Tour de Colorado ~ Part I

One year, for our high school spring break, three other friend and I decided to take my friends minivan, his saint bernard named "Bear" and drive it around Colorado for a week. Our plan roughly involved a loop, beginning in Fort Collins, in the Northern part of the front range down to Ridgway, in the Southwestern side of the state. Our friend's brother had a cabin there. We had no idea what Colorado had in store for us.

Snow falling at the sand dunes as the sun sets

Our first destination was the great sand dunes. We, being young, paid the national park fee, and went and found somewhere where we could camp wherever we wanted, instead of the cramp-grounds that they wanted us to go to. It's more fun that way. We bedded down for the night as it had begun to snow, and it was cold. When we awoke, there was about a quarter inch of snow blanketing the whole area, but the hot sun was working fast to melt it. By the time that we had gotten up and eaten breakfast, the snow was almost gone. We took our snowboards out onto the sand dunes and gave it a shot. You had to go straight for a long time to gain any appreciable speed, because the sand wasn't steep, but it was still fun. There is still sand on my snowboard
waxing iron, even this many years later. We hike to the tallest dune we could find, and basked in the hot spring sun. The views of the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo range were amazing. Now, looking back I realized I could have learned so much about sedimentary geology at this location. There are so many processes specific to sand dunes that create unique sedimentary rocks. Medano creek, the river channel that runs on the flank of the sand dunes has been subject to many geologic studies. The properties of the creek is very unique, flooding and subsiding periodically as the water seeps underground through the sand.

Our next destination was Ridgway, where Forrest's brother had a cabin.  We had heard about some hot springs, called Valley View hot springs, close to a town called Crestone. After locating the hot springs, and traveling down quite possibly the worlds straightest road, we found out that it was $15 admission for the day.  Being on a strict budget that did not allow for this expenditure, we camped out nearby and waited for nightfall, since the hot springs closed at 6.  We hiked in around 11 p.m. fearful that we would be heard and discovered. It was a stealth operation, and we were all as quiet as possible, but we didn't really know where the hot springs were or what to expect. Would there be a guard or nightwatch? People still soaking from the day?  We found a drainage with a strong sulfur odor, dipped a finger in and found that it was warm. Walking downstream, we found a pool for soaking, and the beginning of a long pathway connecting many other pools. In silence, we stripped to the nude and slipped in. Amazing. It wasn't long before we noticed a little dot on the side of the pool, that we were convinced was a motion detecting device. We were all scared and panicked, and about to run when we saw another. As it turns out, they were fireflies that lived next to the vapor coming from the pond, it was warm year-round and never froze, so they could live happily. I had never before seen one my whole life, and didn't even think they could live in Colorado. I have never seen another though, either. We spent the whole night soaking under a bright, full moon with completely clear skies. We checked the clock when we returned to camp, it was around 4:45 a.m. I don't think that i'll ever forget that night.

The next day, after sleeping in all day, we continued on our way to Ridgway, but not without heading down to Crestone where Forrest had said the architecture was neat. It really was, one neighborhood had hardly a single conventional house in it! Some were dodecahedrons, which is a flat dome shape that is supposedly more energy efficient. Plenty of sod houses, and ones that blended right into the environment and were hard to pick out. Houses in construction there revealed that these were not of normal composition. They were being built out of bags of material, like sand bags, and not with plywood and shingles. It was really neat to see how the "green" housing had spread through this community, it was really a strong feeling even just driving by these houses. I'm sure that much more thought goes into the interior and reasons for design of the house that we were simply unaware of.

We finally made it to Ridgway, which is below Ouray and Red Mountain Pass, which is all spectacularly beautiful.