So….this was one of the more terrifying drives we have had. We needed to go from eastern Colorado, over the Rockies, to middle Colorado. Notice over the Rocky Mountains. Let’s start with you have to go to Denver, which is scary enough. Really any large city. Then get on Highway 70 going up. With so many trucks. And it is 40F. And there is a ton of construction making the road narrow. Both lanes. And did I mention trucks?? Add in that it starts raining (thank God we fixed the windshield wiper relay!!). Raining hard and it is now about 38F. And construction making the lanes all wonky. And it is raining/snowing pretty hard. And we are headed up, with the occasional, very steep, down. And did I mention so many trucks??! There are quite a few signs about commercial trucks must carry chains but we aren’t commercial, and no chains. It finally stops raining so hard, but yeah then nice fluffy snow and we are at 34 F. All I’m thinking over and over is that ice forms at 32F. And we are in the slow, chugging up the hill lane with the trucks. Finally the rain/snow stops, but it is so trafficky and cars are so frustrated at all of the trucks and RVs moving slow, but hey- absolutely nowhere to pull over or off to park. The off-ramps are all closed. Finally we crest at 11,000 feet and I realize I can barely breathe and need to relax. And we head down. And down, and curves, and construction, and trucks, and more down. Thank goodness Dave just plugs along, gripping the wheel so hard, but we finally get out of the high altitude, crazy turns and there is a rest stop in the most beautiful canyon! We walked for a bit there until Dave’s shoulders relax. And continue down to a large amazing beautiful high plateau and soon come to the off-ramp for the park. Down a pretty narrow state road, around some large horse farm type homes. This park was well worth it! Yes, we did survive and even saw some young male Bighorn sheep on the side of the road. Phew…..
This park was very pretty and the lake was small, but surrounded by pretty hills. Not heavily forested, but mostly green. Well paved roads within the park, and a wonderful open, bathroom with showers. I saw a Bald Eagle coming from the showers – my Mother’s Day gift! We went to the city of Rifle (no cell service in the campground) for dinner and had really good Salvadoran food at El Rincon. We also had a couple mule deer does walk pretty close to us along the trail behind our camp site, chipmunks and lots of different tweety birds. It was quite a relaxing part of the trip. Felt like camping should.
The next day we decided to check out Rifle Falls because there are some nice trails there. It is early enough in the spring that these falls are awesome. Just amazing. And soooo loud. The trails are pretty nice so we do about 3 miles, a little backtracking here and there, with just a bit of up and down. We found the old fish hatchery on state road 35 with some of the ponds where the river is held back. Rifle River supplies a lot of the irrigation water for this region and then it is released back into the falls. That water then flows down to fill Rifle Lake where we are camping. There are some interesting small caves here also right along the trails. We take the time to absorb all the green because we are sitting at about 30-35% humidity and know we are heading to Utah next. Gonna be quite dry!
