Rocky Mountains National Park, Colorado – July 25th & 26th

From Boulder we headed to Estes Park, the smaller town that is the entry to the Rocky Mountains National Park – beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, and somehow fuel got even cheaper ($3.33/gallon, which is about 88c per litre – just a little cheaper than home…)

As we pulled into our campground that night our car was making some very interesting squeaky noises, so we decided as a matter of urgency to check that out in the morning before heading into the park, hoping it wasn’t going to be too bad, take too long or cost too much!! So headed to the local spare parts shop and Lawrie managed to fix it pretty quickly in the car park! Drive belt replaced and tensioner pulley… (yay for mechanical skills!!) Then we got on our way to the Rocky Mountains National Park, in the rain…

One of the roads in the park was closed for reconstruction, so we bypassed that one and headed on the main road through the park, the Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest paved through road in North America (not quite as high as Mt Evans, but still 12 183 feet up at the highest point!) The whole park is at a high elevation, with the lowest valleys at about 7800 feet (still well and truly higher than Mt Kosciuszko!). The Park has 77 mountain peaks over 12 000 feet, and includes some of the Colorado 14ers.

Looking over one of the valleys in the RMNP

 So we headed through the park on the Trail Ridge Road and passed through the highest point near the Alpine Visitor Centre, where it was just 7ºC (from the high 30s the day before, and really hot even that morning in Estes Park) – although it was really cloudy and with storms coming along, we saw some amazing views and mountains, not to mention the wildlife!

No idea what this little bird was, other than fat and fluffy looking :)

A cute little pika (alpine mouse type thing)

Gathering food for the winter ('summer' up there is about 1 month long...)

Bull elk relaxing in the grass

How we saw quite a bit of the park - SO cold!

Herd of elk in the grass far below

Yellow bellied marmot chirping :)

We were pretty excited to see some of the wildlife in the park, but we still didn’t manage to see a bear (they saw there are 20-24 black bears in the park, but they’re rarely seen) or mountain lion (‘You don’t see them, but they see you’!). We did however see more bighorn sheep, including a bunch of rams together, LOTS of elk (including lots in our campground that night!), heaps of chipmunks etc (not getting any less cute!), yellow bellied marmots, the cute little pika, a couple of weasels, some deer, and MOOSE!!! We saw a moose cow and her calf up really close (but still far away enough J), a few females on their own, and a bull moose from much further away. They are such weird animals!! They should definitely come with warnings though – according to the park information we were given, ‘Moose are large animals with a really mean disposition’ and ‘they have been known to charge at cars’! While mountain lion, the most likely things to kill you here, were described as ‘shy and solitary and rarely seen’…

Moose-ville - the Kewuneeche Valley in the park

First moose sighting! :)

Pretty similar looking to a horse, until you look at the head... or the hunchback! 

Then the moose calf popped up from the long grass!

How we spotted most of the moose - similar to Megan & Justin's bear spotting skills I believe?!

We didn’t see any raccoons, coyotes, red fox or skunks, but I get the feeling that most of these are still common in urban areas, and I’m pretty sure I can survive without seeing a skunk! Well without smelling one anyway!

We camped in the Timber Creek campground in the park and it was nice and cool for sleeping, with lots of elk wandering around the park at night! There were signs up everywhere warning about bears (ie. Don’t leave any food or anything with a scent (like toiletries) out of your car, and when in your car place in sealed containers) – but this time at least we weren’t worried as the bears are supposed to be super rare to see here. So no danger there, but as Lawrie discovered from one of the park rangers, the night before in Estes Park (where we stayed that night of course) a bear walked into the local bar in town! So would have been quite a shock there!!

We woke up in the morning to a cloudless and sunny day, but spent most of the day in the car heading through Wyoming rather than backtracking through the park.

Young elk in the campsite

Keen on a ride? Must have had food in the bags...

Bull moose!! From quite a distance away, but still!

Herd of elk crossing the road in front of us - we saw so many!

Our campsite

Denver, Mt Evans & Boulder, Colorado – July 20th to 24th

We drove quite a way from Canyonlands National Park towards Denver, not realising just what kind of road we’d be on! It was very warm to start with, and I’m pretty sure our van felt that… Then we were on the spectacular freeway which winds through the Colorado Rocky Mountains, alongside the Colorado River and past ski fields such as Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, and many MANY others, right next to the freeway (ski villages and condos right next to the freeway). Anyway our car decided it couldn’t cope, and got altitude sickness, refusing to go any further until we gave it a break… So as it got dark along the freeway in the mountains, we sat and waited for about an hour in what was definitely bear territory, and saw a few deer right near us preparing to cross the freeway (thankfully they didn’t!)

One of the smaller ski fields alongside the freeway

So from that point on we’ve been a LOT more careful with the temperature of the car, as even though it didn’t look like it was getting too hot, the boiling point is lower at higher altitude, and we got up to over 11 000 feet (3.3km) on the freeway – I don’t think we’ve been below about 5200 feet (1 mile/1.6km) since! Fairly decent, considering the highest point in Australia, the top of Mt Kosciuszko, is less than 7500 feet!

We stayed at about 9000 feet in the little town of Central City to the west of Denver, and then headed to the meeting in Lakewood, in west Denver. After a wonderful meeting we were invited out to lunch with Jack and Loida and a couple of others from the meeting, including Rachel, one of the young friends who I’m pretty sure is my long lost twin in nature! We ate at a fantastic Italian restaurant and then chatted at Jack and Loida’s before heading to the afternoon mission, where we met SO many friends (there are over 25 meetings in Denver apparently, and 2 missions!) – in true Colorado form we were offered many places to stay the next few nights if we needed!

We stayed the Sunday night with Caitlyn (originally from Ohio) who’s visited our friends in Australia a few times before, and it was great to catch up! Again with the American hospitality, we were forced to sleep in the comfy bed she offered, and we were very well looked after (thanks again!!) – we would have loved to stay and catch up for longer, but as usual on our travels there just wasn’t really time, so we only had most of the day with Caitlyn before she headed off to work in the afternoon. So we headed to Castle Rock State Park south of the city and hiked a few miles – saw a couple of deer and vultures too!

Ahh luxury - thanks Caitlyn! :)

At Castle Rock State Park

View from Castle Rock

Vultures in Castle Rock State Park

After leaving Caitlyn we had a look into a couple of shops and bought Lawrie a new bike helmet (things like that are SO much cheaper over here!), before absolutely gorging ourselves on ‘lunch’ at about 4pm – first time to try bison, at a place with a bison head mounted on the wall (gigantic doesn’t really start to describe…). Then we headed to some fantastic games of volleyball with a few of the friends we’d met at the mission the day before (and some we hadn’t) – so a few hours of very quality volleyball was a great way to end the day! We headed from there to an awesome Mexican chain for dinner (supper?!), Chipotle, and got through about half of our meals, before heading to stay with Blake and Rachel for the night, which ended up being 2 nights… It was fantastic to spend time with a young couple our age who have LOTS of similarities to us!! So we had a great time! They have previously travelled to New Zealand and stayed with the Martins, so small world!! We definitely hope to see more of them!

It took a while to get going in the morning on Tuesday, but we eventually headed to Mt Evans, one of the Colorado ‘14ers’ (14 000 foot and over mountains, of which there are over 50 in the state! Just nearly twice the height of Mt Kosciuszko…) – we would have loved to hike up one of the easier 14ers, but that would have definitely required a little more sleep beforehand and leaving early, so we did the next best and drove to the top of Mt Evans, one of the 2 that don’t require hiking. The road up to Mt Evans is the highest paved road in North America, and we had to stop a couple of times to let the car cool down before continuing on. We saw lots of bighorn sheep on the way up (females with their young rather than males, so no massive horns), and then mountain goats at the top – these were awesome!! We also saw more yellow bellied marmots, which we’d previously seen at Yosemite NP, and heard the chirping sound of the Pika, a little mouse/rabbit type animal, but didn’t see any. At 14 264 feet, this was definitely the highest that either of us had been in our lives, but thankfully we both felt fine, just a little out of breath when walking the little bit from the car park to the very top! (They say it’s reasonably common for headaches, fatigue, dizziness, shortness of breath and nausea, so feeling more unfit than usual was pretty good really!)

Lake views when stopping for a break for the car on the way up Mt Evans,,.

There were thousands of these tiny blue dragonflies at the lake...

Looking back down at the lake from further up Mt Evans

Female bighorn sheep at Summit Lake on the road up Mt Evans

Mountain goats at the top of the road up Mt Evans - such funny looking things!

Us at the top...

Lawrie testing out the altitude by doing pushups on top of the car...?

After getting back to Blake and Rachel’s place in Golden, we headed to a nearby park to go riding – Blake and Lawrie on mountain biking trails and Rachel and I on the paved path – a nice way to finish off the day as the sun set, before heading home for a very late ‘supper’.

Biking with Blake & Rachel

Blake & Rachel & Mambo :)

Again, the next day we took a fair while to get going, but then checked out some of the outdoorsy shops in Golden, before heading on to Boulder, a little north. By then it was cloudy and raining, so we passed on going to see some of the things we’d planned, and I checked out some more shops while Lawrie slept in the car in the car park. Boulder and Denver would both be awesome places to live, they were great! If we were able to work in the US we’re pretty sure that Colorado would be our pick! A real summer (up to around 40ºC) as well as a real winter!

Moab mountain biking & Canyonlands National Park, Utah – July 19th & 20th

On Friday July 19^th we picked up our wonderful hire bikes from Poison Spider Bikes in Moab, and were very impressed – for a decent price for the whole day we got some pretty flash bikes, dual suspension and really good condition, pretty much new with a couple of scratches, and MUCH better than any hire bikes we’d seen elsewhere back home or in New Zealand!

It was a pretty hot day, as usual for Moab I get the impression, so we tried to head off pretty early, but by the time we actually registered at our campsite and booked in for another night, had breakfast, picked up the bikes and adjusted them, and drove to the mountain biking park, it was probably about 9:30am and getting pretty warm.

Moab has some awesome trails, and there are so many different trail parks to choose from! So to get somewhere where we could both ride, rather than super beginner trails for me or scarily technical ones for Lawrie, we went to the nearby (a few miles out of town) Bar-M trail park, and had lots of fun riding trails such as ‘Lazy’ and ‘EZ’, among others – then I went back to do some of the easier ones again while Lawrie tried out some more technical trails including some on Slickrock, and I rode back to town on the great asphalt cycleway that goes all 13km back there – that was when we both discovered how HOT it was and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea hanging out in the sun for that long! So after Lawrie got back with the car and we returned the bikes, we went back to Denny’s for a lovely lunch, and then back to the crowded pool at our campsite – MUCH needed and appreciated, as was the nap in the shade by the pool after that!

Me with the awesome bikes we hired

One of the 'base model' bikes we hired

Some of the much easier bit of track

One of the reasons we weren't really keen to fall off!

Lawrie excited about riding on Slickrock!

Much needed air conditioning and naughty late afternoon lunch at Dennys...

After recovering from almost heatstroke, particularly in Lawrie’s case, we headed back to Arches National Park to hike to Delicate Arch at sunset, then the next day we headed to Canyonlands National Park in the morning before getting on our way to Denver, Colorado.

Canyonlands National Park is really close to the town of Moab as well, but we didn’t particularly feel the urge to get up for sunrise as we’d previously thought, at the Mesa Arch in the park. But we did head to there and several other lookouts in the park – it was most likely pretty amazing, but by that stage we’d nearly had enough of looking at different rock formations, and definitely had enough of the hot sun! (Sound familiar Megan & Justin?!) So we wandered around for quite a while then got back on the road to Colorado – quite a road too!

Part of Canyonlands National Park

Not the typical sunrise view of Mesa Arch, but how we saw it - that is a BIG drop into the canyon under the arch...