Ramblings in the Rockies

I spent last weekend in Breckenridge. I like to rent a condo there, within walking distance of downtown. The condos are plush and have some nice furnishings, like this lamp.

I hiked up to an old mine at 11,500 feet last Sunday. There were buildings, tailings, and rusted equipment all over the place. Imagine what kind of a life it would be, living in a little cabin like this, at timberline, lugging all your gear up miles of dirt road and enduring bone chilling rain and cold temperatures...in summer! Worse the rest of the year. Talk about hard work.

The mine was in an amphitheatre at timberline. Here, in late summer, there was virtually no snow left and the air was balmy, but the countryside still had a forbidding appearance.

This is the highest tree in the amphitheatre. It defines timberline. I found a nice rock and achieved alpine slotation here.

At lower elevations, the weather is more benign, and the country more gentle. This is in Glenwood Canyon, next to I-70, a little over a mile below the other pictures in this post. The canyon is a fine venue for river rafting, cycling, rock climbing, and hiking. I should mention that although I did a lot of hiking and backpacking in Colorado when I lived here, I only saw one (1) bear. And it was only a few miles from here! I was driving in the fast lane of I-70, just a mile east of downtown Glenwood Springs, when I saw a black bear running in the slow lane of the freeway...in the middle of the day. I paced him on the left, and a camper from Florida drove behind him in the right lane for awhile. Then the bear hopped over the guardrail and proceeded toward the river. More than a little surreal.