Random Things and Hot Springs

I woke up warm and comfortable AND… miracle of miracles, DRY! I cannot tell you just how happy Rachel letting me sleep on her couch made me. Not only that but the angel made me toast and eggs in the morning! That was the most gourmet meal I had during all of my lonesome ramblings, even when I let myself splurge near the end of the week. However, don’t let me get ahead of myself.

At one point I had planned to go and hike to Conundrum Hot Springs, but it was a Saturday and that trail was already known as one that got way too busy. Not to mention that I had driven down to it the night prior and at night the trailhead for a sixteen-mile roundtrip hike was already almost completely full. Sure hot springs sounded excellent after tearing my legs to pieces during the twelve-mile hike that I had done the day prior, but crowded trails weren’t really my cup of tea. I had heard though that on that particular weekend all the National Parks were free because it was the 100^th Birthday of the National Parks on August 25, 2016. Which means that everyone needs to get out to the National Parks this year to celebrate 100 years of National Parks, along with the fact that they are considering putting limits on the number of visitors each park allows in each year. Get in while you still can!

For me there was also another reason to go check out the other National Parks in Colorado. I had already gotten to Rocky Mountain National Park and The Great Sand Dunes National Park earlier this year and now I wanted to complete my collection of the four Colorado National Parks (that’s a pretty high number for a single state too, just in case you didn’t realize—Colorado for the Win!). The closest one was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and it looked like I would be able to stop along the way at another ghost town—Marble, CO. I set the course and hit the road. 

It took me nearly thirty minutes to realize I was on the same road I had taken a couple years prior to get to Blues Recess in Paonia, Colorado. I have to throw in a little aside here about how freaking awesome it is to Blues and Fusion dance on the top of a bus in the middle of beautiful mountainous country. (if anyone wants to know what either of those types of dancing are just say in the comments and I'll find someone on my road trip to do a demo of both that I will record and I'll make a post specifically for explaining them). Unfortunately they have since stopped coming through Colorado and I would just like to make my personal plea… PLEASE COME BACK TO COLORADO, RECESS!!!! Now back from my aside—on our way to Recess that year we had stopped at some random, undeveloped hot springs that were just on the side of the road. I began to keep my eyes peeled and my windows rolled down so I could catch the scent of sulfur. Turns out neither of those things were absolutely needed since the pull off had a few cars there already (though I did smell the air for that sulfur scent just to verify that I had found the place).

I descended the little path to the side of the river that the springs fed into with the goal in mind of just soaking my feet and calves, which did still ache slightly after the excursion up the peaks the previous day. The big pool had a couple guys hanging out in it and I plopped myself down at a distance that was close enough to hold conversation but not so close as to appear creepy. (At least that was my intent, but wearing a straw fedora and purple rimmed sunglasses might have made the vicinity I had chosen still a little creepy.) Once again I had found people that were not natives and were in fact part of the great post-marijuana legalization migration, though honestly those that stick around in Colorado don’t just do so for the prime herb. As a nearly native individual (I spent the first five years of my life in California *gasp*) I understand that Colorado is just intoxicating and impossible to leave forever. My mom would disagree, but then she hates snow, wind, cold, winter, things losing leaves and dying, hail, lightning storms, and pretty much every part of the year in Colorado aside from June to July (maybe May and August can be thrown in if it is a warm and dry year). But anyway, these individuals came from the Midwest, one from Wisconsin somewhere and the other from Chicago, Illinois. So after either of those places Colorado is just about a perfect paradise. I say this before I’ve spent much time in either place so really it's just me being my generally offensive self.

I chatted with these two for a while and then a somewhat hippie looking girl joined us (my generation has done its best at reviving the hippie aesthetic, and sometimes I think we’ve even done a more complete job of it then the flower children of the seventies). But yeah, eventually the guys left and then the hippie girl asked if I was just going to just sit there and soak my feet or actually get in. It took no more goading, I was soon stripped down to my boxer briefs and into the little rock pool. (It almost always only takes that much encouragement, my older sister would know—just suggest the idea and chances are I’ll do it.) Turns out the hippie girl had a name, Christine, and then we were joined by some people from North Carolina and another hippie type boy who didn’t say much and then a snowboard “jock?” and a couple friends that were visiting him from out of town. The place was a party, beer included, I even got one from the hippie girl. It was a very good Saturday afternoon, but I had a National Park to get to before the sun went down. Eventually I got back on the road  and even maintained the intention of stopping by Marble, CO.

I did indeed get to Marble, but I did not even bother trying to locate the quarry, though I saw lots of beautiful marble sculptures that the residents had created. Still I did not even get out of the car to snap any pictures so… click here to see other people’s pictures of Marble, CO. I know, it’s just as bad as the Trump Campaign using the first picture of a Black Family they found when they Google searched the term, but you have to remember that I had a National Park to get to.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is the National Park that apparently hardly anyone knows about, especially the North Rim. So if you want to see a beautiful National Park without having to deal with those pesky things that the world knows as your fellow human beings, then you should definitely check out the Black Canyon. It was just a little after five o’clock when I parked my car and got out to go for the seven-mile round-trip hike that followed the north rim of the canyon. Some people might consider this too late for such a hike, but I’m awesome… and also rather stupid, so I set off, and got back to my car before eight o’clock. And that was with a big old backpack on my back and a big old camera hanging from my neck. I even managed to snap some great pictures for you all.

At the end of the hiking I decided to stay there at the park overnight, though I would not be camping since my tent was still soaked. Still I got to sit down at a park bench to read and do some journaling, and no one looked at me weird as I resituated my car so it could become a sleep-able space.

I did not have very many pictures for you all for this part of the trip. I hope the writing by itself was not too droll, but don’t worry, I should have more pictures for the next post. And don’t forget, not the next post, but the one after, will begin the Bummel of my friends and I.

The Highs and Lows

At the behest of my little sister I have taken some time off of my solo Colorado ramblings to sit down and document at least a little of what I have seen and experienced so far. Just to give the reader a little survey as to how far I've gone and how much I have seen in the past four days:

• ·       Car Mileage: 814
• ·       Hiking Mileage: 27
• ·       Highest Elevation By Foot: 14,203’
• ·       Highest Elevation By Car: 12,096’
• ·       Lowest Elevation: 5,756’
• ·       Lowest Temperature: 19°F
• ·       Highest Temperature: 81°F

All of that was in just a single state, believe it or not. One of the beautiful things about Colorado. Well beautiful and at times frustrating. That’s the thing about Colorado—it definitely has the highs (pun only partially intended), but it also has the lows as well. That being said my trip has had some highs and lows as well, and I’ll let you in on the full spectrum.

First and foremost, you have to understand that I have had absolutely no idea as to what I was going to do the next day and sometimes the next hour during this entire excursion. So when I left my parents’ home in the Springs I thought that I would definitely like to hike some 14ers, but I knew I was leaving too late to do that on that particular day. Aside from that though I didn’t even have any distinct sites to see, so I decided to check out some of the ghost towns that were listed on a Colorado road trip my friend had sent me the link to.

The problem with this was that it was designed to start from Denver and so I had to actually make a decision myself. Como, Colorado was the closest. I went for it. Como is not near as ghostly as the website had made it out as being. There were residents’ vehicles all over, and while I was reading the plaque in front of the train station there were a couple workers walking in and out of the building just a few feet from me. So much for one of Colorado’s most abandoned places. Of course nowadays it’s hard to find anywhere in Colorado that doesn’t have people living there or visiting there with all the people moving into the state.

Still Como has some interesting history, and a very unique building. The round house

is one of the last remaining in Colorado that retains all of the original pieces from its construction in the 1800’s. The old train station is quaint and attractive as well

though my talents at taking selfies create a much less attractive image.

Next stop was St. Elmo-- a town that I was hoping would prove to be more ghostly than Como (it just felt weird driving onto a community’s road just to take pictures of their buildings, though I guess Parisians deal with that junk all the time… maybe that’s why they detest Americans so much…)

St. Elmo was indeed a much more abandoned town, though it has become a major stop along the Colorado touring route for many individuals. Because of this there are always tourists' cars parked along the main street. All the people coming through also means there is a place to purchase souvenirs and food at the first two buildings on the road. Thankfully the rest of the town is very much deserted, aside from one quaint little pink home that I suppose holds residents at least during part of the year due to the signage hanging around it.

The town of St. Elmo was once again closely dependent upon the railroad for its vitality, quite like Como, so when railroads because less needed the town dried up. However, due to the tourist interest in the town, there have been many efforts to keep the town in good condition. There is even some restoration construction going on now, because or course the town is old, as the sign observes.

There is a nice little foot traffic only road in front of some of the old homes as well that all seem to be kept in pretty good repair.

If you drop in, I’d suggest making a little donation by the information plaque so we can keep this town around as a ghostly museum of our past. If you want to know more feel free to read this little flier that sat in the window of the local hotel (no longer open of course).

On the way out of the town I felt in dire need of some hiking. St Elmo was nestled back in on the South West side of Mt Princeton, which had made me crazy in need of hiking as I drove past it. On the way out I found a random little trail and pulled off to go explore. It was a very short trail, the Cascade Creek Trail. At least the loop is very short, but the hike up to the waterfall adds a couple more miles so it becomes somewhat more exciting. No matter what the arid landscape with the creek running through it is beautiful to see.

I met a couple other hikers along the way—Carl and Manning—they had come up from Austin, Texas, though Carl had initially been a Coloradan at one point. I hiked up to the waterfall with them and chatted a bit. After several hours in the car alone it was nice to have some friendly conversation. The extra mile or so of hiking to the waterfall was definitely worth it.

Going to St Elmo had put me right near the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, which was the area that I had a map of the surrounding 14ers for, including a trail that could bring me to the summits of three different peaks in a single day. I decided to drive to the trailhead and most likely just sleep in my car before taking on the peaks the next day. But when I got on the road that led to the trailhead I found numerous campsites littering the side of the road, and no sign saying that I needed to pay for them or anything! So I took my CR-V down a nice hill that would probably qualify as a trail for 4X4 vehicles. (Gotta love a high clearance, AWD, manual vehicle!). There I made myself some delicious dinner

set up my tent, and then laid out inside it and began to read just as the rain started to come down.

The rain freaked me out a little. I had no idea if my tent was waterproof, but it stayed dry inside so I decided to relax and let myself fall asleep.

Now if it had only rained for three or even three and a half hours it would have stayed perfectly dry inside the tent, but it rained for four and a half. At four hours I found myself waking up and I reached out to check the border of the tent to make sure no water had gotten in. It had. So I moved all of my stuff back into my car, leaving the tent up to be taken down the next day, and then I was too lazy to resituate my belongings in the car at 1:30 in the morning in order to sleep in the back so I slept very fitfully in the driver’s seat until the next morning.

And that was day one. This post is getting a bit long so I’ll fit in the rest of the happenings in another couple blog posts that I’ll get up on the 31^st and September 1^st. (Hope this is good enough for you for now Jade ;p)