West Trip 2013

We left Chicago at around 6:30AM flying into Denver on Southwest.  This was my first time flying Southwest after a lot of flying, mostly on Delta.  A few things were different — the main one being no predetermined seats.  Southwest has everyone line up by check in number and then… Continue reading →

We woke up, packed and headed back into Rocky Mountain National Park to hike up Mt. Ida — one of the mountains Janet had hiked on her last visit to the area.  We started up the mountain around 9:30 — 10:00 which was a bit later than expected, but it… Continue reading →

Out of Leadville we headed to Mt. Elbert.  We got to the trailhead and started hiking around 9:00 — 9:30, which was again kind of late compared to when we should have been getting started.  We should have been on the trail right around sunrise, which I think was about… Continue reading →

The  Colorado National Monument is best toured by car, driving along a 20+ mile road around the ridge in and out of the canyon channels. Along the way, there are lots of stops to hop out, look, take pictures, hike, etc. – enough to spend a large chunk of the… Continue reading →

Edit – I’m adding in this picture, which was made for the subsequent day, here because I think it does more than my descriptions to show where we were, especially to anyone looking  to visit.

We headed back into Arches National Park for a second day.  After a brief stop on the drive in at Fiery Furnace, we headed to Landscape Arch, or rather, the trail head near it.  Prior to Landscape arch, we stopped at Pine Tree Arch, which as you may guess, is… Continue reading →

The drive to Zion was long, especially coming off of a relatively full day at Arches.  We got there around 2-3AM and went straight to the visitor center where they assign the Narrows passes on a first come — first served basis.  We slept in the car for a bit… Continue reading →

Day 8 was The Narrows day 1.  The hike almost ended before it began when we parked in the wrong place and walked up to the wrong bus stop.  The shuttle driver called my phone, but I had turned it off and left it in the car given the expectation… Continue reading →

We only spent one day at the Grand Canyon, having decided not to spend the two days or so it would have taken to drive around to the South rim. The South is the more tourist laden We stayed in Kenab, AZ which is the closest town to stay in,… Continue reading →

The Sun-n-Sand Motel was where Janet had stayed during her last visit to the area, and is an interesting enough place that it was kind of the destination in and of itself. The next morning, we got to meet Wayne in person, and the reviews are accurate — he is… Continue reading →

Bryce Canyon is known, at least by Janet, for two things — lots of expansive views of the canyon full of hoodoos and bristle cone pines. We’ll start with the latter item first. Bristle cone pines are a very slow growing tree, which will easily be out competed by other… Continue reading →

Saturday was largely a travel day, but we routed the trip through Aspen, Colorado to do a bit of hiking on the way. We stopped off at the Maroon Belles and hiked back into the valley a bit. We went in as far as the lake, which I think was… Continue reading →

We had an evening flight back to Chicago, and most of a day to kill in Denver.  It’s possible we could have avoided spending the day in Denver and instead have had an extra day elsewhere, but that was not how things worked out. There were two options to continue… Continue reading →

As wrap up for the West Trip (no pictures in this one), here was our basic itinerary. This was recorded after the fact, so it doesn’t show any options or contingencies and some of the drive times are from memory or are otherwise inaccurate. The rough color coding is this:… Continue reading →