Sights Not Seen from Road

 

Sights Not Seen from Road

Another day in Moab, we decided to check out some sights you can only see when leaving the main road behind.  On this day, we attempted to drive the full drive of what’s called Chicken Corners.  We got further this time than the last, but ultimately decided this is a road that is best driven by ATV’s or UTV’s.  It gets much too rough for Jeeps that have not been modified for heavy-duty off-roading.  But we did get to see some cool views!

On this drive, we once again have cliff faces very close to our Jeep.  As we both looked that this rock, we thought how it could be somewhat like a cloud, as some of the dark shading of the rock can sometimes take on the shape of common things we see.

I think this small canyon appears larger in the image than it was in reality!  It’s hard to see in the image, but there was a very tiny creek that was flowing through it.  Since there was water this late in the season, I’m imagining that in the early spring, the water may really be flowing, depending on the snow melt.

Off-roading, you can get a much closer look at rock formations, like this one.  I called it a tiered rock formation – it kind of reminds me of tiered cakes.  Not nearly as tasty, though!!

Here we are in the midst of rocky desert, and we get to drive on a lovely shady road with greenery growing. Just looking at it makes me feel calm and cool.

Coming back from our drive, we drove right next to the cliff faces, and in this instance, the upper rock formations just hung over our Jeep.  Eeek!! 

Enjoy!

 

Off-Roading - Moab!

 

Off-Roading – Moab!

We spent a couple of days in Moab, UT, on this trip.  Moab is one of our favorite little towns due to the charm of the city, and off-roading.  We are not heavy-duty off-road folks, and really like it to see scenery that you can’t see from the regular roads.

When we start out down Potash Road, which is paved for the first few miles, we always pass really tall cliff faces that are supposed to be good for rock climbers.  This time, however, was the first time I got a chance to capture some rock climbers in action!  The image on the left shows you how tall the cliff face is, and the other two get progressively closer to the rock climber I chose to photograph for this series.  Pretty cool, but nothing I would have ever tried!!

As we continued our drive along the cliff faces, this shot shows you how close the rocks are to our Jeep. I purposefully included part of the Jeep in the shot, so you can see that we’re really right on top of them!

On this day, we chose to follow a different road for a bit.  Here are some views from White Rim Road.  This road gets a bit rougher as you travel it, probably because it becomes the road less traveled, to an extent.  We were going rather slowly by the time we turned around, but here are some great views from our trip out on White Rim Road.

We did see a group of cyclists on White Rim Road, too.  They were being followed by a “chase vehicle” that had all sorts of support equipment for them.  As we passed the “chase vehicle”, we asked the driver if they planned to ride the entire White Rim Road, and she said yes.  No wonder there was camping equipment in there!  White Rim Road runs for 110 miles!

This was our turnaround spot, also known as our lunch stop!  To one side, there was a small canyon to look down into, and to the other, what looked like a very exploratory spur road one might take, if one were driving an ATV!

As we headed back, at one point, I noticed how close the road (and our Jeep!) was to the rim of the road (right image).  And, then as I looked across a small canyon at another point, I saw how part of the rim had crumbled off and fallen off the cliff face.  Thank goodness, at that part of the drive, we weren’t close to the rim!!

This is one of my all-time favorite views – the view approaching the Shafer Trail.  I love how the road winds up to the cliff face.   And, yes, when we reach the cliff face….we drive up it!!

These two images are from the climb up the Shafer Trail.  The one on the left is as we’re just entering the “climb” portion of the trail, and the one on the right again shows you how close we come to the side of the cliff face.  To say we’re driving on a narrow road is an understatement!

One of the things that can be said about driving the Shafer Trail is that when you’ve finished the climb, you have a very visible sense of accomplishment!!  Jeff says that next time, it might be fun to drive it in the opposite direction, heading down!  We’ll see!

Enjoy!!

A Quick Stop and a Monument

 

A Quick Stop and a Monument

The Grand Junction, CO, area has a few things to see, one of which is a very pretty National Monument, which has been somewhat forgotten by me.  The other thing is an interesting stop…..

The interesting stop was very close to the campground.  It’s called Dinosaur Hill.  In 1900, Elmer Riggs, from the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, discovered the bones of a 70 foot long, 30-ton apatosaurus.  They returned in 1901 to excavate it, and it has been on display in the museum since 1908.  Jeff thought that was interesting, but what he wanted me to see was the mold of the femur of a diplodocus-like dinosaur.  The dinosaur was a 25-ton, 85 foot long, plant eating creature that lived about 151 million years ago. The boulder was once part of an ancient riverbed.  The image on the left is of the bone mold in the boulder – on the right is Jeff, so you can get a sense of scale as to how large the bone was!  The small yellow dots are tiny insects that were swarming in the space between Jeff and me.  We weren’t bothered by them, thank goodness!!

As we entered Colorado National Monument, we passed under 2 tunnels cut out of the rock formations above.  It’s pretty cool to ride under the tunnels and I tried to not think very much about all the sandstone rock overhead, which is relatively soft rock!!

The drive through the National Monument is along a road called The Rim Road.  The road was built to give people a sense of being up in the clouds with all the rock formations!  The image on the right is an image looking down on The Rim Road.  It looks small in that shot, so the shot on the left is a close up of a formation called Balanced Rock.

Another stop was for the overlook of Fruita Canyon.  You can also see part of The Rim Road in this shot.  The landscape views from this Monument are just breathtaking!

About two million years ago, water flowed into what is now the Monument.  Water flowed around a high rock wall.  Today, this wall is known as The Independence Monument.  A man named John Otto came to this area and fell in love with the canyon area.  He began to campaign to get this area protected as a National Park.  On May 11, 1911, President William H. Taft declared this area the Colorado National Monument.  To celebrate, he climbed the Independence Monument.  He then planted an American flag on the top of the Monument.  He repeated this for years, on every 4^th of July.  Today, every 4^th of July, climbers carry an American flag up the Monument, and stake it on the top.  You can see in the two images above how different the Independence Monument looks. In the image on the upper right, it looks like a tower on the right side of the image.  In the lower left, but again on the right side of the image, you can see how broad it is!  It’s all about perspective!

Even though these views are not formally part of what’s call The Grand View, I found them to be pretty grand!!  The trees, rock formations and sky all combine to great a wonderful view!!

Here is the Grand View, and it is!!  Off to the far left of this image is a small part of The Interdependence Monument.  In the foreground is an interesting rock formation with a different type of rock at the top of the formation (Kayenta), and another below it (Wingate).  Behind it is a rock formation that used to be connected to The Independence Monument many, many years ago.

As we came around a bend in the road, we came across this small herd of desert bighorn sheep.  Some had the nice big, rounded horns, others had horns of a more moderate size, and then there was the baby.  They walked right up to and back and forth in front of the Jeep, showing absolutely no fear.  What a fun sight!

Sometimes the erosion of the rock results in formations that look like something man-made.  In this case, they look a bit like beehives.  However, in the past when they were first discovered, they reminded people of a shape they were used to – coke ovens, where the coal that was mined was loaded, sealed and then it was lit.  The end result was coke, which was used to make iron which is then used to make steel.  So, these formations are called coke ovens, even though some of us are reminded more of beehives!

The next viewpoint was called Artist Point, due to the many colors of the rock in this area.  Across the road from the formal viewpoint were some close-up examples of the colors you could see.  A pallet of many colors!

The next stop, Upper Ute Canyon View, had an interesting rock formation as part of it.  You can see the full canyon in the upper image, and in the lower image, there’s a rock formation that looks remarkably like a mummy sarcophagus.  

The next rock formation was really interesting and reminded me of an iceberg calving.  Geological forces are unrelenting and ongoing.  They combined to cause part of the canyon to separate and fall. You can see what is called Fallen Rock in the center of the image.  What makes this different from a lot of rocks that fall off the wall of the formation and crash to the canyon floor below, is that this rock sort of slid off the face of the canyon and stopped more than 100 feet below.  This reminded me of when we’d see icebergs calving up in Alaska.  Part of the iceberg would crack away from the solid iceberg and simply slide into the sea.  This rock was stopped by the debris at the base of the canyon and is believed to have been in this position for thousands of years.

One of our last stops was to see the multi-directional Ute Canyon.  The image in the upper left was the part of the canyon that branched off to the right when I stood on the viewpoint.  The lower left image branched off to the left, and the image on the right branched directly away from where I stood.  It was quite impressive to see the branches of this one very large canyon!

The last canyon that we saw in this Monument was called Cold Shivers Point.  I couldn’t find any explanation of why it was named this, but I was struck by the beauty of the canyon, with trees and shrubs adding the green color to its walls.

We ended our travels through this National Monument the same way we began – through a tunnel.  However, this tunnel was at the opposite end of the Monument!

Enjoy!

 

 

Colorado Backroad

 

Colorado Backroad

Outside of Rocky Mountain national Park, there are some backroads.  Some of these are closed temporarily, due to recent wildfire activity, but we did find one that was open, and we had a morning of backroad beauty to enjoy!

The first thing we saw was a little creek, happily flowing down from the mountains, and adding a charming sound to our explorations.  I have always love the sound of what some always call a babbling brook!

Daisies are such happy flowers, with their sunny faces always ready to greet you.  The image on the left, however, also tells the tale of the wildfire.  The black post behind the daisies is charred, as are some of the trees in the background.  It looks like the post is what’s left of a sign describing the area (ie., identifying it as part of a national forest, etc.).

When we found a road that was open, it was nice to see an early sign of the upcoming season, the oranges, golds, and reds of autumn.  The change is just beginning, and there’s far more green than other colors, but as a lover of fall, I’m always glad to see the colors changing!

I couldn’t resist asking Jeff to stop the Jeep, so I could get really close to the first signs of autumn!  In this image, it feels like fall is all around me!

Taking a step back, you can see some of the color change in the ground cover, with the green of the pines and other trees still visible.  In the farther background, you can see the ashy grey of trees that were affected by the wildfire, too – a sad reminder.

The last image to remember this fun drive was found by looking overhead, at a hawk effortlessly gliding on the air currents above.  Whenever I see a sight like this, I can’t help but have a real sense of freedom.

Enjoy!+

Rocky Mountain National Park

 

Rocky Mountain National Park

While at Granby, CO, we were close to the west entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, which is the third most popular National Parks.  We were to be in Granby for a few days, so we could take our time and split up time in the Park over a couple of days.  Let’s get started!

Driving through the Park was a beautiful sight!  You’ll see more great views as we travel through this part of the Park.

At 10, 120 feet in elevation, we looked out at the Never Summer Mountains.  It’s the only volcanic range in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Below it lies the Kawuneeche Valley, which is Arapahoe for “valley of the coyote”.  The Valley was shaped by glaciers and the Colorado River.  The most recent glacier receded about 14,000 years ago.

The next sight we saw was Poudre Lake, right at the Continental Divide (10,759 feet in elevation).  As you can see f rom the color of the grass, autumn is beginning to arrive up high in the Rockies.  This view is lovely, but on the way back, we saw another great sight from here (be patient!).

We’re used to wide open driving, but up here at 11,600 (and higher) wide open takes on an entirely new meaning!!  I kept thinking each view was the best, and then along came another one!

The Gore Range is named for Sir St. George Gore, and Irish aristocrat, who came to this area on a hunting expedition, led by Jim Bridger in 1854, who was described as a mountain man.  This range is now a part of Eagles Nest Wilderness Area. The 133,000 acres that make up the wilderness area is as wild today as it was when the area was discovered in 1854.

They call this road Trail Ridge Road, and this image shows you why!!  The scene is absolutely beautiful, and I love the little lake down the way.  But do you see the blurred area at the bottom of the image?  That’s the road edge, and we are just outside the image.  We are driving right along the rim, and should we go off the road, it’s all downhill!

These lava cliffs aren’t the site of a former active volcano.  But it’s not.  These cliffs are the result of volcanic activity from long ago…. from the Never Summer Mountains, which are quite a distance away.  Those volcanoes erupted over 20 million years ago, and the ash that floated from there, settled, and hardened. 

I love the feeling of space that this image creates.  Things are very wide open in spaces along this drive.

 As we drove along the road, I took the upper image, and wondered what the edge of the ground overlooked.  The larger image is what the answer is to that question!  It’s Forest Canyon, and at this point, we’re at the overlook area.  The Big Thompson River flows down the Forest Canyon as it has for thousands of years.  I couldn’t see the river for the trees!!  Several times over the past 2 million years, glaciers have formed and moved down the river.  Forest Canyon formed along an ancient fault line.  On the left side of the image above, you can see Hayden Gorge, a U-shaped glacial valley.  Interesting note – Poudre Lake, shown earlier, is made up of water flowing from The Big Thompson River!

The short trail to get to see the actual Forest Canyon Overlook crosses the tundra (Russian for “land of no trees”).  This area is above the tree line and with winds that often exceed 100 mph (although not today!), temperatures remain below freezing for at least 5 months out of the year.  Tundra plant communities take a long time to mature, so people are asked to stay on the trail and off the tundra.  Most people complied when we were there, although there was a couple who apparently thought their need for a photo on the tundra eclipsed caring for this ecosystem. There were areas with lots of rocks that form a “patterned ground” (shown above) that is only found in Alpine and Arctic regions.  During the last Ice Age, the pattern of freezing and thawing the topsoil caused the rock pattern to emerge.

In 1982, when the Lawn Lake Dam was 79 years old, it burst and sent 29 million gallons of water down the Roaring River, through Horseshoe Park and into Estes Park.  Three people lost their lives and tons of boulders, tree, gravel and sand were swept downhill until they settled into a fan shape, and the place became known as Alluvial Fan.  This area was again pummeled during the Colorado Flood of 2013, piling on more debris, and again changing the landscape.  This is Horseshoe Falls, that runs through the damaged area.  Amazing how two such damaging events can result in such a picturesque little waterfall.

And so, we started down Old Fall River Road.  This road was being used by tourists in their car caravans back in 1926, so it’s been around quite a while!  It’s now a dirt one-way road, and we liked it because, relatively speaking, it wasn’t that crowded.  The day we traveled down it, we felt like it was a bit of Grand Central Station, but like I said, it was “relatively” quiet!!  The image on the left is the road at the beginning of the 9-mile (or is it 11? Depends on the road sign!) road and the image on the left is of a crease in the mountain that looked like a dry riverbed, and is, most likely, where the winter snow melt flows down.

I loved the spot of autumn colors in the trees.  The area was just starting to put on the fall color show – we were about a week or so early for the full show.  This was kind of a rehearsal!!

Since it was such a nice day, we opened the top of Jeep and enjoyed the overhead views – both the mountains and the trees!  We enjoy doing that because it’s such a nice way to open up the views and our enjoyment of the drive!

I’m including this image of a mountain simply because I really liked the color shading!  I would love to make a quilt with these colors sometime!!

I read and was told to expect to see a LOT of animals in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Well, I guess the animals didn’t get that memo, because the only wildlife we saw was this moose, who was very accommodating in terms of posing for the cameras!!  In case you’re wondering, the collar the moose is wearing is a method of tracking the moose.

Enjoy!!