly 25 mile long stretch of road with no guardrails and pretty spectacular views.

There's a moose running in the meadow

Silverton

After reaching Silverton we did a 180 and headed back to Ouray where we continued north towards Grand Junction and the Colorado National Monument. The day was incredibly windy and it took quite a bit of concentration just to keep the car on the road as the high winds pushed from the left side. Sadly they also brought in a whole lot of smoke from the New Mexico forest fires and it kind of ruined the trip as you couldn't see that far and the gusts almost forced you to turn your back to the wind.

The drive to Grand Junction wasn't exactly thrilling

That's how bad the smoke from the New Mexico forest fires was

Even with the high wind, there were two blokes climbing to the top of that pillar in the center. I needed binoculars to even see them, that's how big and far away it actually was

Black Canyon

Before the long Memorial Day weekend I took Friday off as well and we left for a small road trip to see the Black Canyon (B), the mountain town Ouray (C) and the Million Dollar Highway (C to D and then back again) right next to it. On the way back we headed north and saw the Colorado National Monument (E).



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Unlike the Grand Canyon, Black Canyon is, umm, less grand and more black. Well, it's not really black but it's so deep and narrow that much of the day it looks black since the sun's rays can't get down to the bottom.

Along the south rim road there were about a dozen lookout points, some right next to the road and to reach some you actually had to walk a bit

This gives you some idea how high the drop was. That's Empire State Building in the picture and it barely reaches the halfway point of the wall. The cliff is in fact massive 2250 feet (685 m) high.

The Big Apple

My parents came to visit me for close to two weeks and we started things off by spending a few nights in New York City (another thing I can now scratch off my bucket list).

The skyline that everyone recognizes

On the first day we went to Ground Zero and saw the new One World Trade Center which is not quite finished yet but it has already surpassed the Empire State Building as the tallest building in Manhattan. After that it was time to take the free Staten Island ferry where you got a great view of both the Manhattan skyline as well as the Statue of Liberty. After lunch and the round trip, it was time to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.

One World Trade Center

Obligatory pic of the you know what

A look back from the Brooklyn Bridge

In the evening we went to the top of Rockefeller Center and finished the night of at Times Square which reminded me a bit of Las Vegas with its crazy light show.

The Rockefeller Center

The view from the top looking north towards Central Park

Times Square

On day two I had had enough of walking and for the first time in our lives we decided to go for a "hop on, hop off" sightseeing tour in those London style double decker busses. It actually included four different tours and we started with the upper Manhattan tour. It was an easy way to see quite a few different places although the enjoyment depends quite a bit on how good a guide you get. While my parents visited some random museum called the Met, I took the lower Manhattan tour. In the evening we all went to the Night Lights tour which was a bit of a disappointment because of the poor guide and the fact that it had got quite chilly.

United Nations

I am not a huge fan of crowds and a walk through the Central Park was a nice escape from all the hubbub. The annual "walkathon" Walk for Aids happened to be on the same day and an estimated 45,000 people took part in the event.

On Monday the weather turned south and some heavy showers hit the town. We spent most of the time we had left in the American Museum of Natural History before flying from LaGuardia back to Denver.