Slowing our pace in Colorado this summer

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

Miscellaneous dates mid-August, 2023

After Mark's trip to the emergency room, we decided to slow our pace just a little. We were glad to know that his heart looks good and healthy. But we knew a couple that left the mountains in a hurry this summer when she started having some heart palpitations. So this blog is a combination of several days' activities as we slowed our pace. We've been dipping our toes in the cold water of the Arkansas River more than usual.

We also discovered that just a few miles north of Buena Vista was a gravel road that winds its way along the Arkansas River. Three tunnels allow for the road to continue even though the mountains were blocking the way.

After living for weeks in this area, we were a little surprised that we hadn't found the Midland Tunnels before.

The train no longer runs on these tracks along the river, and this flat gravel road would be a great place for a bike ride. We watched as several groups rode their Buena Vista rental bikes down this lightly-traveled road.

Rock climbers know about this area because of the series of climbing trails in the granite walls along the road. This one even had a sizable parking lot, and google map labeled it as "Bob's Rock."

Boondockers know about this road because of the no-hook-up forest service campgrounds here. We found many people camping right under elephant rock, with a great view of the Sawatch Mountains. Sometimes slowing our pace gives us time to discover new and interesting places--and more of God's wonders.

The road took us for miles along the curvy river bed, for more views of the Arkansas River.

On another day we took a different drive down another gravel road. This slower pace gave us more views of the Arkansas River near the put-in spot for the Class IV run down the numbered rapids.

When we slowed our pace, we also had time to look up and explore the skies. We could watch a parade of helicopters overhead. We found out that a premier helicopter training facility was very close to our campground, and we were watching its training flights.

Another day, we took a longer drive to explore another section of the Colorado/Continental Divide Trail. We saw those now-familiar trail signs on the tree as we started this short hike.

From the viewing area near Monarch Pass, the mountains stretched out in layers in front of us. Their blue silhouettes reminded us of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the east.

But instead of the 6,000-foot-tall Blue Ridge Mountains, we were seeing the Colorado Rocky Mountains that are up to 14,000 feet in elevation. We used our free version of the peak visor app to get the names and elevations of the mountains we saw in the distance in front of us. We found this a very interesting cell phone app, but it was constantly tempting us with a red banner to pay for the pro version.

From that summit, we could turn the opposite direction to see mountains that were considerably closer to us.

The app labels mountains that have become familiar to us during this extended stay in the Colorado Mountains.

It was always fun to meet hikers that were spending a good part of their summer on these long trails. When we were hiking this steep and rocky trail, we would often think of the couple we met biking the Continental Divide Trail with their two-year-old daughter. We wondered if they had gotten to this section yet.

When we hiked on rocky paths that had stair steps up steep inclines, we wondered how their bike with its toddler side car was faring on these trails. We had seen many Continental Divide signs this summer, and this was another at Old Monarch Pass at an elevation of 11,375 feet.

As we were slowing our pace, we could have headed back the way we came on this short hike. But even though we were slower, we couldn't miss out on an opportunity to explore new interesting territory. So we took an extra side spur to see the trails of Monarch Ski Mountain. We skied here many years ago.

The ski trail signs were very tall, so they would still be above the snow in the middle of the winter.

Monarch offers trails that vary from the easy greens to the expert black diamonds.

While many winter ski resorts offer high elevation summer activities, this remote ski area was asleep for the summer. The chair lifts were silent until the snow covers this mountain again next fall.

We were the only ones at the top of the mountain on this beautiful day when we were slowing our pace.

We found a nice route through the forest that made a loop back to where we had parked the pickup. We noticed that the trees on top of Monarch Pass have suffered from the pine beetle blight. But it was a lovely hike on another day of wandering God's wonders in the mountains of Colorado. We might be slowing our pace, but we were certainly not stopping completely!