Tuesday, June 8, 2004

Lake Powell to Durango, CO
Please note that I did get some pictures uploaded, so please scroll down through previous postings to see some of them.

Unfortunately we did not have as much fun in the Lake Powell as we had expected to. We spent a week there, and a very frustrating week it was. It took us a couple of days to realize why we could not seem to get good information on various activities from anyone. The problem was that there are too many agencies owning land in the Glen Canyon vicinity - Nat'l Park Service, US Forest Service, BLM, City of Page, Navajo Nation - and none of them provided info on any other agency, nor would they even refer you to them. We probably spent more time trying to get information then actually "doing" anything. But we did get in some fun activities: we kayaked the one day on Lake Powell (NPS); we hiked in Buckskin Gulch's slot canyon (BLM); we biked around the mesa rim of the city of Page; and we took a guided tour of Antelope Canyon (Navajo Nation). The bike ride around the city of Page was amazing because Page sits up on a mesa and you bike along a single-track inches from the edge of the mesa rim. The drop off the rim was hundreds of feet. One bad bounce off a rock, and ouch! It still amazes me that the city actually built this thing - ha! Antelope Canyon is a narrow slot canyon with sandstone walls that have fantastic erosion patterns - swirls, stripes, holes, etc. When the sun is straight up in the sky it creates beams of lights that make their way into this narrow canyon. Not only are these shafts of light interesting enough, but the colors that bounce off of the walls are yellows, oranges, purples, and reds. The pics just don't do it justice. The other problem that we had with the Glen Canyon NRA was that it basically was a red-neck haven: ATVs, powerboats and waverunners; noise and stink of the boats; graffitti carved into the sandstone walls and trash. So we were actually looking forward to moving on to Colorado at the end of our week there.
 
One of the first things I learned in Colorado was the descriptions of bike trails are a little different. When they say "intermediate" I will now consider it an "expert" trail! We took a bike ride in the Cortez area that did have some nice or manageable sections - rolling hills, sandy spots, fun downhills- but other sections had slickrock drops so steep I had trouble carrying my bike up or down, or sections of jumbled boulders I couldn't imagine anyone crossing. The elevations are something else we keep having to adapt to as we move. This ride was between 5400 - 5900 ft. Quite different than our house at 13'. So, we keep on learning...and struggling to breathe. But the views on this bike ride were great - we saw arches, red rocks, cliff dwellings, and pinon pines. We took our kayaks up to Dolores, CO and put in at the McPhee Reservoir. There is a side canyon called House Creek Canyon that we paddled up the arm until the water just ran out. We spent a day at Mesa Verde NP touring the ancient cliff dwellings. We took two guided tours here - the Cliff Palace, which is the largest, and Balcony House which is considered an "adventure tour" because of the ladders to climb and tunnels to crawl through. Both were fun and very interesting. Two-thirds of the park have been burned by forest fires within the last 10 years, so it was interesting to see the various stages of life-after-fire and to learn just how long it will take before these high-desert trees reach any height.

After leaving the Cortez area, we moved onto Durango, CO. We got lucky in that we were in the area during two festivals - the Mancos' Old Time Fiddler's Festival and Durango's Animas River Days Festival. So we spent an afternoon in Mancos listening to amateur fiddlers compete, and who would've known there are so many good ones out there! And we stopped down at the River Days Festival periodically to see different events. We watched kayakers play in the rapids doing tricks, we saw a downstream race, and a "big dog" stick competition (they threw a stick into the river and the first dog to get it won). The current and rapids in the Animas River are pretty intense. Those dogs had to do a mean doggie-paddle to get back out! Downtown Durango is cute with the old brick and stone buildings, city square blocks with lots of restaurants, shops, microbreweries, etc. The Animas runs along the edge or through town and the city has built a great walking/biking trail for most it's length. This area is very focused on outdoor living probably because it is located near national forests and lots of open space. On Sunday we drove 30 miles north of town to hike a trail called Coal Bank Pass. Starting elevation 10,700', ending elevation was to be at the tree line at 12,000'. Yes, we expected there to be snow at this elevation, but we did not expect 10' snow drifts on the trails and the slopes surrounding us. Boy was it beautiful though with pines and aspens taller than I could guess. And it smelled just like Christmas. In the four hours we hiked we only saw two other people. They figured it was still a little early to be using that trail, especially after we lost the trail and it took about 1 hour to find it again. We never did reach the tree line however, because we were watching our time and didn't want to be out at dark. Along the way we had beautiful views of other snow-capped mountains and a mountain lake with snow still lying on the surface. It was a slow-moving hike because of the snow. We would frequently find our feet dropping feet into the snow, sometimes up to our hips, so you would have to pull yourself out and hope to find a more solid spot with the next step. Some of the trail was on a steep slope and once I lost my footing and found myself sliding down the slope on my butt for about 20 feet before I caught myself on a tree trunk - what a hoot! Needless to say, by the end of our hike our feet were soaked from snow going in the tops of our boots and our pants were wet from sinking into the snow. Good thing the air temp was a comfortable 72 degrees.
 

Well we will be leaving Durango tomorrow - sort of. We are driving to Silverton, but will take the Narrow Gauge Railroad (an old-fashioned coal-powered steam engine) back to Durango. We'll spend Wednesday night in a hotel in Durango (so we can enjoy the local microbreweries) and then return to Silverton on Thursday. The railroad follows the Animas River between the two cities and will cut through the national forest. It's suppossed to be a very scenic ride. Note: the NGR is not responsible for damage to persons or clothing by coal cinders or soot. Say what?