Aspen to Leadville

Woke up early on the 18th, after a fairly broken sleep (probably too worried about porcupines and bears!) and packed up camp. Headed back up the road to East Portal; sounds fancy but really it's just the eastern parking lot of Maroon Bells forest park. Went for a walk up there, more amazing scenery. The aspens were really starting to come into colour.

After that we hit the road, back through Aspen and it's road works, then out onto highway 82 and over Independence Pass. What a drive! What a pass. It's only open during the summer, and closes pretty much as soon as first big snow of winter hits. Here we are driving up one of the narrow sections, barely wide enough for two vehicles (vee-hickles as they say) to pass. And here in the States, roads this narrow are as rare as $2 bills.

 

As we scaled the Rockies we came to a little pull over with a few cars there, so since some guy was trying to kiss my back fender I decided to pull in. Went for a quick walk and discovered an amazing mountain stream and pool.

But there were more than just rocks and water here: a couple of guys had set up a tightrope walk between two sides of a pool:

And that's no small drop there either! So I had good fun watching them try and make it over. There were a few falls, and a lot of false starts, but they did make it across a few times. Apparently the water was very cold!

 

After that we pressed on towards the top. The scenery just kept getting better; every turn bought more firs and more rock.

Here we are approaching the tree line as yet another thunderstorm builds…

We then happened across the Independence Ghost Town. Had a good look around here; what a bleak existence! We're sitting at at least 10,000 ft elevation here… that's like a township most of the way up Mt Cook. In amongst the derelict buildings we found this little guy:

We've been seeing far more chipmunks now; squirrels must prefer the cities. They're great fun to watch as they scamper around, nibbling on seeds and nuts. And they're very fast runners! They're constantly scampering from bush to bush, which makes photographing them very tricky.

After that we continued up the pass some more, and soon we were at the top: 12,095 ft high, just 221 ft off Mt Cook! Difference of course being that Mt Cook doesn't have a highway over the top. And that 12,095 ft is the lowest point here.

After the top it was off down the other side, the road almost flinging itself off the edge as we roared down towards Twin Lakes and Leadville.

Twin Lakes; second lake is hiding but it is there.

Arrived in Leadville (highest city in the US at 10,152 ft) in the middle or a torrential thunderstorm; the rain drops landing on the windscreen were snowflake shaped, and it was certainly that cold. We had a quick look for campgrounds, but one was miles out of town and the other (the Leadville RV Corral, hawtdang!) was more or less a parking lot for RVs. So we decided to look for a motel; looked up from the car and a glowing neon sign saying MOTEL was right above our heads. Ran out in the rain and used the telephone to try and get a response; but couldn't hear a thing over the roar of cars in puddles outside. So the proprietor ran over and I quickly secured a room for $45 including tax (but but but that's not how they do it over here! Actually it was a welcome relief). I was quite scared what kind of room it was going to be; half expected the bed to cower away into the corner when I turned on the light, but apart from the funny smell it was a really nice room, albeit a fairly cramped bathroom that required careful logistics to get in and out.

 
Leadville in pouring rain, and our motel's sign; it really is the stereotypical American motel sign.

Had some authentic Mexican for dinner, then back to the motel. Went out later to get something from the car and there was a super thick layer of ice all over; certainly the coldest yet, but then at 10,000 ft one would expect cooler evening temperatures. Walking back from the restaurant there was a fresh dusting of snow over the mountains that ring the town. Winter is certainly on its way to Leadville, Colorado!