Ski towns to red rocks

We spent a few days in a place called Bear Creek Lake Park, a regional park on the outskirts of Denver. Nice place and the sites were enormous. We could have fit badger and his mate into our plot, together with a few cars and tents too. There were signs up advising that rattlesnakes were in the area which is to be expected in this part of the wilderness. What we didn't count on were warning signs saying to avoid the smaller animals and to report any sightings of dead ones as the ground squirrels had Bubonic Plague - well, those that hadn't been eaten by the rattlesnakes! We drove into Denver on the Sunday afternoon only to find that the Tourist Information office was closed (2.30pm) and there was nowhere to park, so we went back to our campsite and had a lazy afternoon. The next day, we decided to use the Park 'n Ride system to visit the city - big mistake. After driving around for an hour, finding different stations but nowhere to park, we were so fed up we gave Denver a miss and headed for the hills - Breckenridge to be precise. Mark has already commented on the ski towns and I really liked Aspen although its probably a bit posh for us. Lots of little shops, designer boutiques, art galleries and antique shops. From Aspen we drove up to Independence Pass and the Continental Divide at 12,095 feet, which was lovely and cool with snow still on the hills

We crossed the border into Utah (again) and have spent the last week in Moab hiking Canyonlands and Arches National Parks and Dead Horse Point State Park. The heat has been quite something but the views have been incredible and here are just a few:

Dead Horse Point State Park

Canyonlands National Park

Mesa Arch  (Canyonlands)

Arches National Park has over 2,300 arches but here are just a few that we hiked to:

Tunnel Arch

Pine Tree Arch

Landscape Arch

Partition Arch

Delicate Arch

Double Arch

Turret Arch

North and South Window

Rock Art

Another sunset through the rocks below the three gypsies

Sunset (and moon rise) at Balanced Rock

Tomorrow we head further west towards Escalante and Capitol Reef National Park, then to Red Canyon before heading to the Grand Canyon North Rim. More photos of red rocks and big holes will be in my next blog :-)