Our trip planning started with Doug’s desire to see the Maroon Bells, near Aspen, Colorado in fall colours. We booked a spot in the closest RV park in Carbondale, about 30 miles from Aspen, for September 28 and 29. The town owned Gateway RV Park is along the river just a short walk away from the town sign. Here’s Tali posing.

The Maroon Bells are two peaks in the Elk Mountains and are one of the most photographed mountains in the United States. They are composed of metamorphic sedimentary mudstone that gives the Bells a distinctive maroon colour. The rock is downsloping, loose, rotten and unstable, but we had no intention of doing any climbing. It’s a really popular area, since the peaks are easily viewed within a few steps of the end of the road. A bus service runs from 8 am to 5 pm from mid-June to the end of September to deal with the volume of people.

We left most of the tourists at Maroon Lake and started our hike to Crater Lake, (1.8 miles up the valley) and caught some glimpses of blue sky. The weather was unsettled, however and soon we donned our rain gear to protect us from the wind and hail.

This grey jay took advantage of a puddle on a rock to get a drink.

We reached Crater Lake in just over an hour and took more photos of the Bells.

On our return trip, it rained hard enough for us to take out our umbrellas, but it was short-lived. It was beautiful hiking through the aspen forest.

By the time we were back to the meadow above Maroon Lake (just a few minutes from the bus stop) the sun was shining on the aspens. Doug was satisfied that he had seen the Maroon Bells with fall colours, even though it was more crowded and less of a wilderness experience than he first envisioned.

We saw all sorts of people on the trail, some that looked like they’d hiked before and others that looked like they walked off a city street. It was a moderate trail, but was fairly high (Crater Lake was just over 10 000 feet) and the weather changed quickly. It made us wonder if the people who bought the t-shirt with the slogan, “I survived Crater Lake” bought it for a joke or because they’d had a less than enjoyable experience.

Back in Carbondale, we visited the Roaring Fork tasting room in the historic district. Doug had a Triple IPA and Wendy enjoyed their Oktoberfest ale.

The next day we headed north on the 15 to Wyoming. About nine hours from Carbondale, we were in Buffalo, Wyoming. We stayed at the aptly named “Deer Park RV park” and watched the deer nibble grass in the playground. The turkeys wandered through in the morning.

One more day got us to Missoula, then home the next day. So if you are reading this in real time, you’ll know we’ve been back for over a month. (It’s so hard to write about a vacation when we’re home.) We’ve made reservations for next spring’s trip already. So until then….

Our drive from Durango, Colorado to Taos, New Mexico was about five hours through rolling countryside and over the Continental Divide. We actually drove through Taos and up the Taos Canyon to Angel Fire Resort. That meant pulling the trailer through the narrowest section of the historic downtown and up the winding road, but Doug was up to the challenge and did fine. Here’s a photo of the narrow street, taken the next day.

The Angel Fire RV Resort is part of the Angel Fire Ski and Summer Resort and is the most impressive RV park we have ever stayed in. The large sites are paved with an expanse of grass. The clubhouse, gatehouse and bathhouse are all decorated in a western lodge style. Here are some photos of a couple of mirrors; one is in the clubhouse hallway, the other in the bathhouse lobby. The bottom photo is the fireplace in the clubhouse lobby.

We had long views to the mountains around and heard elk bugling most nights. Here’s a photo of one evening sky with billowing clouds. (No rain that night)

The Rio Grande River Gorge near Taos flows in a rift valley. The gorge was not formed by water like many of the canyons that we have visited, but rather by two continental plates shifting. There is a beautiful bridge that spans the gorge that allowed us a brief glimpse of the gorge when we first crossed it with the trailer. We went back with just the truck to get a closer view.

The day before, we found a bike trail a little farther down the gorge appropriately called “Rift trail.” It was full of flowy dirt tracks interspersed with “not-too-rocky” downhills and wash crossings. Wendy was especially excited at being able to stay on her bike the whole route, now that her hand and concussion were fully healed and she had adapted to the altitude. The views near the edge were fantastic.

We also had to do the typical tourist stuff while in the Taos area. We visited the Taos Pueblo, the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States. Many of the homes now operate as shops, with the shopkeepers living in regular houses outside the pueblo and only living in the ancient adobe homes for special occasions. We were more interested in buying products that we knew were made from the shopkeepers or their family, rather than imported from outside the area.

The bottom right photo is of an oven that they still use for feast days. Once the oven is hot, they burn cedar to get a high heat to bake biscuits and cookies.

That same day seemed to have an architectural theme, because we also visited the Earthship Biotecture Visitor Centre. Taos is their world headquarters for homes that are built with natural and recycled materials and include thermal/solar heating and cooling, water harvesting, contained sewage treatment, solar and wind electricity and food production, all with a funky style. Photos right to left: Visitor Centre: “standard” Earthship; greenhouse along front of house; wall in front of yard to allow the back to be in the earth and the front to have sunlight.

The only Earthship that you were allowed to enter was the Visitor Centre. We took a drive to try and get a better look at the other homes. They don’t allow you to drive on to their property (understandably), so this view is with a telephoto lens from the highway. They were all very unique.

Even the brewpubs we visited had interesting architecture. Taos Mesa Brewing had a labyrinth in front and a bandstand made with “Earthship” techniques in the back. They had live music most nights; some free, some with an entrance fee. The Enchanted Circle Brewing Company in Angel Fire was made to look like an adobe home.

It rained on and off for the last day we were in the area. Luckily there was an Environmental Film Festival at the community auditorium. We saw Coral Reef Adventure (amazing photography, made originally for IMAX) and Groundswell, a surfing/environmental project filmed on the BC coast. Somehow it seemed to be fitting to watch ocean movies on a rainy day in the South West. Back in camp that afternoon, Wendy set up her sewing machine, and cutting and ironing boards in the expansive clubhouse and sewed a small handbag. She had the whole place to herself.

The plan of this September trip was to get to Colorado to catch the fall colours. The fall colours around Taos and Angel Fire were also great – a bonus for us. Next blog post will describe what we saw near Aspen, Colorado.

Most tourists who come to Durango take a ride on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, but we watched it from our RV park instead. The train whistle blew in the morning and again in the evening as it passed Alpen Rose RV, just ten minutes north of town. We came for the mountain biking, fall colours, and craft breweries and we were not disappointed.

We rode trails in Horse Gulch that are accessed from town. If you looked in one direction, you might think you were in wilderness, yet just around the corner the trail overlooks the highway.

We’d heard about a great bike ride in Aztec, New Mexico (45 minutes south of Durango) called Alien Run. It was a great trail in its own right, but was made more interesting by being located right by a suspected UFO landing site. The developers have used the alien theme throughout their signage. There’s even a plaque at the site explaining the 1948 event.

The trail had lots of nice “flowy” bits on dirt, some interesting slickrock and a “hike-a-bike” section.

While we were in Aztec, we went to the Aztec Ruins National Monument. The ruins were misnamed when they were first discovered by the Anglo settlers. They were not built by the Aztecs, but by ancestral Pueblo people, from the late 1000s to the late 1200s. It was amazing to us to see the size of the great kiva and the number of other kivas and rooms. Here is a view of a portion of the ruin and one of Doug standing below a doorway that was built on a corner, something we had never seen in other ruins.

Between our mountain biking days, we took a road tour north on Highway 550, “the million dollar highway.” The passes on the highway north to Silverton are over 10,000 feet, and the aspen were just beginning to turn yellow. (We took the featured image on the website version of this blog at Molas Pass, about half an hour north of Durango.)

Although there isn’t a lot of fall colour in the photo below, we loved the contrast that Red Mountain gives to the scene.

Silverton was founded in 1874 and has kept its historic feel. It reminded us a bit of Dawson City, Yukon with its paved main street and gravel side streets.

After an amazing pizza and excellent beers at the Golden Block Brewery in Silverton, we continued north to Ouray, which is known as the “Switzerland of America.” Most of the buildings were built between 1880 and 1900. We tasted some brews on the upper deck of Ouray Brewery and took in the view. The photo on the right is of Ouray from the overlook above town.

And of course, we visited craft breweries in Durango. Our favourite was Animas. We had a very tasty appetizer there that they call ABC nachos, which was described as “crispy river chips topped with fresh corned beef, beer kraut, scallions and topped with cheddar sauce.”

At the end of the week, Wendy took her sewing machine and projects to Durango Quilt Company’s “Open Sew Friday.” She couldn’t believe it when an “almost local” fabric and pattern designer and former owner of the quilt shop in Delores, Virginia Robertson walked in. Virginia had a new pattern that she wanted to field test before final publication and offered it to any takers. So of course, Wendy put away what she was working on and jumped right in. She learned a new way of doing hand applique and had good conversations with fellow quilters.

Doug had no problem finding things to do on his own, which included another bike ride in the Sale Barn Canyon and Big Canyon area. We had a day for shopping, lunch and a brewpub stop, before we left for Taos, New Mexico. New adventures next post!

This was our second visit to Bryce Canyon, but the first time that we had camped up by the park. We had made reservations at “Ruby’s”, a 250 site RV park just at the park boundary. It was a huge park and there was a lot of space and plenty of grass for Tali. She enjoyed long walks while we looked at the birds. Highlights were Lesser goldfinches, Western bluebirds, Gray-headed dark-eyed juncos and our new favourite bird: the pygmy nuthatch.

We started early for our big hike at Bryce Canyon and were walking with jackets, hats and gloves by 8:00. We started at Sunset Point, down to the shady and chilly Wall Street. Once we got into the sun, we warmed up enough to take our jackets off. This was one of the views looking up towards the rim.

We walked on the flats for a while, listening to the chickadees and Stellar’s jays, over to the Peek-a-boo loop.

We chose to do the Peek-a-boo loop counter-clockwise, because the people around us went the other way. Here is a view back to Sunset Point as we climbed up, with the trail all to ourselves for the moment.

Another view from the Peek-a-boo Loop.

And another, this time with Doug in it. This photo was taken at 10:30, while the sky was still clear, and the trail was relatively uncrowded.

We continued along the Peek-a-boo loop, back to the flats, then followed the trail to the Queen’s Garden. The clouds moved in, and the trail became busy, so the photos weren’t as nice. Here’s an view of an interesting landscape that is past Queen’s Garden and up the trail almost to Sunrise Point.

Once we were at Sunrise Point, we walked along the paved rim trail to our truck at Sunset Point. The “figure-eight” hike took us about five hours.

The next day’s event was mountain biking at Red Canyon, about a half-hour west of Bryce Canyon. Doug had fond memories of riding the Thunder Mountain trail, but Wendy wanted to save it for another day, so we parked at the Red Canyon trailhead, just beyond the tunnels. We were heading for the Cassidy trail, quoted in some mountain biker’s post as “the best trail you’ve never heard of.” We figure about three-quarters of it is fine; the rest is so rocky that it was “hike-a-bike” terrain for us. The trail is really a horse trail that mountain bikers now ride. We rode up Cassidy to Braxton Point, that had a great view.

We came down from the point and chose the Rich trail, then over to Ledge Point for lunch. The photo below on the left approaching Ledge Point and the right photo is one of the nicer sections of the Rich trail.

The next day, we made an early start for Durango, Colorado, a seven-hour drive. Stay tuned for our next post.

Doug was lucky enough to get a reservation for three nights at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, for the days before our Bryce Canyon reservations. Escalante State Park is a small park about an hour east of Bryce and is a jumping-off point for exploring Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. There are only seven sites that have water and electricity hook-ups out of the 26 total sites. We believe we lucked into the best site: “Lakeview A” and you can judge for yourself by the photos below.

We wanted to do a hike that had a bit of adventure involved. We have enjoyed walking on slickrock and finding our way without a trail, so we chose to do Phipps Arch from a small, unmarked pullout off of Highway 12. If any of our readers have the “Wow guides Utah Canyon Country” guidebook, we followed their description – well, let’s say we followed our noses and used the description to try to confirm where we were. (Asking ourselves, was that the third or the fourth dry fall?)

We started down the slickrock, right from the truck, following a secondary wash, which is basically a dry river bed. Sometimes we found water in rock hollows, which were easy to walk around.

This is Doug standing on top of a dry fall or pour over. If there had been water, the waterfall would be about 150 feet (about a rope length). Here is the spot where we wondered if this was the third or the fourth dry fall. We went left up the bank until it became clear that we should have gone right, so we retraced our steps and headed up to the white rock that you can see behind Doug in the photo. There was a sandy slope farther along that allowed us access back to the wash.

Soon we were down to the Phipps Wash proper, with high red cliffs beside us, and welcomed shade. We continued along through the sand.

The route continued along the wash, through sections of vegetation: tall cottonwoods and thick tamarisk, until it reached “a substantial draw” that was the start of the cairned trail up through ledges to the arch. There was a bit of scrambling involved, with decent hand holds and good friction for the foot holds. We didn’t realize when we were rock-climbing in our 30s, that it would make it possible to scramble up canyons in our 60s! The arch is impressive, especially because you can’t see it until you are almost right under it. The feature photo (on the top of this blog post) was our first view of the arch. We climbed up, under and through the arch. The photo on the right below is looking back at the arch.

It took us about three hours to get to the arch, so after a quick lunch break, we headed down. The skies were darkening with clouds and we hoped to miss the storm. Below is a photo of Wendy on one of the ledges below the arch.

We actually did get rained on, but we were past the steepest sections and by the time we got our rain gear out, it had stopped. It was cooler on our return journey.

The weather the next day was unsettled, so we chose to drive to Boulder over the narrowest section of Highway 12, with drop-offs on both sides. The road had been recently repaved and actually widened in sections. Boulder has the Anasazi State Park, which is a museum built right beside an actual ruin, some that has been excavated and on view, and some that is still covered. Even though we had visited it twice before, we learned something new. The most important reason to go to Boulder, however, was to go to lunch at “Hell’s Backbone Grill”, a highly rated restaurant that serves only local food. The photos below show the unique décor, (notice the garlic hanging from the rafters) and the requisite photo with our meal.

On our return to Escalante, the storm clouds and lightening were in the distance. We stopped at a pullout near the narrowest part of Highway 12 to take photos.

By the time we were back at our campsite, the heavens had opened. Tali was really happy to have company through the waves of thunderstorms that continued all afternoon and throughout the night. We were happy to have our cosy trailer and were glad we weren’t in a tent like many others in the campsite. (Or hiking in a canyon!)

The next day, we headed to Bryce Canyon National Park which will be the topic of the next post.

This September trip was meant to start with the Sisters Folk Festival, but wildfires and the resulting poor air quality forced the festival to cancel. We didn’t know this for sure until we were in Central Oregon and five hours into our second day of driving. So we regrouped. While Wendy stocked the trailer with groceries, (we’d already missed our planned Costco stop) Doug searched for the closest place out of the smoke and made a reservation at an RV park in Lakeview, Oregon; another four hour drive. The smoke cleared after a thunderstorm when we were just about at Lakeview, so although we travelled on roads that were new to us, we didn’t see much of the landscape.

We stayed two nights at the Junipers RV Resort, about 10 miles west of Lakeview, and it was perfect for us. We breathed clear air under sunny skies, hiked trails from the RV park, visited museums in Lakeview and did some bird-watching on the nearby reservoir. Here’s a photo of Wendy and Tali under blue skies at the Junipers RV park and a photo of an old quilt in the Schminck Museum in Lakeview. The Schmincks ordered their house from a Sears-Robuck catalogue and throughout their lives, collected a wide array of items, from household to firearms, and set up a free museum in their basement. Their whole house is now a museum, funded by private donations.

The time in Lakeview also allowed us to plan where to go next, since our idea to visit Crater Lake was also a “no-go” due to smoke. So we made an itinerary that used the time before our Bryce Canyon reservation on September 15. Which is how we ended up in Wells, Nevada for two nights. Wells is a community of 1500 where dilapidated motels decay in the once thriving downtown, and all the new hotel construction is out by the interstate.

Wells was a good place to stage from to visit Ruby Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, an hour and a half drive south on the main highway and secondary and gravel roads. Once covered by a 200-foot deep ancient lake, the “Ruby Marshes” now provide habitat for hundreds of species of birds and mammals. There is an auto-driving route on the dikes that were not crowded, so we could stop almost anywhere that we chose. We got some close views of a Virginia Rail and a Sora.

We saw many White-faced ibises, both flying and standing still. The white-face on a White-faced ibis is only discernable on the dark bird during breeding season, but the bird has a red iris (which is inconveniently blocked by a reed in the photo below) to distinguish it from a glossy ibis. We had a good look at a lone gull-like bird, which even with a photo is difficult to identify, but we’re going with a Forster’s Tern.

Wendy set up the scope with her “PhoneSkope,” which allowed her to take photos of a Great blue heron preening and sipping water. (Heron Yoga)

We realized that there was a national park we had barely heard about that was close to our route to Utah, so we stopped at Baker, Nevada to visit Great Basin National Park. The “Whispering Elms” was a motel, RV park, tent campground and bar all in one. It had plenty of shade. We’ve developed an uneasy fondness for gravel over the years because it’s not dusty or muddy.

On our first afternoon, we left the 30 degree heat of the valley floor and drove up the winding Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive to about 10 000 feet. (It’s funny how we are metric with temperature, but not with elevation.) We enjoyed the cooler air on a trail up to a bristlecone pine grove. (1½ hours total). Some bristlecone pines are nearly five thousand years old – the oldest living things in the world. The trees grow very slowly and are highly resistant to decay. They don’t rot, so they may remain standing for thousands of years after they die.

The next day had a good forecast, and all the reservations for the cave tours were booked. (Check out recreation.gov if you are planning to come to the park to get your reservation in advance.) Which meant that the 13,000 foot Wheeler Peak called to us. The trailhead started at just over 10 000 feet and was basically railway grade for the first hour, through aspen forest and mountain meadows. The photo of Doug below shows the route, from just below the trees on the far right, to the back of the rocky bluff and basically along the skyline to the top.

Doug got a great shot of the Wheeler Peak highlighted with yellow-orange aspen in the foreground.

There had been a lot of work put into the trail through the rock and rubble and it was easy to navigate for both of us who have tired artificial joints. We even managed the altitude reasonably well, and while we weren’t sprinting at the top, we were still moving fine. (Perhaps there also was that thought that if we stopped for very long we’d stiffen up altogether!) Doug took a photo of Wendy with a bottle of beer that had been left in the mailbox at the summit. There was no way we were drinking alcohol at that elevation; we didn’t even want to eat until we got down lower. (Except for the always available Werther’s). The summit had some built-up rock walls that would offer shelter and looked big enough for someone to use as a camp. Perhaps the rules were different in the past; now it is a no-camping zone. You can make out the road up to the trailhead and a campsite, on the green mountain behind Doug in the photo below.

The hike down the mountain was easier than we had expected. Wendy even had time to look at some grey headed dark-eyed juncos (a new variety of juncos for her) and was surprised she was able to catch up to Doug (who didn’t stop, since Wendy was the only one with binoculars). The climb took us about six hours.

We left Nevada the next morning and headed to new adventures in Utah, based out of Escalante and Bryce Canyon National Park. We’ll try and post soon.

We came down to the Sisters area in Oregon at the end of June, a week earlier than last year, with hopes that we’d be here so Doug could fish during the “green drake” hatch on the Metolius River. It worked out well for Wendy, because she could visit the quilt shop in Sisters when it wasn’t as busy as it gets during the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, the second Saturday in July.

We stayed in the same place as last year: The Cold Springs Resort and RV Park. They have done some restoration work along the shore, with plantings of native shrubs. Old photos show they had used to have lawn right down to the waters’ edge. There is a foot-bridge just to the left of the photo below, which allows easy access to “Downtown Camp Sherman” (the general store and fly shop) and to the trails along the river banks.

The birding was excellent this year. Wendy had five sightings of the White-headed Woodpecker, a woodpecker that has a limited range, although no photos. Doug caught a yellow warbler with his lens as well as a Song Sparrow, both from the river trail. There were also plenty of Western tanagers and Cedar waxwings.

The site for our trailer was at the edge of a lawn, which many Brewer’s blackbirds enjoyed. There was a swallow birdhouse in the tree right behind our trailer, and we witnessed the young swallows fledging. Doug got a good photo of the male and the female Tree swallows, through the back window of the trailer. One day before dinner, we counted eight different species while we sat in our chairs in the shade.

Doug enjoyed the fishing on the Metolius and did catch a fish or two. One evening we headed downstream of Wizard Falls (see photo below) to try and be in place for the green drake hatch, but the hatch didn’t materialize that night.

Another day, he had better luck in a spot beside a Ponderosa pine. Tali enjoyed cooling off in the river in her favourite spot close to our camp.

We also took our mountain bikes out into the pine forest around Camp Sherman. One day we rode to the “Head on the Metolius,” where the water emerges out of the hillside as a fully formed river. It’s hard to capture it in a photo, but here is one of Wendy with a glimpse of the river behind and a view in the background of Mt. Jefferson.

Here’s another view of the Metolius River. We’ve been here three years in a row, yet we never tire of the views around every bend.

(This post is delayed a couple of weeks! We were having too much fun to spend any time on the computer. Stay tuned for the posts from the rest of the trip.)

We did two hikes and a bike ride in the final week of our trip this spring. A cold front moved in as we were leaving Mesa Verde, so we chose to stay in Blanding rather than camp off-grid. Our first hike was at Natural Bridges National Monument, less than an hour drive from our RV park. The bridges were discovered in 1883 and proclaimed a National Monument in 1908, creating Utah’s first National Park system area. They are also part of the larger Cedar Mesa area. There is a paved scenic drive that allows easy access to the three bridges, and most people view the bridges from the overlooks or wander down the short trails to the base of each bridge. We wanted to travel the “unmaintained” trail from the first bridge (Sipapu) to the middle bridge (Kachina). We took the advice of the ranger and parked our truck at the Kachina Bridge Overlook and walked about an hour on the mesa trail to the trailhead for Sipapu bridge. The feature photo of this blog (on the website) is a slick rock portion of the mesa trail. Here’s a photo of the beginning of the descent into the canyon.

We worked our way down the trail, down steps, both metal and cut into the rock, and down wooden ladders to the base of Sipapu Bridge.

We had the trail to ourselves within five minutes along the canyon trail to the next bridge. The only other hiker we met was a ranger, until we got to the base of the Kachina Bridge. The photo on the left is the trail in the canyon. The photo on the right is taken below Kachina Bridge, a much thicker and younger bridge than Sipapu.

The trail up out of the canyon was well-graded and with not much effort, we were back at parking area at the mesa level. Our leisurely hike took us about four hours.

For our next adventure, we wanted to go back to a hike we did the first year that we came to Utah. It was our first foray up slickrock by ourselves, following written descriptions of the route. Back then, we got off route, following cairns that were leading us away from our destination. We poked around and found a way up that worked for us. When we set off this time, we wondered if we would find our old route or if the “standard” route would be more appealing. We had no trouble following our old route, and within 45 minutes we were at the “Procession Panel,” a petroglyph panel of 179 figures in a procession (we didn’t count them, but that’s what the guidebooks say.)

We ascended slightly higher, to the crest of Comb Ridge, for an amazing panoramic view.

We wanted to get one last mountain bike ride in before heading home, so we packed up and drove north and northwest, through Moab and Green River towards Price, turning south to Huntington State Park. The park was almost deserted because it was mid-week, but the park warden was telling us that the day-parking lot fills up by 10:00 on a nice weekend. It’s a great place to stay, with lots of trees and open lawns, as well as good birding opportunities.

Our biking destination was less than an hour away, by highway to Castledale, then by good gravel road to “The Wedge.” It’s here that the San Rafael River has cut a huge canyon, known as “The Little Grand Canyon.” The Wedge Recreation Area features a mountain bike route that travels along the edge of the main canyon, along to a side canyon – the Goodwater, hence the name, “Goodwater Rim.” We rode about fifteen kilometres on the single-track winding trail, often just a few metres from the edge, before heading over to the main road for the ride back to the truck. We were on our bikes for about two hours.

Here’s a few photos of Doug on the Goodwater Rim Trail.

Here’s one of Wendy, closer to the edge than she thought was possible.

We took another couple of days to get all the way home. Now at home, the spectacular red rocks that we enjoyed so much throughout our seven week trip have been replaced with the gorgeous green of spring in the Rockies. “The Fox” is being cleaned and put away until the next trip. So long until then.

We chose to stay at the Mesa Verde RV Resort that is just outside the national park and half way between Cortez and Mancos, Colorado. The Whethams joined us in our adventures here. The RV park had plenty of grass for Tali and plenty of birds to enjoy.

We wanted Gretchen and Bob to experience the thrill of riding the “Rib Cage” at Phil’s World, a mountain biking trail system only minutes from our RV site, so that was first on our agenda. The trail we took climbs gradually up two washes and up to a ridge-top where a cow-skull is the focal point of a bicycle art display. The “Rib Cage” is a series of descending whoops that start off intensely and mellow as you continue downhill.

We rode in the morning, regrouped at lunch and headed up to Mesa Verde National Park for a hike on the “Knife-edge Trail,” a trail that follows the old roadbed to some fantastic views of the valley below. We had a great time looking at the birds as we wandered: turkey vultures nesting, a golden eagle being chased away, a black-throated gray warbler, some towhee or sparrow scratching in the undergrowth and the continual song of a few yellow-rumped warblers that wouldn’t show themselves.

The next day was our tour of “The Balcony House” in Mesa Verde National Park. The Balcony House is the most strenuous tour that the National Park puts on because it includes climbing ladders and squeezing through tunnels. Doug was a bit concerned about going through the tunnel on his knees, but he managed to “bear walk” through the tight bit. The guide was really good at answering questions, so it didn’t seem scripted.

After the tour, we had our lunch at a picnic site, where a pair of white-breasted nuthatches visited us. No-one had a camera ready; we will just have to remember them in our minds.

We then headed over to the Museum and Ranger station, then to a short hike to “Pictograph Point.” We chose to go down into the canyon and across to the petroglyphs (yes, the trail was misnamed), and then back over the mesa to a good view of Spruce House. (Another misnaming; there are Douglas Fir around the ruins, not spruce.)

The weather was deteriorating so we chose to do a road trip to Durango, with a stop in Mancos (10 mins. away). We had breakfast at a funky bakery/restaurant called “Absolute Bakery,” that we had heard about from a woman that we met in the parking lot of the bike trails in Fruita. Doug and Bob distinguished themselves by making it through their huge orders of “Huevos Rancheros.” In Durango, Bob looked at trains, Wendy and Gretchen looked at fabric and Doug visited three brewpubs (with company.) Wendy, Gretchen and Bob also fitted in some bird-watching while Doug was checking on a problem with the truck (not serious). The photos below are of our breakfast in Mancos and a shot that Gretchen took of the Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge train (with Wendy’s phone, just steps from the quilt shop).

The weather improved for our last day together, so we drove out to Hovenweep National Monument, about an hour drive from our RV park. It’s an enjoyable hike around the canyon viewing the spectacular ruins and worth the second trip for us. To top off the experience, there were also some interesting birds. Below is a picture of Gretchen and Wendy with the Square Tower to their right and the Hovenweep Castle behind them. The feature photo of this blog is of Hovenweep Castle.

Here’s a couple of photos of birds we saw; a Bewick’s wren and a Common raven preparing dinner for the young ones that we saw in the nest just below the cliff top.

Only one more post, then our spring trip south is complete.