Visiting a red rock ship in a sea of wildflowers

We were up early on our last morning at Gore Creek campground. That's because we want to squeeze in one more hike before we leave this area. It was tough for these two old retired people to roll out of bed at 6:00 a.m., and be on the road for the thirty minute drive to the Shrine Ridge trail head a few minutes later. The last few miles of that drive are on washboard gravel, and we had heard that this trail head fills up early. But we got one of those coveted parking places and we were on the trail in the first light of morning with our jackets on.

It's always nice to hike in the quiet of morning and have the trail mostly to ourselves. It's especially nice when that trail has great wildflowers on it!

Everywhere we turned, we found more fields of bright wildflowers. We love that they were framed by a row of tall mountains behind them.

This is a popular trail because of the mountain views and the flowers. But it's also considered a pretty easy trail by our standards because it took only a 2-mile hike and only 1,000 feet elevation gain to get to the usual turn-around point.

There's another big pay-off at that two-mile point. A big red rock formation suddenly comes into view in the middle of all those flowers.

It looks like a giant ship coming out of the waves of flowers.

A trail runs the length of the red rocks, so we could get a view from bow to stern from this cliff off the trail.

There are great views and great view points on this trail overlooking the valley below.

In between our trail and those red rocks is a sizable valley. That would convince most people that it is best to just gaze at them from afar.

But Mark isn't "most people," and he headed across that valley to get a closer look.

Denisa knows her limits, and she recognizes her role as photographer in these situations. So she retraced her footsteps on the trail, keeping up with Mark's progress along the red rocks. She got good pictures of Mark beside most of the bigger rock formations that line the top of that giant red rock ship

Several other people were taking pictures of that crazy guy in the blue shirt as well. On the trail, Denisa heard one guy tell his hiking companion, "Why don't you take that picture and post it on facebook and tell everyone that was me out on those rocks." Another woman was taking pictures of Mark, excited that he had waved back at her. She wasn't as excited when she realized that he was actually waving at Denisa.

When he finally got to the bow, a small rock cairn at his feet indicated that he wasn't the first to climb aboard the red rock ship for crazy pictures.

Then he had the tough climb off the rocks, across the valley, and the steep ascent to rejoin Denisa on the trail. During all of Mark's physical exertion, Denisa was busy taking more pictures of the wildflowers. They were everywhere!

Because we had gotten up early this morning, we had time to continue the optional part of the hike that goes in the opposite direction at the T. Within a quarter of a mile, the wildflowers were gone.

We found a little snow on this trail that continued upwards, but it wasn't nearly as interesting as the other leg of the trail with its red rocks.

We did find this unusual moth, staying low to the ground this morning. His black, gray, and orange markings blended in nicely with his environment.

We hiked to the first good view-point, then turned our hiking boots back towards the trail head. That's when we realized just how popular the Shrine Ridge trail is. We met a constant flow of hikers (that hadn't gotten up as early as we did) coming up the trail. With the six-foot social distancing rule, we spent a lot of time and effort moving off the trail as we continued to meet more hikers. We've noticed that single trails are beginning to become wider as this six-foot rule comes to the mountains.

It was a great hike, and we're glad that we made the effort to get here this morning. We made the thirty-minute drive back to Gore Creek campground, and we were able to get out of our camp site before the noon check-out deadline. It doesn't take long to break camp when there are no hook-ups and we don't have the slides out. Then we were on the road to our next destination. We're moving west again on I-70, through Glenwood Canyon.

This is a beautiful stretch of interstate, with the canyon walls that tower up to 2,000 feet on both sides. The Colorado River is also flowing right beside us most of the way.

Completed in 1992, this was an engineering marvel to fit a four-lane highway into a river canyon. At times the road goes right through the walls of the canyon . . .

in lengths that make it too hard to hold your breath. We know--because we tried.

At times the west-bound lanes are stacked on top of the east bound lanes because the canyon walls are so close together. The day we were driving through, road construction put both east and west-bound traffic on the same level and gave us each only one lane. So it wasn't a fun day to be driving a wide motor home through Glenwood Canyon

But we made it safely through the canyon, where we turned south to get to our camping destination at Gateway RV Park just north of Carbondale, Colorado. Owned by the city, it's a nice campground with full-hook-ups and 50-amp electricity. After living in Forest Service campgrounds for the last 13 nights, we are excited about having water and sewer and more than the minimal 30-amp electricity that we have grown accustomed to. As soon as we pulled in, Denisa started washing clothes. Between an early morning wake-up alarm to see the red rock ship, and a moving day, we're ready to be home once again.