Pikes Peak

When I first got the opportunity to come here to Colorado I did not know that much about the state apart from of course the Rockies, places like Denver and Aspen and that the TV-show South Park took place there. However, Pikes Peak was one of the places I had heard of and when I started planning for my to-do list, it was the first thing I listed. Weather permitting, it is kept open year round but it still took me over four months before I finally decided to take the trip.

Instead of heading straight to Colorado Springs via I-25, we decided to take a more scenic route through the mountains but the scenery was surprisingly dull and forest fires had burnt vast areas along the way. We did, however, pass through a place called Pine Grove where they had, believe it or not, the annual Rhubarb Festival. We Finns are used to strange events like swamp football and wife carrying competitions but a rhubarb festival is pretty high up there.

Pikes Peak as seen from Woodland Park where we had lunch

The road up Pikes Peak is in fantastic condition and nothing like the one up Mt. Evans which was a bit rough at places. It climbs almost two kilometres in 19 miles/30km to the top which is at 14,115 feet (4,302 m). Unlike with Mt. Evans, you can drive right to the very top which is flat and quite wide. The weather was on our side as it was an incredibly hot day and the temperature at the top was in the 50s in Fahrenheit, something like 11 C. It was somewhat windy as expected but nothing like on our trip to the top of Mt. Evans a few weeks back.

Colorado Springs has a population of over 400,000 but it doesn't look that impressive from up here

Wait, I thought that Santa lived up in the North Pole or in Korvatunturi, Finland and not at the foot of Pikes Peak

 

On the way back we took a bit of a detour to check out some petrified trees at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

I think our original plan was to have lunch at the old mining town Cripple Creek but since we spent so much time on Pikes Peak, we ended up having lunch on the way there and just drove through the town. While looking at the map, one of my colleagues found a "shortcut" to Colorado Springs that he described as a road that looked like intestines. With a description like that, how could you now check it out? It turned out that it wasn't paved and very narrow in many points and because of the constant turns, you couldn't see very much ahead at all. The last five miles or so were also quite rough with huge potholes and bumps that made me quite happy that I wasn't driving the Chevy Cruze anymore.

This road used to be an old railroad and this tunnel is the only one that hasn't collapsed yet

There were a lot more cars coming the other way than in the clip below. It can be quite scary when you can barely see 20 metres in front of you and the road is so narrow that one of you has to give way to the other one.

Trail Ridge Road

The Trail Ridge Road is "highest continuous paved road in the United States", continuous meaning that it just doesn't go somewhere and stop like is the case with the Mt. Evans road. The road is closed in winter and was opened only on the Memorial Day weekend in late May. This year Colorado has seen much less snow than usual and I think the road could've been opened much sooner but what can you do. This clip shows you just how much snow there was last year in June and what they have to do to clear the road.

My ride on Saturday. On Sunday we turned back in Grand Lake.

Me and some colleagues had agreed to go there on Sunday but on Saturday I was kind of bored and didn't know what to do so I went ahead and had a quick look-see. The entry fee is $20 per car but the year pass is $40 so I bought that instead since I will definitely be coming back after the unpaved Fall River Road is opened around the 4th of July.

The road starts from Estes Park and goes west to Grand Lake with the highest point being at 12,183 ft (3,713 m) which is well above the tree line. In the Rocky Mountain National Park you can see some cool wildlife from deer to marmots (closely related to groundhogs) to elk and even bighorn sheep although we didn't get that lucky.

Grand Lake, both the town and the actual lake. The lake is the largest natural lake in Colorado. All the larger ones are reservoirs.

 

The Continental Divide explained in layman's terms: pour some water on the left side of the plaque and it will eventually drain into the Atlantic Ocean or right side and it will end up in the Pacific Ocean

This is the most snow that we saw up there. Just goes to show how bad the drought in Colorado is at the moment when even the mountain tops are almost completely bare.

A marmot

I need a better camera. This looked so cool up there but the picture is anything but

Don't be shy now

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.