Colorado (Part 1)

After taking a shortcut through Northern Utah, including a visit to the Dinosaur quarry, we headed into Colorado. Our plans for reaching the campsite in the national forest were thwarted by two things. The first being that with the 4th of July rapidly approaching everybody who owns a car has gone camping, meaning all sites are fully reserved weeks in advance. The second thing was a stop at Wendy's to test the theory that the burgers are as tasty here as they are in Canada (they are), free WiFi and huge drinks meant it was getting dark when we left, so a roadside rest area became an attractive alternative.

The next day we headed towards our next National Park, Rocky Mountain NP. On our way we passed yet more overflowing campsites (and some dump stations literally overflowing, eww!) 

After a quick stop at the visitors centre for info on hikes we began the drive and soon came across lots of cars stopped in the road, stopping ourselves to see what the fuss was about we quickly realised it was another Moose! It turns out they are like Devon buses, there are none for months and then you see 2 in a week!

We quickly found out that Rocky Mountain NP is the busiest National Park in the USA, this meant we had to pass some points of interest by as there was no room to park up, one bonus of this was that the parking lots were a goldmine for our game of license plate bingo!

Continuing the drive through the stunning scenery we quickly gained height, the highway through the park is the highest in the USA and passes over 12,800ft! We stopped for a quick walk to the summit to take in the views.

After slowly making our way back down the other side of the pass we reached the Bear Lake trail, our hike took in 3 lakes, Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake culminating in spectacular valley head (and lots of hungry mozzies - notice a theme?) 

On our way back we were stopped by some lost people who asked for directions, it turned out they had walked way off track and we guided them back to the parking lot and then gave them a lift to their car as they were several miles away. Having done our good deed for the day we continued on to camp.

The following day we made a boring but necessary stop in Boulder and then made our way to camp at Nederland reservoir where we watched a brilliant lightening storm over the hills.

An early start for a long driving day which took us over more high passes making the van work hard. We passed through the towns of Blackhawk and Central City which were very different than any others we had seen in the USA each having an English appearance, apart from the casinos and huge abandoned gold mines... 

We began the 4th of July by trying to find Browns Canyon National Monument and failing, there didn't seem to be any roads leading to it! Chalking it up as a loss we carried on to our next stop of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park taking a break at Gunnison White Water park to take a dip in the river and cool off.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP really took us by surprise, the huge canyon is 2000ft deep and only 40ft wide in parts, we took advantage of the many viewpoints and were treated to some fantastic evening light.

Being the 4th of July we were slightly anxious about finding somewhere to camp, with many of the campsites full we chose a slightly odd tactic of heading for a town park which allowed overnight camping. On arrival we found the parking lot packed full of cars, not to be put off lightly we parked up to see what was going on. A quick chat with some of the local PD revealed there was to be a firework show starting in 10 minutes! We had wanted to see a 4th of July show but had given up hope due to the Stage 2 fire restrictions in place (no fires/fireworks at all). The following show blew our socks off and once the crowds dispersed we moved to a corner of the parking lot and made camp for the night.

Next Post - Colorado Part 2