Wolf Creek Pass and Alamosa, Colorado

On Friday, September 27, day 13 of our western trip, we left Blanding, Utah and drove to Alamosa, Colorado, where we planned to stay for a couple of nights while visiting the Great Sand Dunes National Park. It had rained overnight in Blanding, and the morning was overcast.

Our route took us over Wolf Creek Pass, a high mountain pass (10,856 feet) where we encountered snow and a drop in temperature to the freezing mark of 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

Between Pagosa Springs and Wolf Creek Pass, there is a parking area and a hiking trail to the base of Treasure Falls. Unwilling to hike in the cold and wet weather, we settled for taking photographs from the parking area.

Treasure Falls

The scenery in this area was stunning. Unfortunately, my photos aren't. Let's blame the weather.

At a rest stop, Doug was able, with the camcorder, to capture a photo of a magpie. I've never been able to get a decent shot of these colorful birds, but I thought Doug did a good job.

Black-Billed Magpie

Before we left home to begin this trip, Doug had taken our vehicle in to be serviced. He told the service manager about a noise we were hearing and suggested that it might be a wheel bearing. The service manager brushed off that idea. He even gave us a checklist of items that had been checked on the vehicle, and the wheel bearings were checked off as being fine.

 

Well, the noise had been continuing to get worse as we travelled, and it was peaking as we drove into Alamosa on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, we took it to a local garage to get it checked out. The result...one bearing was completely shot and a second was nearly so.

 

Fred, the mechanic, had to order the parts from Denver, and they wound up not being delivered until Tuesday, October 1st, the start of our government's shut down and the closing of all national parks. So there went our visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park.

 

We tried to rent a car, but Hertz in Alamosa was closed until Monday; and the only other car rental place in town, Budget Rent-A-Car, had only pickups and sport utility vehicles available, which would have cost nearly $200 per day.

 

So we were stranded for four days without a vehicle.

Our room at the Best Western was to be our home for the next four days.

If we had to be stranded, Alamosa turned out to be a good place for it to happen. From the Best Western, restaurants and grocery stores were available within a half-mile walk. People were so friendly. And boy do they love their Denver Broncos! Of course, the Broncos' quarterback is none other than Peyton Manning who, until two years ago, was the quarterback for our Indianapolis Colts. Doug wore his Colts baseball cap everywhere, and it's surprising how many people struck up conversations with us because of that cap.

Sunset from the balcony outside our second-floor room at the Best Western

The lobby and breakfast room are in this building.

This little park is behind the building where the lobby is.

As it turned out, Fred wasn't able to finish the repairs to our vehicle until 4 PM on Tuesday. By then, we just wanted to be anywhere else. So we had packed up and checked out of our room, then spent the day in the little park pictured above, waiting for the call from Fred that the vehicle was ready. When the call came, we called a cab to take us to the garage, loaded our things into the van, and headed for home.

 

Thus ends the saga of our Trip West 2013.

Go Broncos in tomorrow's Super Bowl!!!

Monument Valley

I suspect there is much more to see at Monument Valley than we saw on our visit of September 26th. There is a 17-mile unpaved road through the park, but it's very rough and recommended for only high-profile vehicles. We saw several regular passenger vehicles attempting the route, but we watched their progress long enough to know that we didn't want to try it. Tours are available for $60 per person, but we felt we had seen enough on our drive down from Blanding that it wasn't necessary to take the tour.

This is the awesome view from the balcony of the Visitor Center.

Following are closer views of the three monuments pictured above:

Another view from the Visitor Center

Looking at a portion of the 17-mile unpaved road.

After leaving the park, we took a little drive through the nearby countryside.

Free range horses near Monument Valley

Then, as we drove back to Blanding, we took more photos of the strange, but beautiful, landscape:

Driving to Monument Valley

The next stop on our Trip West 2013, was Blanding, Utah, from which we would drive to Monument Valley, about 75 miles south.

Monument Valley is a Navajo Tribal Park (30,000 acres), established in 1958, and located on the border of Arizona and Utah within the 16-million-acre Navajo Reservation. Over the years, because of Monument Valley's unique sandstone formations, the park has been the setting for more Western movies than any other site in the United States.

Following are pictures of some of the beautiful rock formations that we saw on September 26th, on the drive from Blanding to the official entrance of the park. Our route took us through two small towns...Bluff, Utah and Mexican Hat, Utah.

"Navajo Twins" at Bluff, Utah

Cow Canyon Trading Post at Bluff, Utah

This rock formation was just outside of Mexican Hat, Utah

Can you see how the town got it's name?

Continuing on down the road toward Monument Valley, we saw more and more beautiful and interesting rock formations:

 

I'll have another post, with photos from Monument Valley and the surrounding area in a few days.

Canyonlands Needles District: Landscapes

These photos are again from our visit to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park in Utah, on September 25, 2013.

We spotted this Moonflower shortly after leaving the Cave Spring area.

We also saw this interesting rock formation in the distance.

Later, we came upon a sign telling us that the rock formation is known as Wooden Shoe Arch.

This is a section of the Needles that are visible from Elephant Hill Spur Road.

Here's a little closer look at one section of the panorama shot above.

We almost drove right past that Needles overlook on Elephant Hill Spur Road, without taking any pictures, because the Needles were so far away. We thought we'd just wait until we had closer views. But, the old adage of "a bird in the hand..." came to mind so we stopped for a few shots. As it turned out, that was the only time we saw the Needles for which this section of Canyonlands is named. Apparently, other views are possible only by long hikes or off-road vehicles.

 

The next three photos were also taken along the Elephant Hill Spur Road:

And the final four photos were shot near where the road ended at Big Spring Canyon Overlook:

We enjoyed this part of Canyonlands National Park, but we were disappointed in not being able to see some of the beautiful places pictured on the promotional information. When I asked at the Visitor Center, they told me that many of those features can be viewed only after lengthy hikes or by off-road vehicles.

 

Still, we definitely enjoyed the beauty of the landscapes and our hike on Cave Spring trail.

 

Next up on our Trip West 2013 will be Monument Valley. Stay tuned.

Canyonlands Needles District: Cave Spring Trail

One of the first things we did on our September 25th visit to the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park in Utah was to take a short hike on the Cave Spring Trail.

Doug and I both enjoy stories of the Old West, and we have read almost every book written by Louis L'Amour. We knew we had to take this hike when we saw that there was, not only a spring, but an old cowboy camp on this trail.

Canyonlands was extremely remote when livestock were first brought into the area around 1890. Just to get to the pastures often required a ride of two or three days, and cowboys frequently had to stay in the backcountry with the herd for months at a time. To make life a little more pleasant for the cowboys a series of camps were established throughout the area; and, in the Needles District, the Cave Spring Camp was one of the most important. The camp is still largely intact and  offers a fascinating insight into what a cowboy’s life was like in the early 1900s. 

The trail took us around a large rock formation that was narrower at the bottom than at the top, resulting in a large overhang, with alcoves underneath that created cave-like spaces. It was sort of like walking under a large mushroom.

 

Cave Spring Trail

Outside of the Cowboy Camp

Part of the inside of the camp

This picture shows the large overhang sheltering the camp.

This grain bin was situated near the cowboy camp; and there was actually grain in it.
I half expected a rat to scurry out of it when we lifted the lid. Thankfully, that didn't happen!

Looking back toward another small cave.

Cave Spring is one of the area's few year-round water sources.

When we were there, it looked more like a seep than a spring.
Ferns grew on the rock wall above the spring.

This picture again shows part of that large rock overhang.
(It made for pleasant walking as it provided shade from the hot sun.)

Past Cave Spring, two ladders ascend to the slickrock above, providing panoramic views of canyon scenery. Doug climbed the first ladder, just to look around; but we decided to return to our car by the way we had come.

Doug at the top of the first ladder.