Will H's USA Trip

The four of us got an early start Saturday morning for a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Established in 1915, the park is enormous, over 265,000 acres with more than 300mi of hiking trails and one of the most diverse plant and animal environments in the United States.  It's also pretty easy to get to which means it's insanely busy during the summer months.  Most of the popular visitor center parking lots fill in the early morning and even the shuttles to the satellite lots fill up as well.  We choose to visit the Alpine center first as it hadn't reported as full yet. The Alpine visitors center is at the foot of a hill that leads to a point 12,000 ft above see level. Similar to the Mt Evans climb, even a small hill can take your breath away at that altitude.  During our little sojourn I experienced hail for the second time this month.  There's nothing quite like getting hit in the face with shards of ice at 35mph.      Just bel...

Quick Update - Two of my friends from Jacksonville flew in to visit with another friend who recently moved from Jacksonville to Denver.  We met up at Union Station, grabbed some dinner, and took a walk through downtown Denver. The 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver is an outdoor pedestrian mall flanked by restaurants and tourist stops.  It's the place all the out-of-towners gather in the evenings and therefore has lots of street performers, buskers, and peddle cabs.  The have a few odd and ends in the center like pianos and giant games of connect 4 or bean bag toss along with tables and chairs for al fresco dining.  There are a few Colorado themed pieces of public art, such as these guys. From the mall we visited the city center where the state capitol and other public buildings are located. Also stopped by the convention center to check out the giant blue bear. Ended the night back at the mall for late night happy hour at Mellow Mushroom of all plac...

Mt Evens is a nearby fourteener, a mountaineering parlance referring to mountains with elevation of at least 14,000 feet.  It's about two hours from Denver located in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.      The windy road to the summit was unlike any I've ever driven.  The road is well paved, but features exceptionally sharp drop offs and no guard rails whatsoever.  When you approach an uphill switchback, you can't see anything but open air beyond the edge of the curve.  It's not an optical illusion either, the edge of the road is often immediately followed by a sheer drop of 1000's of feet.  The road had my full attention throughout the transit.  I can't imagine how difficult it was to build it back in during the 1920s and 30s. Arriving at the summit you find the remains of the Crest House, a former restaurant and gift shop destroyed by fire in 1979, a crude restroom, and a small observatory in addition to the peak. The su...