This was just a warmup...
Yes, that is snow…actually glaciers up around 10,000ft.
This bowl shape is common with land shaped by receding glaciers. A large glacier used to exist in the “bowl” and when it melted and moved, it pushed its way out forming the opening in the picture.
This is not a walking trail. This is not a goat trail. Seriously steep gradient down….
These wooden poles (click picture to enlarge) are here so that the plows do not drift off the road while clearing the it of snow. In several places there are sheer dropoffs of at least 1,000ft directly off the lane of traffic. One of these occurred when one lane was closed… so we had to drive on the left side... about 3” from a pretty sweet freefall (we survived)
This shot looked a lot like Mt. Ventoux from the Tour… barren tundra at the top of the world… around 12,000ft. Well above the treeline.
Once we came back down into the treeline, these large pines (Ponderosas maybe?) dominated before giving way to more normal looking evergreens.
The Continental Divide was actually about 2,000ft lower than the highest point on the road. Despite this, the divide is the place which splits where water drains to, either the Atlantic or Pacific.
A wildlife sighting once we got down into reasonable altitudes. We watched this coyote catch and eat something.
Yes… that does say 84.7 mpg. We just filled up and tripped the meter, so the car doesn’t average in all the previous driving history. The gas station happened to be at the top of a few thousand foot descent. Take that big oil.
The rest of the drive featured crazy interstate climbs on route 70 through Colorado. These roads were actually harder on the car because the speed limit was so high. This lead to the assist battery being completely drained from time to time, and some climbs were therefore tackled in 2nd gear. Flashers!!
Jeez… I thought I had left the tunnels in Pittsburgh, there were a few of these to navigate too…
The changing landscape of Western Colorado in the side-view… Yes Officer, I had both hands on the wheel…
Welcome to Utah…. Too bad the camera focused on the bug guts on the car windshield instead.
The next few days will have us exploring Arches and Canyonlands…
Yes, that is snow…actually glaciers up around 10,000ft.
This bowl shape is common with land shaped by receding glaciers. A large glacier used to exist in the “bowl” and when it melted and moved, it pushed its way out forming the opening in the picture.
This is not a walking trail. This is not a goat trail. Seriously steep gradient down….
These wooden poles (click picture to enlarge) are here so that the plows do not drift off the road while clearing the it of snow. In several places there are sheer dropoffs of at least 1,000ft directly off the lane of traffic. One of these occurred when one lane was closed… so we had to drive on the left side... about 3” from a pretty sweet freefall (we survived)
This shot looked a lot like Mt. Ventoux from the Tour… barren tundra at the top of the world… around 12,000ft. Well above the treeline.
Once we came back down into the treeline, these large pines (Ponderosas maybe?) dominated before giving way to more normal looking evergreens.
The Continental Divide was actually about 2,000ft lower than the highest point on the road. Despite this, the divide is the place which splits where water drains to, either the Atlantic or Pacific.
A wildlife sighting once we got down into reasonable altitudes. We watched this coyote catch and eat something.
Yes… that does say 84.7 mpg. We just filled up and tripped the meter, so the car doesn’t average in all the previous driving history. The gas station happened to be at the top of a few thousand foot descent. Take that big oil.
The rest of the drive featured crazy interstate climbs on route 70 through Colorado. These roads were actually harder on the car because the speed limit was so high. This lead to the assist battery being completely drained from time to time, and some climbs were therefore tackled in 2nd gear. Flashers!!
Jeez… I thought I had left the tunnels in Pittsburgh, there were a few of these to navigate too…
The changing landscape of Western Colorado in the side-view… Yes Officer, I had both hands on the wheel…
Welcome to Utah…. Too bad the camera focused on the bug guts on the car windshield instead.
The next few days will have us exploring Arches and Canyonlands…
1 comment:
You two are so groovy!
I got your postcard! Thank you.
I was hoping to see that ball of twine that in Cawker, KS.
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/towns/Cawker/twine.html
I 'specially like the photo of you two looking off into the mountains together.
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