Day 49 – July 11 – Great Sand Dunes

Once we woke up, we headed up to the Zapata falls. The road to get to this said "rough road" – but we had no idea how rough until we were about a half mile up. This was possibly the roughest road we have ever driven on. It took us about 30 minutes to go 3 miles.

It was a short hike and the boys are ready for a short hikes only :-)  It was a half mile up and a half mile back – but once we got up there, we had to cross rocks and boulders in order to climb back into the canyon to see the falls.

It was also significantly cooler back in this canyon where the waterfalls were.

 

After that – we went back and hiked up to the top of High Dune.

Many people here rent sleds and/or sand boards in order to ride down the dunes. We did not do that this time because we did it when we were in White Sands in 2014. It is much more difficult than it looks – because if the board is not waxed properly – it doesn't go down the dunes easily.

Some views from the top of the sand dunes.

While this was one of our shorter hikes – it was also one of our more challenging hikes because of the terrain. However, coming down was the easiest one we have done yet. We literally just took off running down the hill and stopped and we got to the bottom :-)

Medona creek runs at the base of the sand dunes and we were able to frolic about in the water for an hour or so while David went back and hooked at the camper to get us ready to leave.

It was really the first time on this trip that playing in the water has been refreshing and not freezing.

From here, we left to go to Colorado Springs. We were planning on going to Seven Falls this evening, but in our effort to find a place to grab something to eat – we discovered that there was a parade tonight in order to celebrate the Pikes Peak or Bust rodeo that starts tomorrow.

There were a lot of horses in this rodeo parade-  to include the small pony below.  

After that, we decided to see if we had enough time to make it over to Seven Falls anyway.  We made it just in time to catch the last shuttle up to the falls.  These falls change colors due to lighting on the rocks.  They were pretty, but not overwhelming one of our favorites.  

It was cold at the top.  We had hoped to climb the stairs next to the falls, but they had closed them due to the rain that had just come through the area.  

Day 48- July 10- Black Canyon, Curecanti, and Great Sand Dunes

We were thrilled to start a new day at Black Canyon of the Gunnison after the long day we had driving yesterday. We wanted to get up early and do the Warner Point Trail. We were the first ones out on the trail – which if you've been following my blog long enough – you know we particularly enjoyed.

We saw a beautiful views of the canyon although we were not able to get great pictures due to the sunlight. We clearly need some photography classes.

We had grabbed some donuts yesterday and had those while we were out on the many stops across the different viewpoints at Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

The wall behind David and the boys here is called Painted Rock – which is the largest rock wall in the state of Colorado. The sun hit it perfectly and it was absolutely beautiful.

The water at the river in the bottom of the canyon drops at 95 feet per mile through the Black Canyon. That is significantly steeper than the drop in the Grand Canyon.

The boys were excited that they got to wear ranger hat during their oath of office for their Junior Ranger badge.

We left Black Canyon of the Gunnison, we drove through the Curecanti National Recreation area. If you want to discuss the beautiful things – this must be included. There are three different reservoirs with the largest being Blue Mesa reservoir. This is at least 20 miles long.  We stopped here to have lunch, but the mosquitoes tried to carry us away, so we picnicked inside the camper- the benefit of having a house on wheels.

There were several trains at one of the visitor center is that we stopped to look at.

Today, the boys took their junior ranger pledge outside while discussing the swallow population with the Ranger.

We started our morning early on our hike – so that put Logan to sleep.  I can't really blame the boys-  they have hiked over 150 miles so far this summer.

We arrived at Great Sand Dunes during a very large thunderstorm. It was really neat to see the thundering clouds roll in across the huge sand dunes

Day 47- July 9- Arrive at Black Canyon

We left Rocky Mountain National Park this morning after sleeping in.  We headed over the Rocky Mountains towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  In retrospect, we should have left this park off of our journey, but we did not.  

 Our Expedition has no problem pulling our camper in the hills on the East Coast, but it got a little overheated after a whole day of climbing the Rocky Mountains.  How fitting that we had to pull over right below this sign.

 We arrived much later than we expected, but at least we arrived :)

 We immediately saw several mule deer, an elk and lots of birds.

 This was a much better picture of the Dusty Grouse because he was standing up.

 We headed down the East Portal road which had a 16% grade.  It took you right down into the canyon and was gorgeous.

 Beautiful sunset over the canyon.

We were thrilled to have electricity for the evening especially given the fact that the temperature reached 98 degrees out here today.

Day 46- July 8- Cub Lake

We got up to head out for a hike at 6 AM and got a text from mom and dad saying neither of them were feeling well. David said that I broke both of them from all the hiking that we have all been doing. Needless to say, the boys and David and I headed out on a hike and saw this beautiful sunrise and picture of the clouds.

We went down to the Moraine Valley where we were going to hike Cub Lake.

After working with Mom, the boys of gotten very good at identifying types of birds and specific birds. They were very excited to see several magpies at the start of the trail.

The hike was 2.3 miles up with a 550 foot elevation change to this beautiful lake. The lake was covered in a Lillypads and it was evident that there had been a forest fire around there sometime in the recent years.

We had our picnic on the rocks as we looked at the beautiful lake with the mountains in the background.

Flowers on the lake around the Lillypads were blooming and were beautiful.

If we do not want rocks to climb on, that we want to be able to skip rocks.

When we got back, mom and I did some laundry by hand! This is not my favorite task, but we do not camp at a lot of private campgrounds with washing machine because they are outside of the national parks which is where we prefer to be. Logan even got in on the cleaning action – we were cleaning the boys socks which were totally disgusting. They may need to be thrown away when we get home :-)

After lunch, mom and I headed over to walk around Sprague lake. This used to be a resort before Rocky Mountain became a national Park. It was a hunting Village.

When we got back to the campground, mom and I took the boys down to a small river/Creek so that they could throw rocks until their heart was content. It was very cold to get in the water, but Hunter gave it a try.

The boys were able to stay up late tonight because of the elk that we had heard will continually come back to the same area between eight and 830 every night. Since it was our last night here, they were able to stay up and see if we could catch the elk – he did not fail us.

As we were standing up on the hill, safely away from him, he continue to make his way up the hill and crossed right in front of us.

You can see in this picture how close he was to the boys and my dad.

I totally love a bull elk.