Rocky Mountain High
“Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.”
Well that was an experience.
279 miles on US-50 through the eastern part of the Rocky Mountains. We began the day in Colorado Springs in eastern Colorado with a destination of Palisades in western Colorado. The road closures from the mudslides from the monsoon several days ago made our trek a little more challenging.
After seven hours, thousands of feet of constant elevation changes and scores of switchbacks, we made it safely to our Basecamp.
Just a few wispy clouds and sunflowers upon departure …
We passed rivers and streams and reservoirs …
For many stretches, we had the road to ourselves …
We were fascinated by change in textures and colors as we changed elevation and pushed further west. The unique rock formations really caught our attention.
But what really caught our attention were the steep grades, the runaway ramps and the falling rocks …
… where we quickly learned to use our paddle shifters to manually select our gears during inclines and declines. I’d have to say that this is the first time that we’ve “felt” the Jeep behind us - during a steep incline.
All in all, a good day of travel, and Willys settled in nicely to his new surroundings for the evening.
Today we depart for Park City, Utah, where we’ll settle into a boutique hotel to celebrate the wedding of the daughter of great friends.
Postscript: Photo credit to Lisa Lengel for these shots! Taken with her iPhone. Most were taken in a moving vehicle. Makes me wonder whether I’ll ever break the real cameras out of the bag. Yeah, that’ll be next week.
