Independence Pass, Colorado

Yesterday, (today I'm back home in Denver - finally!) we were atop Independence Pass at 12,095 feet above sea level. It was windy and very, very cool at noon.

Independence Pass is on the road from Buena Vista to Aspen, just past Twin Lakes. The area is totally beautiful. There was a 100 mile distance run going on between Leadville and Twin Lakes. (Of course, it held up our trip for a while as some hearty souls crossed the road in front of us.) They were running along some foot trails high in the mountains.

Think about it - 100 miles! That's almost 4x the distance of a marathon... and run at high altitudes over rugged terrain and up and down a lot.

Twin Lakes was pretty, Aspen was pricey, upscale, and residential. It was nowhere near as pretty as Telluride or Ouray, or Silverton for that matter. Aspen had no high mountains around it.

Wolf Creek Pass, where the headwaters of the Rio Grande River are, was much more built up than I remember it being 25+ years ago when I was there last. Both it and Independence are atop the Continental Divide. Wolf Creek Pass now has a ski area and the attendant lodges, eating places and traffic.

But the western side of Wolf Creek is spectacular, as I remember it being. There's a huge rock wall that is just beautiful in the distance facing the highway. The pass is some 11,000 feet in elevation.

Civilization encroaches, what can you do?

Independence Pass is above tree line, which is around 11,500 feet in Colorado. The area is tundra. There's a foot path winding off and upward to the west of the parking area. It appears to follow the long and winding top of a ridge leading to the summit of a 14,000 or 13,000+ foot peak.

The day before yesterday we drove around the rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River National Park between Gunnison and Montrose. It was just spectacular. My brother loves canyons and was in ecstasy over this one - second only to the Grand Canyon, he claimed. We also drove through Glenwood Canyon on I-70.

Glenwood Canyon, dug out by the Colorado River after it leaves Rocky Mountain National Park where it starts atop Milner Pass along the Continental Divide, was impressive. I think I was even more impressed by the engineering it took to work both sides of the Highway through that narrow, steep canyon.

That section of I-70 was the last to be completed... for that reason. Although the Johnson Tunnel next to the Eisenhower Tunnel beneath the Continental Divide some 60 miles west of Denver was not finished till 1979, 9 years after the Eisenhower portion.

All in all, I feel very fortunate to live in Colorado, very blessed, and so glad for the times I've visited the mountains.

Indepen