Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend. 

We knew that we had a long weekend and we wanted to go exploring so we started looking at places to go that weren't close by.  Both of us had been in the southwest part of Colorado so we thought we would go explore the western side of the state.  We started off the trip early on Friday morning so that we could avoid a lot of the weekend traffic that we knew we would have.  Instead of going West on I-70 we took the southern route, going through Conifer, Fairplay, Leadville, Buena Vista, and then by the time we got to Gunnison it was lunchtime so we stopped for a bite to eat. 

The Collegiate Mountains

Just look at those mountains!  Mark and I have been exploring the mountains around the Denver area and have yet to be disappointed but let me tell you these mountains in Buena Vista are breathtakingly beautiful. 

Collegiate Mountains in Buena Vista

Gunnison, Colorado

I also made Mark stop at all of the Continental Divide markers along the way

 After we had lunch we decided that we were going to go check out Crested Butte.  The weather had been iffy all day long.  Half of the time we were driving in cold rain with cloudy skies and the other half we were driving in brilliant sunshine.  

But when we pulled into Crested Butte, the clouds completely covered the mountains and it started snowing.  Ya, you heard me right.  May 27th and it was snowing!  We didn't even get out of the truck to poke around the town.  And the worst part is that we didn't get to see the Butte that the town is known for.

Crested Butte snowstorm

We got to Montrose, Co early that evening and spent some time stretching our legs and walking around the downtown area.  It's a really nice town that is about 50 miles south of Grand Junction. We had a great meal and were back to the hotel relatively early..not because we were tired but because everything was closing down at 9 pm 

Downtown Montrose

Downtown Montrose

Downtown Montrose

The next morning we were up bright and early (7 am) to go to the Black Canyon National Park.  That way we could avoid some of the crowds that we knew we were going to run into. The park is only 10-12 miles outside of Montrose but unless you knew it was there you could easily pass it right by.  The drive to the the park was beautiful and the vistas from the top of the mountain were gorgeous.

 

We had scoped out the map before we left the hotel and decided that we would do the inner canyon early in the morning because the information said that it was prettiest in the early mornings or late afternoons.  Boy they weren't kidding.  But first, the Park Ranger gave us the warning that it was a "Very Scary Drive" to the bottom.  

      

Well it didn't scare us at all and we were very happy that we weren't hesitant about making the trip to the bottom.

Road to the bottom of the canyon

      

       

After we hiked around the river for a few hours we made our way up to the top of the mountain again and took in the views of the canyon from the top. 

       

       

       

I know I took a million pictures of the canyon but I won't bore you with all of them!  We hiked to all of the vista points that are scattered throughout the park and each lookout was prettier than the previous one.  We finished up about noon and by that time the crowds had hit and the roads were bumper to bumper traffic along the rim of the canyon so we decided to head out of the park and go on another adventure.  

     

I looked at the area map and decided that we needed to head south to Telluride.  Yeah,  I know that seems a little extreme but it was only about an hour and a half away and I wanted to go.  So my sweet hubby pointed the truck south and away we went.  The drive there was gorgeous with the snow capped mountains and the striking sandstone features that were found all along the way. 

      

      

        

Mountains above Telluride

This was a HUGE herd of elk just outside of Telluride

While we were driving down the highway to Telluride, we noticed that there was a LOT of traffic heading towards the town.  It wasn't until we reached Telluride that we found out that they were having their annual Film Festival going on.  There was NO place to park and they had the entire downtown area blocked off to traffic.  Mark took one look at it and said that we were not going to even try to find a spot to park in much less try to find some place to eat.  So we had to figure out what our Plan B was going to be.  

Downtown Telluride

Plan B turned out to be a quick drive (another hour) to Ouray.  For some of you this place may sound a little familiar.  It happens to be the place that they filmed the original True Grit movie.  The valleys and the landscapes that you find there were jaw-dropping.  

       

Court House in Ouray

       

Downtown Ouray

After we ate dinner in Ouray we walked around town and stopped into a few of the gift shops to stretch our legs before we headed back to Montrose.  It was a quick hour drive back to the hotel.  When we looked at our mileage that we had walked that day, we both realized that we had walked a little over 9 miles that day! No wonder we slept like babies that night.

The next day (Sunday) we got up and drove to Glenwood Springs.  The drive was really, really pretty and there were dozens of huge waterfalls from all of the snow melt.

     

     

On our way we just happened to drive by the Coke ovens in Redstone.  We had heard about them but didn't know that they were on the way to Glenwood Springs. It didn't look like there were that many of the ovens but once you walked further behind the ovens that face the highway we found 2 more double sided rows just like the ones that you can see from the road.  I can imagine that the heat that came off of those ovens must have been intense.

      

      

      

It was pretty early in the day when we arrived in Glenwood Springs so we decided to hike up to the cemetery where Doc Holiday Kid Curry are buried. Doc Holiday was a good friend of Wyatt Earp and was at the OK Corral.  Kid Curry ran with the Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was a pretty steep hike to the site because they had placed it high up on the mountain side so that the spring floods wouldn't wash the burial sites away. 

This was a tree dedicated to breast cancer victims

Doc Holiday's "resting" space

       

We checked into the hotel and then went and had lunch.  We decided that after all of the hiking we had done in the last two days our bodies needed some TLC.  We found the perfect spot to do just that: The Iron Mountain Hot Springs.  This place was incredible.  There are 16 different soaking pools to go into ranging from 99 to 108 degrees.  You can pick the pool temperature that suits you the best.  We chose the cooler pools because the other ones were just too dang hot!  They played really relaxing music, brought us adult beverages, and let us soak in the mineral pools as long as we wanted.  They also don't let small children in the pools so we didn't have little ones jumping in and splashing us while we were chilling.  

Later that evening we went to a dinner and Vaudeville show that was a lot of fun. We sat with another couple who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.  They were both native residents and had lots of stories to tell about the town before the show started.

       

On Monday we got up at the crack of dawn to do a hike that I had heard of.  Hanging Lake is a hiker's destination spot and I was bound and determined that we were going to go. We were told to get to the trail head no later than 6 am if we wanted to get a parking spot.  We got there at 6:10 am and the parking lot was almost half-way full already.  We were also warned that it was a VERY STRENUOUS hike.  All of the signs leading up to the trail head kept warning us about the severity of the hike...but we went anyway.  The signs also said that it was a 2 1/4 mile hike to the lake.  What they failed to tell us was that the trail wasn't 2 miles horizontally...it was 2 VERTICAL miles.  No kidding.  But once we got to the top the hike was totally worth it! On our way down we ran into a LOT of people that were heading up the trail.  Almost all of them asked us, "how much farther"? All in all it took us about 4 hours to complete the hike.  And on the way out of the parking lot we noticed a line of cars that were backed up almost a mile long waiting to get into the park!  Good thing we went early.

       

       

             

        

Half-way up the mountain

Hanging Lake

                                                     This was in front of the waterfalls. 

 

This one is from behind the falls

        

Behind the waterfall

        

Hiking out of the canyon

After we got down off the mountain (and tried to recover) it was time to head back towards Denver. We both laughed and said that we should have waited to do the Hot Springs after that hike instead of the day before! We decided to go over Independence Pass since it had just opened up for the summer.  On our way there we drove through Aspen and took the gondola up to the top of the resort.  I was quite impressed.  You could see several of the 14'ers from that point.  

Downtown Aspen

Independence Pass is the highest highway in Colorado.  The top of the pass is way past the timberline and I'm told it is quite beautiful in the summer.  It had just opened for through traffic on the Friday that we left so it was still covered with a ton of snow.  The road going up is really twisty and curvy and there were a lot of people who had the same idea that we did lol. 

       

       

The walls of snow on the sides of the road were over 60 feet high this winter.  

Unfortunately, the weekend was soon over. We really had a great time and it was fun to see some new parts of Colorado that we hadn't been to before.