Snowball Fight in July!

The mountains have been calling us since we arrived in Denver and today we answered their call.  The plan was to rise early, head into the Rockies and be back to the campground by noon or 1pm.  Well, we got it half right.

We were out the door and on the road at 6:30am.  In the mountains by 7:30!  Since we always like to find the biggest, highest, oldest, or tallest when we travel, today we chose the road to Mt. Evans.  This is the highest paved road in North America and winds its way almost 40 miles from the valley at 8000 feet to the top of Mt. Evans at 14,200 feet!  It was a spectacular drive!  Along the way we caught up to the snow, pulled over and had a snowball fight in July.  Alex nearly ended up on his rear end trying to slide down the snow bank, but was able to catch himself at the last minute.  

Once back in the car we were on the hunt for wildlife! We have seen very little wildlife on this trip for some reason.  Usually we find tons.  Well today, getting up early, I think rewarded us.  We passed tons of Marmots scurrying over rocks.  And the eagle eyed boys spotted a large heard of Elk in a valley meadow.  We even got a peek at the endangered pica.  These poor little rodents love the cold weather at the tops of mountains, but with global warming they keep moving higher on the range, until they can't go any higher.  They are running out of room to climb.

Finally, when we arrived at the cold, probably upper 30's, and windy top of the mountain. We were surprised by a large herd of mountain goats and big horn sheep!  Since it was still early, we had the peak virtually to ourselves, only one other family was there, and the sheep and goats had made themselves at home in the shelter, parking lot and pathways!

Alex has decided he really wants a big horn, and took to naming all of them.

The boys rated the trip up the mountain a big 9.5.  Would have been a 10 if the elk were closer.

From there, we drove a short distance to Georgetown and the Georgetown loop railroad for a ride back in history.  This railroad was used in the olden days to transport the gold and silver down the mountains from the mines.  To make it up the steep valley, the train actually loops overtop of itself on the way up.  Of course as our luck has been running, the train ran out of steam on the way up the mountain and we had to wait 10 minutes for it to build up more steam, then it broke down at the top and they had to bring in a Diesel engine.  But for the most part it was a fun ride and the boys rated it a solid 8.  

After lunch in the lovely town we wanted to head for home.  We had been warned that interstate 70 would back up badly with all the holiday traffic, so we planned our day to be on the road home by 1pm.  Well, traffic on the highway was at a standstill stating at 11am.  Much earlier than we expected.  So what to do?  We opted, instead of sitting in traffic, to take an alternate route up over another pass and come out of the mountains  on back roads.  This worked great on the way way up, but what the map didn't tell us, is the road becomes a very rough dirt road on the way back down.  Oh well, too late now.  We drove it, and through some great navigating by Missy made it back to camp around 3.  

This evening we picked up Windsor from the animal hospital and relaxed at the campground for our final night in Denver.  Tomorrow we head south about an hour to Colorado Springs and Sammi joins our troupe.