The trip out west

My Trip Out West
(Summer '95)

Fairplay, Colorado

I started my trip with a 3-day drive to Fairplay, Colo., where my parents have a log cabin. A Rice friend drove up from Sandia with his roommate (a Princetonian) and we spent a couple days sightseeing. We also did a lot of stargazing. Because it's pitch dark out there and we had a new moon, the stars were stunning.

After they left, I explored Mosquito Gulch, which lies between Fairplay and Alma and is rich in mining history. Several active mines and a couple good-sized towns once existed there, and the trains used to run over Mosquito Pass (about 13,000 ft), carrying ore to Leadville. Not much is left now: just a few ruins and some ghosts.

I bounced my way up to where the pass starts and the road turns into a 4x4 road. On the way, I saw a herd of bighorn sheep -- I'd never seen one before, so I watched and took pictures for a while. Then I started up the 4x4 road. I actually almost made it up to the N. London Mine -- I had to stop where a ridge of rock crossed the road, at about 12,000 ft., and I just hiked the remaining quarter-mile. Beyond the mine the pass was impassable, still covered with snow.

The mine, at 12,280 ft. is moderately well preserved. It's desolate and haunting up there, well above the tree line. The wind really howls. It even snowed on me briefly, and I noticed some nearby snow banks were still over six feet high. The sun finally peeked out, so I returned to my car and retrieved my camera. I wrestled with the sun, which mostly wanted to stay behind the clouds, and with my batteries, which wanted to die in the cold (about 40 deg.), but did get a few pictures, including this one.

Pretty soon an incoming storm chased me off the mountain.

Colorado National Monument

From Fairplay, I drove to Grand Junction. On the way, I-70 passes through Glen Canyon, a narrow canyon through which the Colorado flows, I-70 runs high on the canyon wall, and it's a spectacular drive. I stopped briefly in Glenwood Springs to visit Doc Holliday's grave, in a curious little cemetery on the mountainside above the city. No one's actually sure where his body is, but he has an impressive gravestone.

I spent the next day at Colorado NM. It's rich with beautiful canyons and rock formations. The Spires are particularly impressive:

Castle Valley, and Arches Nat'l Park

After leaving Colorado NM, I drove toward Arches National Park. I took a small state road following the Colorado River and then branched off on a forest road that leads through the Castle Valley region and the Manti-LaSal National Forest. Among the rock formations I saw was the well-known "Priest and the Nuns", below (since getting back from the trip, I've already seen this formation crop up on a TV add).

I spent the next day at Arches NP (map). Castle Valley and Colorado NM pale in comparison -- I'm glad I saw them first. The rock formations in Arches are really impressive, including towering walls, spires, and balanced rocks, but of course the highlight is the arches themselves. Among these, the most impressive are Delicate Arch, the one on Utah's license plate and perhaps the most photographed of all; Landscape Arch, a wide and very thin arch that doesn't look like it could possibly support its own weight; and the Double Arch, below.

Canyonlands, Natural Bridges, and Capitol Reef

Next I visited Canyonlands NP (map), a huge park whose northern end almost touches Arches. The Colorado and Green rivers have both cut canyons through the area. The best views are from Dead Horse Point (actually in a nearby state park) and the Island in the Sky.

At the southern end of the park are some more interesting rock formations, including the Needles, which look like a row of giant teeth. An interesting aspect of the whole area -- Arches, Canyonlands, etc. -- is how many of the formations resemble other objects, like The Priest and the Nuns, the Needles, and this interesting ridge.

It reminds me of a row of elephants.

That night I couldn't find a motel, and ended up renting a room in someone's house. The next day I visited Natural Bridges NM. It features three huge arches -- but technically, these aren't arches. Arches are formed by erosion, and bridges are formed by the penetration of a river.

After Natural Bridges, I moved on to Capitol Reef NP (map). I don't know where the "Reef" part of the name comes from, but one of the dominant features there is a white, dome-shaped mountain, which accounts for the "Capitol". It's a neat park, with yet more canyons and impressive rock formations. At one time the area was inhabited by Mormon settlers, and even contained the small town of Fruita, Some structures still remain, like this one-room schoolhouse.

Death Valley and Mt. Whitney

After leaving Capitol Reef, I drove to Las Vegas, where I spent the night and did some gawking. The next day I drove to Mt. Whitney, and passed through Death Valley NP (map) on the way. It was 126 in Death Valley that day. Still, Death Valley was a neat place to visit. "Discovered" when some 49ers got lost taking a shortcut, and later a site for mining borax, it eventually became a resort (October-April only!), and finally a national monument. Last year Congress named it a national park, and it's now the largest national park in the Continental 48 -- larger than Yellowstone, even.

The Whitney hike was fantastic. We started at about 9500 ft. at the edge of King's Canyon NP, hiked over Kearsarge Pass (11,800 ft) into the park, then over Forester Pass (13,200 ft) into Sequoia NP (Sequoia/King's Canyon map), and finally to the top of Mt. Whitney (14,496.8 ft). The views along the way just kept getting more and more breathtaking. The hike itself was a real adventure, with lots of hiking across snow fields and scrambling on talus slopes -- and cold creek crossings.

Here are a few pictures:
(for more pictures, see Steve Rodrigues's photos)