Day Four - Independence Pass (part 2)

One of the highlights of our trip to Colorado was the drive to Independence Pass.
While I was worried concerned terrified a nervous wreck before the drive, imagining our car careening over the side of the mountain, the trip was not nearly as bad as I had feared.

Either that, or I was distracted enough with my face plastered against the car window staring at the scene before me that I simply didn't notice the lack of guardrails....or road shoulders....

You know how it looks like the world just kind of falls away just past the road in this picture?

Well...it does!!

The valleys were filling with water from the mountain snow melts.

After a surprisingly short drive, we reached Independence Pass.

This was the highest in elevation we visited during our stay in Colorado.  The air definitely felt thin!

At this point in the Rockies the water melting falls either toward the Pacific Ocean in the west or to the Atlantic/Gulf in the east.

We didn't see the 16 feet of snow we were expecting, but there was still plenty of the white stuff laying around. 

This poor park ranger was furiously shoveling the trail.  The snow was so packed down that the path people were using was about 3 feet off the ground.  Those dark things sticking out of the snow are the tops of a railing to keep people from walking all over the place.

At this point in our vacation I was mentally kicking myself for not buying a wide angle lens.

My lens just couldn't capture the scale of the mountains.

They went on forever it seemed.

If you look closely you'll see the road in the distance.

Evidence of avalanches were everywhere...

This is where the scale looks so wrong.  Those are full sized evergreens, not the bushes they appear to be in the picture!

The Arkansas River begins in this part of the Rockies.  It is named for the spring at its head, not for the state.

Again, another picture that doesn't capture the true scale.  While we were in Twin Lakes looking up at the mountains we thought the bright green was some kind of grass.  Not so.  It was actually the spring leaves of thousands of Aspen trees!

I could imagine sitting beside a roaring fire in this fire ring, listening to the water flowing over the rocks and the wind rustling the trees as it came down over the mountain.

So peaceful!