Tag Archives: WRT2006

Day 7

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I spent Saturday at Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles the Colorado/Utah border.  The landscape here is absolutely incredible.  I took tons of pictures and hope to get some posted later tonight.

Unfortunately, the main attraction at Dinosaur, an active fossil quarry, was closed indefinitely on July 12, due to safety issues.  Apparently the building that houses the quarry was built on an unstable area of ground and has had problems ever since it opened back in the 50’s.  They were conducting some sort of inspection and determined that it was simply not safe to operate at this time.  So, I was a bit bummed not being able to see that, but the scenic drives and hikes were worth coming here by themselves.  Simply amazing.

That took up pretty much the entire day – I got back to my campsite about 4:30 and after having been out in the 95 to 100 degree heat all day I couldn’t just sit at my campsite.  If I had some shade I maybe could have managed it, but without any shade it was simply unbearable.  So, I went to another movie “You, Me and Dupree”.  It was a so-so movie, but the AC was wonderful and by the time the movie let out, it was nice and cool again.

Day 6

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I rolled out of my tent about 6:30 this morning.  It had sprinkled a little bit during the night and so I had to pack up my tent wet – that’s always fun.

Today was pretty uneventful, just driving from Estes Park, CO to Vernal, UT.  Tomorrow, I’m going to Dinosaur National Monument.  I stopped for a few pictures on my way out of Rocky Mountain NP, but the western side doesn’t offer quite as many nice mountain views, so I didn’t stop that often.

I thought driving across the Dakotas and Nebraska can be desolate, but that was until I drove through northwestern Colorado today.  Talk about empty apparently worthless land. The landscape is interesting, but there’s absolutely nothing between Steamboat Springs and the Utah border and that’s close to 200 miles.  There was one stretch of 57 between towns that even had gas stations.  There were a couple of little “towns” in between but they were little more than a couple of run down buildings and maybe a house.

I got to Verrnal, UT and it was a blistering 97 degrees.  I set the tent up and then couldn’t take it.  I grabbed a bite to eat in town and then went to see the movie “The Lady in the Water”.  It was another of those off the wall M. Night Shyamalan (sp?) movies.  All in all it was pretty good and when the movie was over it had cooled down quite nicely outside.  It’s now in the low 80s with a light breeze and the temp should drop into the 60s – perfect!

Day 5 – OK, so it can reaallly rain

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I woke up to a cloud filled sky, so I just kind of hung around camp for awhile before I made up my mind to go.  I headed into the park planning to go on a fairly long hike, but as I got closer to the trailhead, the clouds never seemed to clear.

Rather than having to hike in the rain, I decided to drive the Trail Ridge Road up to the Alpine Visitor Center, which is at the midpoint of this road .  This is the same road I’ll be taking tomorrow on the way to Utah, so I figured I would save time by getting some of the photo stops in today.  The Alpine visitor center is situated at 11,796 feet above sea level which makes it the highest visitor center in the entire National Park System.

It was a nice cool morning, so I drove with the top down.  The temperature drops rapidly as you ascend so I had to put a sweatshirt on about halfway up.  I made a few stops along the way and took lots of pictures.  It was cloudy so the lighting wasn’t great, but I still got some good shots.

At the visitor center is a short hike up to a scenic viewpoint at just over 12,000 feet.  I hiked up there only to have the batteries in my camera run out – and wouldn’t you know this was the time I left everything in the car.  Oh well, I went back down to the visitor center, had some lunch, grabbed new batteries and headed back up.

As I was on my way back up, I noticed lots of rain cells over various peaks and one that appeared to be headed my direction.  I hustled up to the top, snapped a few pictures and got back down as fast as I could.  I couldn’t believe I was passing people going up – most with no rain gear whatsoever, and it was only about 55 degrees as well.

I made it into the visitor center just in time to miss the downpour and hail and luckily stayed dry.  I hung out there for about an hour waiting for the rain to let up and then listening to a ranger talk about lightning – very appropriate topic!  He also explained that the afternoon thunderstorms were more or less a daily occurrence during the summer due to the morning heating of the east and south faces of the mountains – now I find this out!

I made it back to my campsite about 3:30 and decided to take in a movie – Pirates of the Caribbean as I didn’t feel like hanging out at the campsite.  The movie was pretty good, I’ll definitely see the next one, just to know how things wrap up.  As I walked out of the movie there was a huge thunderstorm blowing through, so I hung out in the lobby for about a half hour waiting for it to let up – no sense going back to the campsite just yet.  Afterwards, there was a tremendous double rainbow that I snapped a couple of pictures of.  An for about a half hour after the rain stopped, the clouds were making all sorts of spectacular patterns in the sky, got some pictures of those too.

The good news is that through all the rain today, my tent stayed nice and dry – OK there were a few drops that managed to sneak through but they wiped up easily.  I’m looking forward to the next couple of days as I’ll be out on the basin and range area of Colorado, Utah and Nevada which are arid regions.  So I should stay dry at least until I reach Yosemite.

Day 4 – so it can rain

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Got up to another beautiful morning today.  I hadn’t actually slept much since the campground is right next to one of the main highways going through Estes Park, oh well the morning was sunny and cool.  By the time I made breakfast and got everything squared away at my campsite it was starting to warm up.

I left about 9 o’clock with the top down.  I entered the park and picked up a map, not really sure where I wanted to go.  I spent about an hour just driving around and taking pictures.  I settled on hiking the Bierstadt Lake trail as it sounded like a nice hike to start things off, only 1.2 miles (one way).  However, what the signs don’t specify is that the first .8 miles is an uphill climb.  It was worth it though, as I was rewarded with some spectacular views along the climb and then lunch next to a beautiful alpine lake.

By the time I got back to my car it was really warm, but I put the top down anyway and just went for a drive to the end of the road I was on and then back down to the visitor center.  By the time I came out of there, it was looking like rain and the first drops started as I pulled out of the parking lot.  A nice thundershower quickly became a downpour.  I got back to my campsite and sat in the car until it let up then crawled into the tent for a nap – I’m on vacation remember.  It rained for about 3 hours and then finally stopped and I was able to assess the damage.  Not too bad, just a few things got a bit damp but they’re drying out now.

I think I’ll go find someplace to eat – I don’t feel like dealing with the wetness and it looks like it could rain some more yet this evening anyway.

Day 3

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It was a beautiful morning in the Black Hills.  I woke up at 6 intending to break camp and get an early start – but I fell asleep.  Not for too long though, I was up at 7 in time to get to the All You Could Eat pancakes before the crowd converged – I don’t know how people can eat more than the first serving – three big cakes!  They had a neat contraption for dispensing 5 equally sized pancakes onto the griddle at once, so they must be able to really go when they need to.

Anyway, I did get on the road by about 8:30, which was earlier than planned so that was nice.  Also, it was cool enough and it wasn’t too windy yet so I finally got to drop the top on the convertible.  Sweet!!  I did have to put it back up about 11 o’clock though, as it was just getting too hot and windy, it was again in the 90s through Wyoming and into CO.  It’s supposed to be a bit cooler here the next couple days – time will tell.  It wasn’t on the agenda, but as I drove right past it, I stopped at the Crazy Horse Monument as you can surmise from the previous posting.  I just wanted the picture though, so I didn’t actually spend any time at the visitor center.  I really wonder if it will ever get finished, it doesn’t look any different to me now then the first time I was there – about 20 years ago.  I hope they do finish it and as intended since it would definitely be impressive.

As this day was only planned to get me from Mt Rushmore to Estes Park in Colorado, I didn’t make any other stops along the way except for gas and other necessities.  I took some video clips of the highway along the way just to show you the exciting scenery in Wyoming.  Also there was a big fire near Lost Springs, WY – probably a grass fire.  I took a few clips of that as well.  I’ll  try to post those today.  As I have power at my campsite here in CO, I’ll also be posting more pictures from yesterday on the WRT2006 page later tonight.  I’m just relaxing at the camp tonight as it was a long day of driving.