Colorado: September 24-October 1, 2009. End of our stay in Colorado

The last part of our stay in Colorado was near Leadville, at Dexter NF CG on Twin Lakes. We thought this area was the most scenic of all the places we visited this summer. There are several close seconds though, to be sure.


Twin Lakes & Dexter CG


The campground wasn’t much to talk about, just a gravel parking lot. We had wonderful views out our front window of several mountain peaks including the highest peak in Colorado, Mt. Elbert at 14,433’. Another perk was the CG was free since we were here after Labor Day.

The campground

This was part of the view from the front window of the Bug


More views from the hill in front of the Bug. Looking out our front window we could see all the views in these photos except we just couldn’t see the lake in the foreground.




In the picture above, the peak in the far right is Mt. Elbert. The picture below is the view looking back down at Twin Lakes from the top of Mt. Elbert. I didn’t hike up here. The picture was taken by ColoradoGuy.com and is posted on Images.google.com. I hope that is proper credit.


This was a wonderfully scenic campground to stay in.

A few views from around the area

Mountains and clouds from Hwy 24 south of Leadville


Old mining town.

The piles of gravel in the foreground were left over from dredging for gold.

Ruedi Reservoir, north of Aspen



An interesting house. It looks like it belongs in Switzerland.


Aspens






Arkansas River


Mountain Bluebird


Abert Squirrel


Ospray





We took two beautiful scenic drives on 4 wheel drive roads.

Hagerman Pass Road follows an old railroad bed part of the way up and down the pass. However the railroad went through a tunnel and a fairly rough road continues up above tree line where there was a little snow left from a few days ago. Wonderful views along the road.


















Lost Canyon Road goes up to above the tree line to fantastic views. It was a good road until the last ½ mile, then it was a little rough but fine for stock SUV’s.

Pretty aspen trees on the way up



Near the top we passed a working mine. There was a for sale sign at the entrance.


Some views from the top







That ends our travel log for our Colorado trip this summer.

We did spend a couple of days in Denver, but I don’t have anything significant to tell about our stay there. It is a big city - which just about says it all since we really prefer NO towns or small towns to BIG towns when we are traveling.

That’s about all for now.

Al & Sharon