Thursday, June 4, 2009

June 4, 2009

Continental Divide (again), John Denver Sanctuary, Maroon Bells

We left about 8:15 and headed north – and up.  You know you are going up if the river next to the road is flowing downhill and it is going the opposite direction you are.  The climb was pretty gentle but it was relentless.  Eventually we went through Leadville, CO.  Welcome sign said elev. 10200’.  Decent sized town and gas was cheaper than Pueblo which is a huge city on two major highways.  Leadville is right about tree line.  Don’t know why people live there.  Our climb was not over.  Several miles north of Leadville we crossed the Continental Divide at Tennessee Pass.  10424’ above sea level.  There is a monument there to the Tenth Mountain Division which trained there and was very influential in many conflicts in the Alps in WWII.

 20090604 1 to Basalt-42 20090604 1 to Basalt-43

From there we headed down, and down, and down.  Road not bad but more twisty and steeper.  Glad we came the way we did.  We joined I-70 in about 20 miles and kept going down for another 30 miles.  Part of that went through Glenwood Canyon.  Amazing feat of roadway engineering  and very scenic. At Glenwood Springs we headed southeast and started climbing again slowly.  We parked the carbus at a campground in Basalt and drove 20 more miles to Aspen.  Basically an upscale resort town.  I would guess that most of the people who work there live elsewhere.  The major road to town has a carpool lane that is active in the morning for traffic into Aspen and active in the afternoon for traffic leaving Aspen.

Our goal in Aspen was to visit the John Denver Sanctuary.  We located it without too much trouble, took pictures and contemplated for a short while and then headed out of town.

Sue read about a scenic area called The Maroon Bells.  Not far out of Aspen so we headed that way.  It has been called the most photographed area in Colorado and that probably is true.  We got there on a bit of an off day (breezy, scattered clouds) and it still was outstanding.  We hiked, took lots of pictures, and then headed back to carbus to rest, edit, and compose.



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