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2009 Colorado Trip - August & September
Preface: After enduring the hottest summer in Austin's history through July, Cindy and I made plans to give up and search out cooler climes in Colorado. Austin has set numerous 30 consectutive day all time high averages. July was the hottest in recorded history (back to the 1850's), August is on pace to surpass July, and the whole summer is on pace to exceed the hottest on record by 2 degrees. As of now, Austin has had 65 days of 100+ degree days (the all time record is 69 and looks like it will be exceeded). Since we began building the house in June of 2008, Lake Travis has slowly dropped to it's 3rd lowest level in history and is totally in the Colorado River channel now. Our view, while still over the Hill Country, includes a small patch of water regarding the "lake". LCRA has impemented mandatory water rationing all through the region (including Austin) and it appears there is nothing to change the pattern until the cold fronts reach Austin to increase rain chances beginning in late September or early October. Even then, it's going to take a huge amount of rain to break the exceptional drought we have been under over the past 3 years and begin filling the lakes. Usually this happens in the form of huge floods which can bring the lake level up 20 or 30 feet in a week. When we return to Austin, I'll post some pictures of "Life At The Lake" to share what it looks like. In the meantime, we are glad to have the opportunity to share our travels in Colorado and will try to send some of the cooler temps and rain to Austin!
Ahhh! Cooler temperatures at last. This is the view from just above our camp site at Burro Bridge, a small 12 site place up a dirt road about 40 miles north of Dolores, Colorado. We are very isolated and it is cool ... how cool? Try 36 degrees the first morning we were there! Highs in the 70's, we're happy campers.
Our campground is at 9200 feet and we felt it just doing regular activities. Short walks finally gave way to our first hike. Cindy at the trail head of Geyser Trail.
This is the only geyser in Colorado but it's a pretty wussy geyser. It's supposed to go to 3 or 4 feet every 40 minutes ... what we saw was more like 3 or 4 inches! Anyway, it was a nice 3 mile hike to warm up with.
Our second hike trail head .. Navajo Lake. The lake is about 5 miles (one way) and about 3,000 feet in elevation gain. Our goal was to make it in about 2 1/2 miles for a 5 mile hike. As you can see, we have perfect weather.
View of Mt. Dolores from our Navajo Lake trail hike. Most wildflowers were bloomed out except for daisies and astors. Still, the meadows were alive with insects and birds.
This is a view from our third hike, the Kilpacker Trail. This was about a 6 mile hike and we felt we finally had our legs in shape but the 10,000+ foot elevation sure had us breathing hard!
View of Colorado scenery on a short hike from our camp site.
After a week at our first camp site, we move over to a campground close to Telluride called Wood's Lake. Again, we had the place to ourselves and we stayed 6 days at this spot. This is us in our setup
Ruby throated hummingbird. Cindy is happy to get the feeder out and see it full of these little guys!
Sunset color of the mountains from the rear of our campsite. These 3 peaks are all over 14,000 feet ... we talked with some backpackers that climbed all 3 of them over 2 days ... not us!!! From left to right, Wilson Peak, Mt. Wilson, and El Diente.
This is Wood's Lake looking back from across the lake to the campground.
One of the super things about camping is meetng other campers and sharing experiences ... sometimes it turns into late night talks around the fire and sharing meals, drinks, stories, lies, and lots of laughter. Here are 2 special couples we met who have been RV'n together for many years. On the left are Steve and Terri Chambers from Arkansas and on the right are Russ and Jodi Lyons from Florida. Steve & Russ are former TWA airline pilots who have kept in touch over the years.
From here we are heading to the Lake City - Creede area for a restock, plug in, and reconnect. Then it's off to a campground in the Clear Creek area to do some exploring in that area before heading back to Lake City over the Labor Day weekend.
Bob & Cindy's 2009 Travel Web Site