Denver - Day 1

June 30,2008

We arrived in the late morning, picked up the car and were checking into our hotel by noon. It's a great hotel - Denver Sheraton -right on the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall. After stowing our stuff, had a great lunch at Jason's Deli on the Mall and experienced the free shuttle ride. Then we took off for points west - to get close to those snow-capped peaks. We stopped near Idaho Springs at an antique store - it was a warehouse of western items: carved bears, stuffed animals, ancient skipoles and skates(Dutch we found out later), heavy dark furniture, antler chandeliers, etc. When asked what there was to see farther west, she said the tourist part of town was closeby. I guess we acted like tourists...

In town we checked out the info center, or rather I did, and the guide there was effusive about route 103 out of town to Mt. Evans, higher than Pike's Peak, she boasted. The road went through the Arapaho Nat. Forest and is the highest paved road in the nation, maybe in the world,again she boasted. We headed out and the road took us through towering graniteoutcroppings that looked ready to topple and an evergreen forest. Colorado river rapids on one side of us and these stone monoliths on the other. It was humbling scary at the same time. The road began to climb and wind in directions we are not used to. By the time we got to the entrance to the forest, we were at a 9,000 ft. altitude.The air was cool.
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Pressing on the road narrowed, the turns were more like hairpins, the views were spectacular. I was driving & enjoying it to this point. Now I had to concentrate more & could not take in all the beauty. The air was very cool and thin. We did not stop even though we were now above the tree line and there were patches dirty snow everywhere. Finally, finally the 14 mi. trip to the top of 14,224 ft.-Mt. Evans was completed. We got out of the car and were immed. cold - temp must have been hovering around freezing. Patrick said he saw snowflakes -he also had white knuckles from the edgy drive up. The air was so thin I was beginning to feel light-headed. We didn't stay long, even though there was a walkable hike to an even higher point. We walked around nearly shivering, for was it 10 seconds? - maybe10 minutes, then got in the car & turned the heater on.

Patrick drove down. We saw mountain goats, even a young one, marmots, and more spectacular views. We stopped a couple times to take in the immense stone fields, the valleys with lakes, and the surrounding peaks of the Rockies. Going down we congratulated ourselves on toughing it out by braving the scary-dangerous road to Mt. Evans. It was worth it, thin air and all.

After a late dinner on the Mall, we settled down for the night. I think my photos will illustrate Mt. Evans very well.