Listing Through Life

Grand Mesa Scenic Byway

Posted on June 10, 2017 by Roger

We heard about Grand Mesa for the first time on Friday night when the woman at our motel told us you “can’t throw a rock up there without hitting a lake.” I filed it away in my brain as something to check out when I got home. On Saturday, we finished Colorado National Monument around noon. We grabbed lunch at Chick-fil-A in Grand Junction and then headed for Rifle, where we had a room booked for the night. As we were driving east on I-70, we passed an exit for Grand Mesa. On a whim, we pulled off and found ourselves on the beautiful Grand Mesa Scenic Byway. The road wound between high rock walls along Plateau Creek which was brimming with snow-melt.

We drove through farmland and then headed up another rise through aspen and pine forests past Powderhorn ski area.

The area on top was part of the Grand Mesa National Forest. Most of it was a fee area, and since we were just exploring, we didn’t want to pay to go somewhere uninteresting. We did find a free roadside parking area near a small pond called Jumbo Reservoir. We took a casual stroll around the shore and enjoyed the much cooler temperatures at 10,000 feet.

The road kept going up, and so did we. I took this picture from an overlook that was right next to a high-avalanche area.

The top of the mesa was close to tree line, with patchy woods and large, open tundra-like spaces. When we got to the far edge where the road dips down toward Cedaredge, I turned around and we drove back the way we’d come.

We drove back through the canyon along Plateau Creek. An immature Golden Eagle flew out from the rock face and soared low over the road in front of the car. I pulled over to get a better look. It banked and passed right overhead and landed on a small ledge not 30 feet away. I had to back off the zoom on my camera to get the entire bird in the photo — it was that close.

A second Golden Eagle, this one an adult, soared overhead just above the rim of the canyon. After maybe three minutes, the immature took off and flew down the canyon. A Great Blue Heron was standing in the creek across the road, looking on.

All of this drive, from I-70 through the canyon and up through the forest to the top was stunning. It’s good enough to be a destination on its own.

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Reptile-Amphibian #27 — Western Whiptail

Posted on June 10, 2017 by Roger

aspidoscelis tigris

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Colorado National Monument, Colorado

We saw several of these lizards as we visited the canyon overlooks. In several cases, they actually seemed to be studying us as we looked at them. One small one crawled from a rock about 10 feet away and passed within inches of my shoe before disappearing over the edge of the canyon.

These two scurried under a rock as we approached and then came out to survey the scene moments later.

aDSCF9313

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Colorado National Monument

Posted on June 10, 2017 by Roger

The forecast for Saturday was HOT. We got up early and drove an hour to Colorado National Monument. When we arrived, it was already warm but not oppressively so. Locals were still using part of the park road for their morning commute, and they had little patience with slow-moving tourists like us. I pulled over when I could to let them pass.

We stopped at almost every overlook. The landscape was very different from Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but no less impressive.

We were at this overlook when several ravens flew over, calling. I thought they sounded a little higher-pitched than usual and was just thinking that they might be Chihuahuan Ravens when I saw the white neck feathers. I thought that confirmed it, but then I found out that Chihuahuan Ravens have never been seen anywhere near here. Common Ravens have gray — as opposed to white — feather bases, so that must be what I’m seeing.

Here’s some more of what we saw in no particular order.

Ash-throated Flycatcher

The next three photos show the Coke Oven formation. The third photo shows the front view that gave them the name.

Monument Canyon with Independence Monument in the middle.

Book Cliffs

By the time we got to the visitor center, it was just hot. We skipped a couple overlooks that involved walks.

Fruita Canyon with the Colorado River in the background.

The entire park was beautiful, and we decided early on that we’d like to go back when it’s cooler.

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Cedaredge

Posted on June 9, 2017 by Roger

I planned the days on this weekend adventure, and my wife planned the nights. She booked us at the Cedaredge Lodge, a mom-and-pop motel that has great ratings.

The young woman who checked us in spent about 20 minutes explaining all the place had to offer — benches and swings along the creek, indoor and outdoor patios, an arcade, bocce ball and horseshoes, a hot tub, a fire pit …

She took us to our room and showed us every inch of it. Her dad had purchased an old motor court built in the 1940’s and did his own upgrade. He turned our room into a “suite” by building a wall across the room and cramming a refrigerator, stove, and sink into the space, which left very little moving-around space.

We drove up the road a piece and ate supper at a local diner. We sat on a patio along the creek and made a very pleasant meal of mediocre hamburgers.

When we got back to the motel, I wandered around out back.

I spotted a pair of Mule Deer in a field. The buck wandered into a neighboring yard out of sight. I tried to get a photo of the doe in front of an old barn, but my camera wouldn’t focus. I gave up and turned around to find the buck about 20 feet away and headed toward me.

When I took the photo, the camera noise startled him, and he ran off a short way. I also spotted a Yellow-bellied Marmot in a farmyard. It was huge. There was a second, much-smaller one nearby, but just before I took this photo it took off running down the road as if its mother had just said, “Yes, if you’ve eaten all your vegetables, you can have two cookies.”

A White-lined Sphinx Moth was doing a great impression of a hummingbird around the flower pots.

I wandered until the sun set behind Grand Mesa.

I had never heard of Grand Mesa. The woman who checked us in told us “you can throw a rock in any direction up there and hit a lake.” She also said it used to be a mountain higher than Everest until it blew its top.

We didn’t use the hot tub or the fire pit or the arcade, and the mom and pop who own it weren’t there to cook us supper. But it was pleasant and comfortable and clean, if very tight. Should we ever find ourselves in Cedaredge again, we’d go back.

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Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Posted on June 9, 2017 by Roger

We picked a hot weekend to explore our new home state. On a Friday morning, we headed west through Bighorn Sheep Canyon, over Monarch Pass, and along Blue Mesa Reservoir to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. In Curecanti National Recreation Area, we pulled over to admire the Dillon Pinnacles across the Gunnison River.

Black Canyon wasn’t crowded — we had a few of the overlooks to ourselves — but there were places where people gathered. The first overlook was one of these. There was a ranger on duty, and every two minutes or so, he pointed out a dead tree in front of the overlook and explained that it had appeared in the movie The Unsinkable Molly Brown, with Debbie Reynolds.

The Gunnison River cuts through the canyon as much as 2,772 feet below the rim. We hit most of the overlooks, all of which were at the end of short trails. This was fortunate, because it was in the 80’s with an intense sun. We weren’t paying a lot of attention to where we were or what, exactly, we were looking at. I just enjoyed the scenery and looked for birds while my wife looked for wild flowers. We bought a book in the park store so she could identify them later.

You can’t tell from this photo, but the canyon is between me and the pinyon-juniper plains across the way.

We were at the last stop, a long way from civilization, when the engine light lit up on our dashboard. We looked in the manual and saw that it indicated an emissions problem that needed to be fixed soon before it caused damage. Or it could just mean that the gas cap was on wrong. We went with the gas cap. I unscrewed the cap and put it back on. Midway through Saturday morning, we heard a click and the light went off. Light on or off, the car ran fine.

When we finished South Rim Road, we took East Portal Road which wound back and forth down the wall of the canyon to the edge of the river.