From Dinosaurs to Rocky Mountains and a Hike - July 24, 2014

The long way around

The problem we have had with the brakes, other than trying to come down a 9,000 foot mountain with only the van brakes, is that the electric brake control of the camper was not connected.  I decided to get it fixed in Estes Park, Colorado.  But we had two choices on how to get there, go directly over a 9,300 foot pass and through the mountains in Rocky Mountain national Park, or circle around though Wyoming again in the high plains (6,000 to 7,500 feet) and avoid mountain roads but add an extra 200 miles to the trip.  The cautious side of me (and the no-brakes experience off the Big Horn Mountain Range) opted for circling around the high plains. 

We were already at 4,500 feet at Dinosaur National Monument and the climb to 7,500 was so gradual that we did not feel it.  The road did take us through 150 miles of wonderful picturesque NOTHING!  No buffalo roaming, no “deer and antelope playing,” no mountain scenery, no waterfalls, no pristine forests, no amber waves of grain, Nothing!  Well almost nothing.  There were thousands of very stupid prairie dogs playing chicken with the cars and trucks going 65 miles per hour on a two lane mountain road.  These prairie dogs would hide and wait in the dry brush on the side of the roads and when the car was at a short distance they would run in the middle of the road and get in front of the car or truck – this has to be some genetic trigger for extinction.   

Prairie Dog with a build-in extinction gene

The Big nothing on the High Plain

Now, when a prairie dog that weighs maybe half pound, plays chicken with a 20 ton truck, guess who is going to win.  Even with a one ton car or a two ton van and camper rig, the odds are against these stupid little critters.  If you drive east from Dinosaur, CO on US-40 and north on Colorado State road 13, I can guarantee that you will see thousands of prairie dog “tortillas” all over the that 100-mile section of road.  You will also see many assorted bird “tortillas” who did not fly off fast enough while dining on a prairie dog “tortilla” delicacies.

Well, after a long no-event trip, we get to Estes park.  I had reserved a campsite at one of the county parks just outside the National Park (because they had full service and I like full service), and had received instruction on how to get to the site via e-mail.  Well, when we got there in the evening, the instruction took me to the wrong park!  Naturally, at 9:30 p.m., everything was closed and I had no choice but to leave the camper there and go stay in my friend’s house – the original plan anyway.  The next morning when I checked with them, without apology, regret, or offer to compensate my costs, the camp manager simply said “they always seem to get that wrong, we won’t charge you for that night in the wrong camp.”  WHAT?!?!  I was the one that was given the wrong directions, the one that paid for five nights already, the one that was left without a campsite for the night and YOU won’t charge me for the night that I have already paid and did not use?!?!?!  I was flabbergasted at the gall of these people!  We did manage to find the right park and they did manage to compensate me for one of the two extra days that I had paid.

Susan’s and Gene’s house is a beautiful Swiss style Chalet within fifty feet of the Rocky Mountain National Park and the most breathtaking vistas unmatched anywhere in the world –  a glacier topped  13,000 foot peak, several 12,000 foot peaks and ranges surrounding it and many other peaks at the 9,000 to 10,000 foot level.  It is a large family home and it is used by Susan and her siblings during the summer.  We accepted their hospitality for three days and had a wonderful time catching up on our lives, eating great food, drinking great wine and doing a little hiking.  A toast to the perfect hosts!

The Chalet

 View from the Front Deck

A Hike up a Mountain 

Adrian and I decide to tackle a 10,000 foot peak called Deer Mountain. We figured we could go up to the summit and down again in under six hours.  However, since I had to have the van refitted with an electric brake control circuit, we could not start our climb (hike) until about 10:30 a.m. – about three hours later than I wanted.

Now, a little background about the Estes Park area of Colorado – it is susceptible to monsoons!  Last year they had such devastating floods that people were trapped for weeks because the roads and a dam were washed out.  The only road that was not washed out was through the National Park, but because of Republican led sequestration of government funds, it was closed and people could not use it.  Emergency helicopter flights had to be made to bring supplies and take out the ill.  The other little background about that area is daily afternoon thunder storms and the various people that have been struck and killed by lightning when caught at high altitudes, and of course, there is also the people that have fallen to their death, and those who have not been in good enough physical shape and died of heart failure.

Some of the victims of the dam wash out last summer

We got our walking sticks, a supply of water and some snacks, and Adrian and I set out to conquer Deer Mountain!  Since the trail head started at about 8,000 feet, we only had to climb a couple of thousand to reach the summit.  Easy, right?  Well, as the Fonz would say:  “wrong-o-mundo!”  I did not realize just how bad a shape I was in.  I felt that pregnant women, elderly Chinese ladies hunched over and walking with canes, old men with a supply of oxygen and plastic tubes up their nose could have passed us as if we were standing still.  The air is thinner up there and a body that is used to functioning at 800 feet above sea level does not do too well at 9,500 feet.  Adrian got altitude sickness and we had to stop for a while since he turned so pale I thought he was going to faint.  I was doing a little better but my extra muscular body also required more oxygen also.  (OK, so it’s not all muscle, give me a break!!!)

At 9,700 feet of Deer Mountain

The view from 9,700 feet was spectacular and as I was taking some photographs of the views, I noticed the dark clouds sneaking in from the west.  In the distance I detected a couple of bolts of lightning and I told Adrian “time to pack up and head back.”  No complaints from Adrian, the last 300 feet left to climb (300 feet vertical distance translated into about 2,500 feet of hiking distance) did not seem important anymore and using the lighting excuse was as good as any for him to start back down.  We stated at a fast pace and walked down with two wonderful and interesting people (a lovely lady named Gail, a Psychologist, and her son-in-law) that kept the conversation lively for the next hour.  We got to the bottom just as the brunt of the thunderstorm hit, Gene got there to pick us up in his car, and except for a few drops of water we were in great shape.  Six hours after the beginning of the hike, we were back at their Chalet relaxing and having a drink – what a life!!!!

One thing I found while sitting at the Deck of the Chalet - Hummingbirds are territorial and very aggressive toward other hummingbirds.  This little critter below defended "his" possession (the feeder) and would drive away all other hummingbirds that came to feed making a big racket of hummingbird chatter and fantastic acrobatics that resembled dog fights on steroids but moving at least ten times faster.

The bully Hummingbird

Looking for Dinosaurs - July 22, 2014

There are very few places in the world where nature has reveled the foundation of the earth in such a spectacular display.  We are lucky that we have the area of Northeastern Utah and Northwestern Colorado  where such display of the earth structure is reveled for us to see.  Try to think of the earth's surface as a multilayer cake, where each layer is strata in the earth that was deposited over millions of years.  Now, imagine that you can cut that cake from top to bottom in an angle and then you turn the piece on its side showing a cross section of all the layers.  Then you conveniently scrape out some of the edges of each of the layers so as to see what each layer contains.  That is exactly what has happened in the southern Flaming Gorge region of Northern Colorado and Utah downriver from the Flaming Gorge Dam.  A representation of the cross section of the strata is illustrated below:

Current view if the "Cake Layer"

One of the strata (layer of cake) represents a period of about 130 million years ago - a time when dinos such Allosarus hunted its prey of "vegisaruses" having a nice pleasant meal on the greenery of the riverbank.  Try to imagine a river that flowed through this area and many types of dinosaurs living in the river valley.  Just like today, they had their wet and dry seasons and some of the dry season were very dry to a point that many of the dinosaurs died of thirst.  Some of them just laid with they fell, other were scavenged.  Later, with the wet season the river would flow and carry all the carcasses down river where they were trapped in a "bone-jam."  Now imagine a big flood one spring and many dinosaurs are caught in the riverbed.  The flood drags them tumbling end over end and desperate dinosaurs trying to get out of the water but the logs and branches from the trees knock them over and sucks them underwater.  The poor creatures end up drowned in the "bone jam" down river.   The flood and future floods and river flow deposits silt on these carcasses and all the dinosaurs get buried under the silt and preserved.  Over the years and centuries, they began to fossilize and more deposits are made by the river and wind and they are entombed in the strata that millions of years later get turned to rock.  Millions of years after that, tectonic movements uplift the strata and erosion by water, wind and weather reveal the dinosaur devastation that occurred 130 million years ago.  That is what can be seen at Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado.

We even get to see dinosaurs footprints. This Allosorous must have been walking on the soft mudy shore of the riverbed just before the beginning of a log dry spell.

 

We came down US 191 from Wyoming to Vernal, Utah - a very scenic road, but not a good road for  trucks and campers like ours with bad brakes - 8% grade for most of the 20 miles down one of the most treacherous mountain roads I have ever seen.  Very few truckers (and mostly ones with empty loads) dare to use this road.  Like us, on the return trip, manage to circle around although the "circling" adds over a hundred additional miles to the trip.  But it's a good alternative to "death over a cliff."

The opportunity to see this dinosaur quarry is a great experience that we all should make an effort to see (but don't take 191 south from Wyoming if your car does not have good brakes!)

The town of Vernal wants to claim its dinosaur status.

A Hike up the Grand Teton - July 19, 2014

Went for a short hike, about 4 hours, to the 8000 foot level of one of the Teton peaks.  The trailhead was about 6800 feet, so we managed to climb a little over 1000 feet during the hike.  It may not seem like a lot but with the hot sun and being out of shape, I had to stop for a breather and a drink of water just about every 15 minutes.  Adrian went through two quarts of water and I drank about one and one half quarts.

The big hype and warnings everywhere you go about bear attacks got me to buy some bear repellent, a spray can of super concentrated pepper spray that one uses of last resort to avoid being attacked by bears.  I was pretty sure that there were no bears were we were going, but I bought one anyway.  The reason I was pretty sure was the number of hikers in the trail, and the fact that no self respecting bear is going to be caught on the rocky cliff with no shade and no water.  Heck, if we did find a bear he would probably be begging us for some water.

I planned for an easy hike and tomorrow we will try a more difficult one.  But this "easy" hike turned out to be more strenuous than I thought.  Since we got a late start, we cut it down from 7 hours to 4 hours.  My thought was to make it to the 10,000 foot level, but we only got to the 8000 foot level.  It would have been almost dark by the time we got back and you don't want to be walking around at dusk in the forest at lower elevations since at these levels people are not at the top of the food chain and I did not want to be a treat for a Grizzly or Mountain Lion.

I spoke with a couple who were on their way down during a rest stop.  They indicated that a couple of days earlier, during a guided hike up the mountain, one of the ladies in the group had slipped and fallen down a 600 foot cliff.  They came and got her out by helicopter - but she died of blunt force injuries.  No Shit!  You fall down a 600 foot ravine bouncing off sharp rocks all the way down, slowing down your fall with your head, your back, breaking arms and legs and every other part of the body, yeah I would say you might die of trauma!  I hope for her sake she was dead on the first bounce.  After that story, we kept closer to the cliff wall on our way up and down.