Friday morning, I took the Fiery Furnace tour in Arches National Park. The Fiery Furnace is a sensitive area that the park service is trying to keep as natural as possible. It is a maze of fins. There are lots of dead ends. The only way to visit the Fiery Furnace is by tour or possibly a special permit if one has done the tour before. The tour I took consisted of 25 people. It is 3 hours long and goes by rather quickly. The hike is only 2 miles. Everybody follows the ranger in single file over rock, between rocks, and through washes. My pictures for this hike don’t come close to capturing the beauty of the place. My camera was less than a week old, so I haven’t figured it out yet. Regardless, I doubt I could have captured the beauty even if I knew my camera better. Below are the pictures that came out okay.
Sunrise from the park road.
Three Gossips & The Organ on the left. I'm not sure what the big boy on the right is called.
Skull Arch in the Fiery Furnace
In the Fiery Furnace
Kissing Turtles Arch
Ranger Casey
Looking towards Balance Rock from inside the Furnace
Last week, I was in Utah for a soccer game and a little R&R. So I’ll share the pictures and story of my trip over several posts. The first stop of the trip was Salt Lake City for the first leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup between Colorado Rapids and Real Salt Lake. This is a bitter rivalry that did not end well for the Rapids. RSL won 1-0 in stoppage time on a goal that was clearly offside. The Rapids have been snakebitten against RSL in recent years. As fans, we were waiting for something bad to happen as the clock hit the 90th minute. Hats off to the Rapids players. After such a bitter defeat, they still took the time to acknowledge the fans that made the road trip.
The next day, I drove to Arches National Park. I found a campsite outside the park, and then went for a hike in the park. The first stop was Delicate Arch. I had done this hike before in 2005, but I wanted to revisit it when there was snow on the mountains. I figured it would add to the already beautiful scenery. That it did. Here are the pictures from the hike.
Delicate Arch with the snow covered La Sal Mountains
Delicate Arch with one of the Window Arches in the distance
Delicate Arch from Frame Arch
Frame Arch
Me and a different view of Delicate Arch
View from inside Echo Arch
Echo Arch
After the hike, I had some time to kill so I stopped off at one of my favorite arches.
On Saturday, I went for a hike at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. The weather was beautiful with record highs in some parts of the state. There are some nice trails at the Monument. They are all pretty easy. Here are the pictures from the hike.
A petrified redwood stump
Me and a view of Pikes Peak
Snow/ice that is trying to survive
Me and the boulders of Boulder Creek
Looking back on the boulders
View of Pikes Peak
I attended the Rapids game on Sunday. The weather was not that nice for the game. It was cold with some light snow. It was warm in the stands from the cheering of the die-hards that made the game. The Rapids won 4-1. No pictures from the game. Who knows, maybe some “find me in the crowd” pictures will turn up somewhere on the internet later this week.
Last Saturday, I went to the Rapids season opener vs. the Portland Timbers. The Rapids won 3-1. I had plans to go hiking on Sunday, but I didn’t go. I couldn’t get to sleep Saturday night. It was probably 3 in the morning before I fell asleep. It wasn’t a sound sleep either. I guess I had too much excitement from the Rapids game.
The unveiling of the MLS Cup Champions banner
Colorado Flags in the Pid Army Supporters section
I'm holding up one of the poles for the Tifo display of the Denver skyline.
Last Sunday, I attended a Rapids Supporters party at the Celtic in downtown Denver. It was good time. We celebrated last year’s Cup win and talked optimistically about the chances of repeating. Things do look good. All the starters are returning from the Championship team, and they have improved the bench. The new season starts for the Rapids on Saturday, March 19th.
Me with the MLS Cup.
I’m in the new Rapids Season Tickets commercial.
What, you didn’t see me? It is a bit subliminal. He is a screen capture of my subliminal fame. You might recognize my dirty Rapids hat that I wear hiking a lot.
As most of my regular readers know or figured out, I often allude to music or other bits from pop culture in the title of my posts. It is usually music. Anyway, I figured with this post I would include some music from one of my favorites.
Here’s what little info I know about the EP
Works Progress Administration - 4X4 Four friends, four songs, most of a day, many tacos.
credits released 05 March 2011 Made by WPA Mixed by Jerry Roe at Ed.
Glen Phillips - vocals, guitar Jerry Roe - drums, vocals Sebastian Steinberg - bass, vocals Sean Watkins - vocals, guitar
I went for short hike on Sunday. I hiked up Fremont Peak again. I did this hike last Thanksgiving; however, this time I hiked a little further since I did not have to get back for turkey. I followed the ridge east a little ways. There really wasn’t a trail; so I had to watch out for the cactus. On the way back I found a trail below the ridge that took me back to where I started. The trail was not maintained. It was overgrown. However, the trail had switchbacks. So it was definitely a man-made trail despite the Elk Duds.
View from the top of Fremont Peak
Tannner Peak on the left. Sangre de Cristo Mtns on the right. Arkansas River down below
I went for a short hike today along Grape Creek. It was more of exploring trip to see what was there. I parked at B.F. Rockefeller Ecology Park. I walked through the open space park to BLM land. I then cut through a water gap that took me to Grape Creek. I crossed the creek and followed a horse trail upstream into Temple Canyon. I crossed the creek 7 times before I decided I had enough of testing luck on my rock hoping skills. The water was low, so it wasn't too hard to get across the creek. It looks like the water gets pretty high during the spring runoff. The canyon was quite pretty. It is worth further exploring.
Two posts in one weekend. That hasn’t happened in a while. It was another nice day in Colorado, but that will change on Monday. With Sunday being nice and with me wanting to try something new again, I hiked to the top of Tanner Peak in the Wet Mountains. Tanner Peak has an elevation of around 9340 feet. I’ve seen three different elevations for it. I’ll go with the one in the middle. The bad thing about this hike is that ATV’s are allowed on the trail. I saw four ATV’s on my hike. They were noisy, smelly, and loud. Two of them just drove up to a scenic spot to shoot their guns in the National Forest and leave a mess. It surprises me that the Forest Service still allows ATV’s here; however, I did know that ATV’s were allowed before I went to the trailhead so the damage that was left is not a surprise. I heard that Tanner Peak was a scenic hike, and I was not disappointed there. On the way up, there were some great views of Pikes Peak and Cañon City. The top of the peak opened up to a grand view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. By the time I got to the top, clouds had moved in and it started getting cold. I did not spend too much time on top. I needed to head down. The hike was a little longer than I expected, and I wanted to get back before it got dark. I did. Here are the pictures.
The trail
Pikes Peak and Cañon City
On top of Tanner Peak with a view of the Sangre de Cristo Mtns.
Me and the southern view from Tanner Peak
Another view of Pikes Peak and Cañon City on the way down.
It has been a while since my last post. I haven’t done any new hikes lately. They have all been repeats. Well that changed on Saturday. I went for a hike on Thompson Mountain. The trails where I went for a hike are located off of Highway 11 southwest of Cripple Creek on some BLM land. The weather was outstanding. I wore shorts on this hike. The only people I saw were four horseback riders at the halfway point of the lollypop route that I took. They came up a different route so I only followed their hoof prints for about a quarter of a mile. The only other prints I saw besides mine were from the critters. It was quite nice. Here are the pictures.
Three Gossips & The Organ on the left. I'm not sure what the big boy on the right is called.
