St. Mary's Glacier and Snow!

St. Mary's Glacier is a semi-permanent glacier just an hour's ride or so west of Denver. It's one of those places that are too far away to just pop by without any planning but yet too close by to go to instead of some other, probably more interesting places. On one Sunday in mid October I was bored and thought I'd give it a go.

The way up is rocky but nothing too bad unless you are wearing flip flops

St. Mary's Lake - doesn't look that glacier-y to me

Seriously, where is it?

After hiking a bit more, I finally saw something that vaguely resembled a glacier. This seems to be the worst time of the year to visit as it's just before it starts growing again. The situation is especially bad after the very dry winter and the really warm summer we had this year. Oh well...

Even at the altitude of 11,000' / 3.3km it keeps on melting fast in mid October

On the 24th of October it rained really heavily in the afternoon and after it had got colder during the night, we were greeted with this sight in the morning.

Sunrise Amphitheater up at Flagstaff Mountain right next to Boulder

Looking down towards Chautaqua Park

Glenwood Cavers and Hanging Lake

At sunrise I drove eastward on I-70 through the gorgeous Glenwood Canyon taking exit 125 to the parking area of Hanging Lake. The ride through Glenwood Canyon is considered by many to be the most beautiful part of the whole Interstate network.



Hanging Lake is a lake high up in the mountain and you have to take a 1.2 mile hike in somewhat difficult terrain to reach it. The vertical rise is quite significant and having good shoes and plenty of water is highly recommended. The views at the end are totally worth it.

Exit 125 just before I-25 hits the Hanging Lake tunnel. You can only get to the parking lot from the eastbound lanes so if you're traveling west you have to take the next exit and then turn back.

The "amphitheatre" of Glenwood Canyon with I-70 in the distance

That was probably the longest kilometre I've ever walked and that's just barely half way there!

The last steep push with steps carved into the rock

The lake is pretty gorgeous with crystal clear water and blue, green and aquamarine hues

You can also take a small extra hike to see the Spouting Rock waterfall. It's literally a tiny crack in the rock from which the water gushes out

The Bed Head bird

The view back down the canyon is nothing to sneeze at either

Getting back down from the lake is easier than going up but still no joke since you have to be very careful where you step. Spraining an ankle up here wouldn't be much fun. After reaching the parking lot, I drove back to Glenwood Springs and took a ride up to the Glenwood Caverns where I went on a guided tour of the Fairy Caves.

Tree roots

Mmmmm... bacon

Glenwood Springs

I had originally planned on visiting the caves before going to the Hanging Lake but starting off well before the caverns were even opened provided a good excuse to ride through the Glenwood Canyon multiple times.

Yes Name?

The westbound lanes are elevated high up to minimize the footprint done to the canyon. The Amtrak's Zephyr railroad track is on the other side of the Colorado River right of the picture

Million Dollar Highway Redux & Tellruride

After a nice sleep I turned north towards Silverton and the Million Dollar Highway I had already driven through back in May.

This was so much smaller than the wolfy coyote wolf I saw in Yellowstone

The view to Silverton from the south

The Million Dollar Highway is the 25 mile/40km long strech between Silverton and Ouray. I drove it one way, then did a 180 and repeated the whole process. It must be one of the more scenic routes in the US.

This road would be much less fun in icy conditions

Ouray

There's that crystal clear mountain spring water for you

These trees are not burnt but have just dropped their leaves in the wake of the oncoming winter. The ground in front of the old mine tunnel is orange because of all the iron that's basically turned to rust

Red Mountain

Wheeeeeee

Telluride is one of the big ski resorts in Colorado. I didn't spend that much time there however as I basically just had a lunch and then drove the gondola up the mountain, hang around for a bit and then continued my way up north towards Glenwood Springs.

Telluride regional airport

Mesa Verde

Alongside Yellowstone, the Mesa Verde National Park (green table in Spanish) was the first US location to be added as a Unesco World Heritage Site. It used to be the home of Ancestral Puebloan people and has some of the best preserved cliff dwellings in the world.

I got up really early again and since I decided to stay in Cortez right next to the park entrance, it took me less than an hour to take a shower, eat breakfast, check out from the hotel and enter the park. I bought tickets (just $3 each) to both available guided tours and the first one was for the first tour of the day at 9am at Cliff Palace which you can only enter with a park ranger. Neither of these two tours are for everybody as there are wooden ladders and hand carved uneven stone steps to climb and the second tour also featured some very narrow and low tunnels to crawl through.

If you're not a fan of heights, maybe not the best of ideas

The rangers on both tours were amazing and explained clearly that there's still a lot that the scientists haven't been able to definitively figure out and some things like why these were built in first place and then later abandoned were still up to for debate. There are several theories that make sense.

Cliff Palace is the largest of these dwellings and has around 150 rooms.

Listening to how these were built and how e.g. the people managed to get water (considering that the nearest river/lake is waaay yonder) and food, how they moved about etc was really interesting.

The House of Many Windows, in the middle of the pic

Let's zoom out a bit. Quite a way down.

Balcony House

A typical kiva, a religious structure found in most of the houses.

Gustaf Nordenskiöld, a Swede with Finnish roots, was the first to scientifically study the Mesa Verde ruins. He ended up sending quite a few artifacts to Sweden which have since been sent to Helsinki, Finland. He is not held in bad reputation though since unlike many locals, he studied and documented everything he did scientifically.

Spruce Tree House

Square Tower House