Utah and Colarado

From the Teton’s we basically headed straight south to Salt Lake City, Utah, with a small detour into Idaho. There didn’t seem to be much in Idaho, but as their car numberplates’ catchcry is ‘Famous Potatoes’ we didn’t expect anything else.

The first day in Salt Lake City was spent having a quick squiz around Temple Square imbibing Mormon culture. The highlight for Ian was the disproportionate number of gorgeous, tall, slim blue-eyed blondes. The city was also clean, tidy and everybody was very pleasant – all the better for heathen-conversion I suppose. After lunch Jen accessed the Family Research Centre while (more importantly) Ian succeeded in getting a new, very comfortable lightweight (1.6 vs 3.5 kg) overnight pack.

After a second night in Salt Lake it was east to Vernal, but not before a look at some of the 14(!!) ski resorts in Utah – their numberplate slogan is ‘Worlds Greatest Snow’. Hmmm, shall I go spend my holiday money in Utah or Idaho???

Vernal is on the Uintah Basin and is booming with oil and gas activity – a mini Alberta. We got a great, shady campsite at a state park on the outskirts of town that once again, had a chilly-but-nice lake instead of a shower block. Jen has now had 4 showers (but lots of swims) in 20 days and is not happy. The shade was great as temps had risen to mid 30’s although the nights were still pleasant. The next three days were day trips to:
Dinosaur National Park which had a good museum, but not as good as Royal Tyrrell at Drumheller, Alberta. Unfortunately the wonderful glass shed built above the working pit has been closed as it was built on swelling clays and is now about to collapse;
Flaming Gorge – a nice drive, with a crystal clear lake set among red gorges; and,
Bonanza - known as the only town in the world where everybody knows what Gilsonite is.

With triple digits forecast for southern Utah, it was east to the cooler, higher Colorado Rockies for a few days hiking.

Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the signature parks of the USA – and like Glacier, Yellowstone and the Tetons, is also terribly overcrowded in peak summer season. Once again, there is a road straight up and over the top, with a highest point of 12100 ft/3700 m. They finished this road in 1932 (!) and then sent the work crew straight to Glacier to do it all over again.

We camped in the foothills west of Boulder at Olive Ridge, a nice state park at about 8000 ft. Although temps in Denver were at near records (35C), it never got over 28C in the van. The craziest thing was that packets of chips we had bought in the 4000 ft ‘lowlands’ puffed up like pillows! Whoever would have thought.

We then ‘warmed up’ with a 15 km day hike to Chasm Lake directly below Diamond Face at Longs Peak. This is a famous rock-climbing place, and a number of crazies were hanging off the face while we were at the lake. Only a nice walk, but what intrigued us is that we found you can also “hike” to the top of Longs Peak. You should be able to pick about 7 climbers on this picci!

So,,, the next day we headed off at 3.30 AM (yes, that is correct) as you need to get up and down before the typical lightning-filled afternoon thunderstorm. To give an idea of how popular this area is, the trailhead carpark is always full by 5.30 AM in summer!!! The hike was a total of 26 km with a 4800 ft/1482m ascension – the trailhead is at 9400 ft and the peak is 14200 ft/4345 m (more than twice as high as Kosciosko and half the height of Everest). It was a straightforward hike to the Keyhole, then across the Ledges (narrow but no worse than what we have done previously), up the 1000 ft Trough (straight up a 35 degree avalanche chute), across the Narrows (which was um, narrow with a sheer drop 3000 ft to the bottom – not for the faint hearted) and then up the Homestretch (a 40 degree solid rock slope). Our time up was 6 1/4 hrs and a total of 12 ½ hrs. Strangely enough, the difficult part took slightly longer to go down than up – very unusual for downhill-demon Jen!!

This was easily the most challenging hike we have completed as it is more of a climb/rock scramble in places. Jen says she was very brave and noted that her mother was going to have a ‘dinger’ when she sees the photos. The views were nice, but not up to Canadian Rockies standards.

It would also appear that acclimatisation really works – at 12000 ft at Mt. Kinabalu, Borneo a few years ago, both of us really struggled, yet after lots of living/hiking above 8000 ft, we more-or-less cruised up to 14000 ft.

It was then south and west to Mesa Verde, but not before a bizarre event. While driving (with trailer) at a cruisy 60 km/h-tourist speed down the steep and twisty canyon road to Boulder, we got overtaken – by a cyclist!! He caught up over a very windy bit, had a bit of breather in the draft of the van, then flashed on by. Obviously Lance Armstrongs lovechild.