Our second day at Arches also had a 6am entry time. This time we arrived closer to 6 am. While the sun was up, it was low on the horizon. We got some interesting lighting effects while traveling to Devil’s Garden at the far end of the park. The sunshine and darkness contrast on these […]

Today we arrived at Arches National Park. We will be visiting here for the next three days. Because of the entry permit system, we must arrive in a specified hour time slot. Today that was 6 am to 7 am. We only had to wait for one other vehicle because of the early hour. We

We continued our review of cliff dwellings today. We moved to a different part of the park to see more sites. We started at Step House. At this site we were able to get closer to the cliff dwelling but were still blocked from entering the actual site. Seeing the site in more detail increased

We started today at the highest point in Mesa Verde National Park. At 8,500 feet, we could see over 50 miles away. There is a fire lookout at the top of the mountain. It is fully automated now. It scans the horizon for smoke or fire and will notify the appropriate people of the location

Today we departed Crawford Colorado for Mesa Verde National Park. We saw the snow capped mountains. We also got to see lots of Aspen trees. After a couple of hours of mountains and Aspen trees we reached a relatively flat plain in southwest Colorado. The plain ended suddenly when we reached Mesa Verde National Park.

The snow from the previous day had continued through the night. As we drove up to the elevation of the South Rim, we saw some more snow falling. We were not sure what to expect for the day. We knew the locals were happy to get precipitation because of the drought they are experiencing. We

This morning we left Gunnison Colorado for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Similar to The Grand Canyon, this park has a North Rim and a South Rim. We were lucky to approach the North Rim from Gunnison. The views on County Route 92 are spectacular. The photo below is not from the national

The first hike today was over the Mosca Pass from Great Sand Dunes to the next valley. The trail was fairly steep. The part we hiked rose 450 feet in three quarters of a mile. We hiked as far as the top of the pass. We had not planned to hike the entire trail. When

Here we are, ready for our first full day at a National Park. We have had some technical difficulties with internet, hardware and software, so our posts are being saved with a slight modification to the post date to keep things in order. We are at the beginning of the Dunes Loop Overlook trail. We