Colorado
Arrived to Colorado and spent some time in
mountain area.
Colorado started like Kansas - flat. The first
towns and roads also looked poorer than in Kansas. Things started change when I
came nearer to mountains and finally reached El Pueblo - the first larger town
since Kansas City.
Next morning I started exploring the mountain attractions in Colorado. First step was Royal Gorge bridge near Canon. The bridge is claimed to be the highest suspension bridge (1053 feet to river Arkansas) in the world and is today only a tourist attraction - the heavy traffic goes elsewhere. The bridge itself is very old (but reworked in 80's) and narrow and unsuitable for heavy car traffic. I decided to walk over the bridge. Being a suspension bridge one can feel how the bridge moves because of winds or cars driving over the bridge - not a nice feeling when there is 300m drop..
Royal Gorge
So far I had kept the roof of my car up - in eastern states it was too cold to take the top down and in middle states I just wanted to keep good pace and there was nothing to see above horizont, anyway. Things changed in Colorado - the weather was surprisingly warm and I was ahead of my plans so I took the top down and drove US-50 lazily enjoying the scenery. After 30 minutes or so I had to stop and raise the roof as I did not have any sunblock and started feeling the effects of sun in high altitudes. The road also started to climb to over 3000 meters altitude and it was not so warm anymore.
Finally!
My next destination was Black Canyon but first I needed to adjust to the high altitudes (~2500 meters) a bit and stopped at Gunnison for one night. US used to be very bad place for beer lovers but things have changed dramatically. While Bud & Miller still rules the markets there are lots of microbreweries everywhere and even Gunnison had its own brewpub. Their IPA was pretty good and they had very good quest beer (a winter beer from "Avery" brewery or something like that) on tap.
The next morning started with some snowfall but fortunately Black Canyon escaped the snowfall this time and weather was very good there. Black Canyon is rather awesome deep, narrow canyon. The highest walls are almost 1000 meters high and almost vertical and some of the view points were on those cliffs! Trying to take a good photograph from that place was too much for my skills - especially under the harsh midday sun. This one gives some kind of idea, though:
Black Canyon
I was still ahead of my plans so I decided to take a hotel in nearby town Montrose and come back to the park later in the afternoon. Unfortunately it was mostly cloudy and the name Black Canyon comes anyway from the fact the bottom of the canyon is pretty dark even at noon and evening light has no chance to enter the canyon. Still the sunset was pretty nice and some sun rays escaped the clouds giving the canyon rim some nice colors.
Dusk at Black Canyon
Next morning I started exploring the mountain attractions in Colorado. First step was Royal Gorge bridge near Canon. The bridge is claimed to be the highest suspension bridge (1053 feet to river Arkansas) in the world and is today only a tourist attraction - the heavy traffic goes elsewhere. The bridge itself is very old (but reworked in 80's) and narrow and unsuitable for heavy car traffic. I decided to walk over the bridge. Being a suspension bridge one can feel how the bridge moves because of winds or cars driving over the bridge - not a nice feeling when there is 300m drop..
Royal Gorge
So far I had kept the roof of my car up - in eastern states it was too cold to take the top down and in middle states I just wanted to keep good pace and there was nothing to see above horizont, anyway. Things changed in Colorado - the weather was surprisingly warm and I was ahead of my plans so I took the top down and drove US-50 lazily enjoying the scenery. After 30 minutes or so I had to stop and raise the roof as I did not have any sunblock and started feeling the effects of sun in high altitudes. The road also started to climb to over 3000 meters altitude and it was not so warm anymore.
Finally!
My next destination was Black Canyon but first I needed to adjust to the high altitudes (~2500 meters) a bit and stopped at Gunnison for one night. US used to be very bad place for beer lovers but things have changed dramatically. While Bud & Miller still rules the markets there are lots of microbreweries everywhere and even Gunnison had its own brewpub. Their IPA was pretty good and they had very good quest beer (a winter beer from "Avery" brewery or something like that) on tap.
The next morning started with some snowfall but fortunately Black Canyon escaped the snowfall this time and weather was very good there. Black Canyon is rather awesome deep, narrow canyon. The highest walls are almost 1000 meters high and almost vertical and some of the view points were on those cliffs! Trying to take a good photograph from that place was too much for my skills - especially under the harsh midday sun. This one gives some kind of idea, though:
Black Canyon
I was still ahead of my plans so I decided to take a hotel in nearby town Montrose and come back to the park later in the afternoon. Unfortunately it was mostly cloudy and the name Black Canyon comes anyway from the fact the bottom of the canyon is pretty dark even at noon and evening light has no chance to enter the canyon. Still the sunset was pretty nice and some sun rays escaped the clouds giving the canyon rim some nice colors.
Dusk at Black Canyon
Posted: Su - Marraskuu 6, 2005 at 06:59 ap.
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Published On: joulu 04, 2005 07:14 ip.
Total entries in this category:
Published On: joulu 04, 2005 07:14 ip.