Days 36-38: Edwards, CO
Thirty-five days on the road have a way of putting some things into perspective. For example, having a large sink to wash dishes in is quite the luxury—not to mention a dishwasher. Beyond all that, though, is the feeling of waking up and not having to rush out the door. No need to check out by 10:00 a.m. No need to pack up a campsite. Not that we're complaining about a month-long road trip, but being able to settle in somewhere is a luxury we just hadn't anticipated.
So, we spent the next three days in a house at the very top of Edwards in Cordillera, reveling in the views and the space and 72 hours without much driving. Here are the highlights:
Hike to Big Park. At the very top of the mountain from where we were staying (somewhere above 9,000 feet), a trailhead gives you access to White River National Forest. More specifically, Big Park, an alpine meadow with sweeping views of the surrounding mountain ranges. It was originally billed as a quick and easy hike, which it was, so we decided to press on past the meadow and see where the trail would take us. And, wow, we really outdid ourselves this time. The photo below shows you the edge of the meadow, where the trail carries on down.
Though relatively well prepared with a pack and good hiking boots and plenty of water, we didn't actually have a map of any of these trails. So what could have been an hour-long meander up to a meadow and back became close to 4 hours, a hell of a lot more climbing, and a large chunk near the end with no trail at all... which is pretty unadvisable, if for no other reason than an effort not to disturb the wildlife.
Up at Big Park we were somewhere around 9,600 feet. The trail we had chosen started to decline rapidly, which we knew we'd have to pay back eventually. We got down to about 8,500, then found a trail that we hoped would take us back in the right direction. It did, for a minute, then not as much. We walked along berry-covered ridges, through meadows and groves of towering aspens. Though we were a little late for the wildflowers, there were still some here and there, and the forest more than made up for it with the occasional burst of yellow from an aspen getting ready for fall.
We finally made our way up a dirt road to the very top. From there we managed to navigate a little closer to our original trail, then the aforementioned trail-free forest walk back to where we started. That last part was a bit of an obstacle course—climbing over a web of fallen trees at the end of a long hike will really make you value a nice, well-trod trail.
Hike to Hanging Lake. The next day, we back-tracked a little over to Glenwood Canyon, where there's a short but fairly rigorous hike up to Hanging Lake. "A geologic fault which caused the lake bed to drop away from the gently sloping valley above it," resulting in a truly beautiful lake fed by Bridal Veil Falls, tucked into the surrounding trees and braced by the mountains around it.
The hike to the lake is pretty popular—so much so, in fact, they're in the process of limiting the number of daily visitors to 615 in an effort to protect the fragile ecosystem around the lake. The trail itself alternates between wide dirt paths and stretches of steep, rocky terrain. It cuts back and forth as it rises, using a series of seven bridges and even a small section with handrails as you get closer to the top. The view at the top is just as lovely as the photos would suggest. There's a nice stretch of boardwalk around the lake for visitors to peer down into the emerald water, where every now and then a trout swims by.
And just in case you missed the shots of driving through Glenwood Canyon in our last post, we're going to go ahead and give you another chance:
Nightly Visitors. And when we weren't driving and hiking and getting slightly lost, we were doing things like hanging out with our nightly visitors (seen at the top of this post), the small herd of deer that seem to have taken up residence along one side of the house. So, we left the GoPro out one night and took a time lapse of their evening ritual, because who said the GoPro should only be used for driving through canyons and mountains? You may want to make this one full screen to see them best.