NOTE: This is my 2nd edition of the Colorado Posting (#12 in the series) due to a mistaken deletion of the first posting, doh!
8 October: Today we got an early start from our accommodation at St Marks Place in Manhattan to Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River. We got their with ample time to catch our flight to Stapleton International Airport in Denver Colorado. Amy (sister-n-law) graciously stayed an extra night in Denver after a University course she is part-timing to pick us up. She loaded us up and we had a great 3 hour drive across the Front Range of Colorado into the southern extent of the Arkansas River Valley to the beautiful setting of the town of Salida where she, Hugo (my brother), and the cousins (Harley and Coya) live. I prepped the kids for my brother Hugo describing him as high energy, playful and much akin to a grown up kid. He did not disappoint as upon our arrival he greeted us all with fake old man's buck teeth that did a pretty good job of freaking out the kids. Later that night Frankie confided in me that my description of him was spot on! 'He is like a big kid!' said Frankie.
9 October: The next morning Hugo suggested that we immediately introduce the kids to the sub-alpine country outside of town. So we loaded up all the kids into Hugo's truck and Robsie and I went solo (blissfully) in a smaller truck up to the upper portion of the South Fork of the South Fork of the Arkansas River at about 9,000 feet. Great spot. Here's the crew walking down a meadow to check out some beaver ponds on the river.
A pic in front of the beaver ponds.
Heading back to the cars from the beaver pond. That mountain in front of us is a false peak of Mount Shavano (a 14,000 footer, colloquially known as a 14er). This false peak was probably about 13,000 feet or so at its highest point.
We then clambered up a road to check out a section of stream that had some amazing waterfalls. Here's Hugo, Coya, Frankie and Sam taking in the view (as well as Gulliver the dog!).
Here's Hugo (with Coya in arms), Harley and me walking back down the road from the falls with the two dogs (Gulliver and Glady) in the foreground. Many of the aspens were showing off their wonderful fall/autumn colours.
Frankie on a culver on the road that the river passes through.
And Luca on the upstream side of the culvert. What a great introduction for the kids to the sub-alpine environment of the Colorado rockies. We spotted lots of deer, chipmunks and squirrels to the children's delight.
10 October: Hugo and Amy arranged to have enough bicycles for everyone through outright ownership or borrowing from friends. Here's Frankie having a bit of instruction by me on bike riding on the street outside of the house.
Well it was substantially cooler in Salida than any of our destinations to date. Hence we were all well clothed for a bike ride to downtown of Salida. Amy (in particular) and Hugo accrued a lot of warm clothes for the kids, which was great. We also went to a secondhand shop to get some other articles of clothing. Afterwards it was to the coffee shop for milkshakes for the kids and nice warm coffees for us. Here's Coya sipping up her milkshake with gusto as Hugo watches on.
And Harley and Luca enjoying their respective milkshakes.
Afterwards it was over to the Salida's river park to take in the beautiful setting of the Arkansas River running down through town. Salida means 'exit' in Spanish and it literally resides at the end of the Arkansas River valley before it pinches into canyon with the famous Royal Gorge 50 miles down the canyon or so. Here's Sammy having a go at working his way up an overhanging bouldering wall next to the river.
We went back to the house and the kids started preparations on the evening meal, homemade pizza. Here's Harley and Luca working on one.
And Coya preparing the pizza dough.
11 October: Frankie finally riding a bike, great achievement. We have never really pushed her, and after seeing her little cousin Harley cruising around that gave her the motivation.
Luca quickly adapted to two wheel balance on the strider as well. Probably a couple of weeks from riding a two wheel bike. In fact, Luca went through a pair of tennis shoes because of the toe scraping that accompanied her leg action pushing this strider during our stay in Colorado.
Here's a typical shot of Robin and Amy with all the kids on all forms of people-power vehicles on the sleepy and safe roads of Salida.
And Harley often was also involved on the bike scene, even when she was not on or near a bike she had her helmet on!
12 October: Today we went out to Mount Princeton Farms on the outskirts of Salida to a good ole fashioned pumpkin patch to select our pumpkins, and to enjoy the myriad of other family activities on offer. Here are a couple of pics of our mob on the way to centre of activities on the farm on a good ole fashion tractor trailer.
Sam having a 'go' on making apple juice the ole fashioned way.
Sam shooting a potato sling at another activity site on the farm.
All the kids enjoyed being chased by the adults throughout the hay bale maze!
Then all the kids went on pony rides...
Then into the petting area with all of the juvenile farm animals.
And finally the ride out to the pumpkin patch on the horse drawn cart...
To select their respective pumpkins!
When we got back to the abode, Halloween activities continued. Here's Frankie helping Hugo put up a spider web on the front door porch.
Afterwards, we headed down for a feed of Chinese food with Tsing-Tao of course for adults.
Kids had a great day as evident from the big old smiles on Luca and Harley's faces.
13 October: Hugo and I got up early the next morning and headed off to ascend one of the many (53 or so more specifically) 14,000 footers (again colloquially known as 14ers) in Colorado, namely Mount Shavano in the Sawatch Range. Seven years beforehand when Soraya (sister) and Dirk (brother-n-law) lived in Granby Colorado, Dirk and I had climbed Mount Bierstadt of the Front Range, so this was going to be my second one (51 to go after this one...). Here's a view of the lower Arkansas River Valley as it gets pinched off into the canyon where Salida sets from a high vantage point on the drive up to the trailhead.
A view of the Mount Shavano massif as we are approaching from Salida. The peak in the middle is our destination at ~14,280 feet. The alpine region (treeless) starts at about 12,000 feet in this portion of the Colorado Rockies.
Hugo getting ready for the hike at the trailhead at about 10,000 feet.
The first part of the hike was through beautiful stands of Aspen in their full autumn colours, very nice!
Where we broke off from the Colorado trail to ascend Mount Shavano.
It was cold, here is an indication of a small mountain stream at about 10,500 feet that is completely iced over.
A view down into the Arkansas valley as we start to ascend through the sub-alpine region of the massif.
Well we are in the alpine region now, our interim destination is that saddle way up yonder. You can make out Hugo in the middle right of the picture. He was much more mountain fit than I was, but I managed to keep up a steady pace right up the mountain even after all those years of beach living!
Up at the saddle with the ultimate destination, the peak of Mount Shavano in the background. On this particular snack stop, Hugo sat in a location that was wet. Within several minutes his wet backside had frozen stiff. Wind chill was well below 0Cwith gusts probably in excess of 40 mph that cause us to frequently get low to the ground on the rest of the ascent to avoid being knocked over. Several ascending parties of people at this point turned around because of high winds and result wind chill.
Here's Hugo at the summit.
And me as well. Great sense of achievement under the conditions.
A view of the Sawatch Range of the Colorado Rockies to the west.
Meanwhile back at the abode, Frankie very much enjoyed making all sorts of contraptions to raise things to different levels in the tree in the front yard.
The kids also did lots of bike riding.
And of course conversion of the pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns!
And when we got back from our Mount Shavano excursion there was a lot of dancing late into the night.
14 October: The next day we started on a sojourn through eastern Utah and southwestern Colorado that Hugo had planned for us. Unfortunately, Amy was not coming along as she had work commitments and also university classes to attend in Denver. So off we went in the morning with two dads, one mom, fived kids minus one mom, let's see how we go! We had our first snow experience going over the 11,000 foot Monarch pass crossing the Continental Divide from the Mississippi River into the Colorado river catchment. Here's a pic of Hugo's truck on the road in front of us.
On the way over we pulled off of I-70 just after getting into Utah after about 4 hours of driving to a Dinosaur Fossil area with an active excavation area. Hard to believe that this place was moist, swampy and full of dinosaurs at the end of the Jurassic with a plethora of very large carnivores and herbivores. Here's Coya and me contemplating such a landscape...
And Luca also contemplating the dinosaur landscape of all those millions of years ago from her perch...
After a short stop we got back into the cars onto a secondary highway that went along an amazing stretch of the Colorado River that ran through a red canyon. Around a bend in the red canyon we arrived at Castle Valley that opened up to this amazing view. That's Fisher Towers in the centre of the picture.
Definitely a stopping point to take in the view as the sun was setting. Here's Hugo and me enjoying the scenery! There was many a western filmed in this valley as well as other Hollywood classics.
Even Coya was appreciative of the views!
Here's a close up of the amazing geologic formation of the Fisher Towers.
Luca and Coya then got around to investigating the landscape on a more micro scale.
And Sam, Frankie and I taking in a close-up view of the mighty Colorado River. As dusk arrived we hopped back into the cars and made our way to Moab and our accommodation as night set in after a great road trip!
15 October: Next morning we woke up to a spectacular view of the red rock canyon in which Moab is set, and it was cold. However, this did not deter the kids from jumping into the hot tub in sub-freezing temperatures.
We then packed up and headed off to Arches National Park, a measly 3 km out of Moab. This is the highest concentration of naturally occurring arches in North America, and perhaps the world. Sure enough our first stop was to an enormous natural arch over yonder down the trail. Here's Robin and the kiddo's minus Coya (back in the truck sleeping with Hugo overseeing).
Luca and Harley about to pass through their first arch (of many).
Robin and Frankie went off trail (naughty) to pose underneath this grand arch!
And more posing in front of arches by Harley, Luca and Sam this time.
Enough of the arches for awhile, here are Frankie and Sam scrambling up a rock formation with Luca and Harley looking on wishing there were just a couple of years older.
And ultimately finding a suitable perch where all the cousins on this morning excursion in Arches could have a bit of chill out time.
Here's Robin coming back from a wander over this magnificent country. That's Castle Valley to the west of Arches National Park in the background.
And the kiddo's having lunch a la tailgate of the big ole Ford prior to our afternoon arching!
And then off to see some more arch formations, but first Frankie had to clamber up this big boulder in front of a magnificent cliff.
The cousins again found a great box canyon to do a bit of exploring and hanging out in this particular red rock formation.
And Luca found a great boulder to jump off and land in some very soft red sand, good fun hey!
On the way out we spotted a great 1 km walk through a formidable canyon, which Robin took up solo. Here she is exiting at the rendezvous point!
16 October: Next day was another excursion to another National Park near Moab, a bit further on, say 20 miles or so from town called Canyonlands National Park. This is a magnificent region with a myriad of canyons that were formed over the eons by the Colorado River to the west and Green River to the east, as well as below the confluence of these two mighty rivers. There are a number of regions in this park, but the one we visited was called 'Island in the Sky', a perception of being perched high above the canyon landscape on the peninsular plateau above the two canyon complexes created by these two rivers. Here's a pic of Harley, Hugo, Robin and Sam at our first stop.
There are also arches in this National Park. Here's Frankie and Sam with one in the foreground, the snow covered LaSalle Mountains in the background and a 500 foot or so drop not apparent in this picture a meter or so behind them.
Here is a classic view of the broad Colorado Canyon looking out to the western mesa and the LaSalle Mountains in the background.
There are a myriad of small canyons that branch off the main canyons of these two rivers below Island in the Sky as indicative in this pic.
We found a suitable spot for a lunch picnic. As the victuals were in preparation the kiddos managed to find a fire ant colony to inspect. Though they managed to agitate the hive, fortunately there were no nasty stings during this high stakes encounter.
Meanwhile, Coya managed to stay away from the fire ant anticsm and went in search of other things in this wonderful arid climate.
The chipmunks proved to be very adept at stealing food, fortunately the kids eventually turned their gaze from fire ants to chasing away these little critters, so we had no loss of any of our lunch items.
After lunch it was off to climb Whale Rock, a very large rock that protrudes up 300 feet or so near the middle of the 'Island of the Sky' mesa to have a look. Here is Harley, Luca and me making our way up to the top.
And Luca, Sam and Harley enjoying the view from the top.
As did Hugo and Harley!
Some of us (Griswold's less Robin who took the picture) managed to clamber up another 40 or so vertical feet to a higher vantage point, well worth it!
And a pic of the two bros and Coya at our final viewing station with the LaSalles in the background.
October 17: Today we departed central eastern Utah and headed southeast to the southwestern region of Colorado to Mesa Verde National Park. This is the only National Park in the US of A purely designated for cultural reasons. This is arguably the greatest concentration of cliff dwellings in the world (for sure in the USA), which were created and inhabited by early Pueblo Native Americans for 700 years from 600 AD to 1300 AD. The why of their existence at this location which is marginal, and their sudden disappearance is keeping anthropologists busy to this day. We didn't have much time after the longish 3 hour drive from Moab so first up was a back of the pick-up lunch.
Then off to go check out a great example of a cliff dwelling. This particular dwelling housed about 200 people, about the size of the much larger Alpajurra town of Pampa that we stayed in for about a month in southern Spain, incredible density of habitation. Notice the kids well down the path in front of us.
These ancestral Pueblo Native Americans were quite diminutive, likely from the scarce land in which they eked out a living. This was highlighted by the very small doors and low ceiling heights. Here is Harley descending into a cellar of one of the dwellings.
And a pic of the kids inside the basement.
Here are a couple of the girls having a try of pretending to mill flour for a few minutes, a whole different proposition from doing this for hour upon hour over day after day during this metropolis's heyday!
Another view of a different cliff dwelling from afar.
And Frankie and Sam using the viewing scopes to spot flying raptors overhead at our last stop rather than their intended use of viewing the cliff dwellings across the valley.
October 18: After Mesa Verde National Park we stayed the night in Durango, and then made our way back to Salida the next morning. There were several mountain passes to go over, here is Wolf Creek Pass, which had plenty of snow for the kids to play in, and an early season opening for the ski resort located here. Here are the kids making their way over to a snow filled meadow on the pass.
Frankie enjoying a bit of snowy meadow tromping action!
As did Luca...
While Sam was a bit more sensible given our lack of appropriate foot, hand and head apparel, he concentrated on collecting icicles.
The Colorado Rockies have many sub-mountain ranges (approximately 7) that host 14ers. On our way back we had to traverse the San Luis Valley that has the Sangre de Cristo Mountains bordering along its eastern extent. This long north-south oriented mountain range terminates at its northern boundary at Salida. Here's a pick of several of the 14ers in the Crestone region from the middle of the valley. Some years back Hugo, my brother Nico (see next blog), a good family friend Ray (see future New Zealand blog) all did a great hike into this portion of the mountains, very impressive!
And a close-up of the peaks with the zoom.
Well we all made it back after a great road trip to check out the famed canyons, mesas and cliff dwelling of eastern Utah and southwestern Colorado, what a great trip! Here's Luca and Harely just chilling out after this event-filled four night excursion.
19 October: Well the next day was a glorious sunny day. We woke up to the local wildlife once again taking avail of some easy chow in the form of our jack-o-lanterns. Hugo suggested this was great weather to take a float down the Arkansas River from a put-in several miles upstream of town to a take-out several miles below. Today was also the last Farmers Market of the year in town, so Amy volunteered to take the little ones (Luca, Harley, and Coya) to this event whilst the remainder of the party did the float.
Here's Hugo and the put-in point.
And Sam at the bow as we set off. By the way we were the only boat on the river as most folks even in this outdoorsy town could not even conceive of doing a run down the river in the latter half of October, its always too cold... Not this year!
I had a go at the oars for the first bit of the river, good fun, and I didn't hit too many rocks.
Here are Hugo, Frankie and Sam standing on a rock in the middle of a river in front of an eddy that I had caught. That's the Sawatch Range of the Rockys in the background looking upstream.
Frankie and Hugo at the bow of the boat looking downstream with the Sangre de Cristo range in the background. Lots of mountain viewing to be had along the river all around.
The bros enjoying a picnic drink on the banks of the river.
Sam contemplating the 'one-ness' of it all...
Another shot along a stretch of river through the river park in town. This section had a couple of technical drops that Hugo paddled thankfully for the rest of us.
And at the take-out spot. What a great paddle in the latter half of October to boot.
20 October: Well this was our last full day and night in Salida, and we decided to make it a 'stay in Salida' day. First up, bike riding down to the river park, here are the kids on their way down to the river.
Hugo pulled out a fishing rod and quickly landed this beautiful brown trout.
Harley then demonstrated her very capable river fishing skills to her cousins, very impressive.
Hugo then gave Sam some pointers on the basics of river trout fishing, for which he was very appreciative.
Here are the kids on the way back to the house. I think that bike is too small for Hugo...
That afternoon, Hugo suggested that Robin and I go for a mountain bike ride, a activity that had not been ticked off on his agenda. So Hugo dropped us off on a trail above town on Medicine Mountain while Amy graciously looked after the kids along with Hugo upon his return. Here we are at the start of the trail.
And one more shot of me at a trail fork. It was a great ride and the first time that Robsie and I had done anything fun sans kids during our entire Griswold sojourn to date!
The next morning we departed after a great two weeks with Hugo, Amy, Harley and Coya. What a great place they live in, so much great stuff to do in town, the valley and surrounding mountains. We were a bit sad to go, but fortunately we have plans to catch up with them over the xmas holidays in Bend Oregon. Thanks for a great time and look forward to getting back for another visit soon!
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