Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Colorado Travelog #41
Aspen, CO - Saturday, 9 Jul 2022, 12:30pm

As we arrived at Maroon Lake after a 20-25 minute bus ride from Aspen the driver informed us that there were guided tours available at 10:30am. We're rarely the "Let's go with a tour group!" type of travelers, preferring to explore on our own without being crowded by people complaining about the weather, the sunshine, and the lack of proximity to Starbucks, McDonald's, and flush toilets. We at least asked, though, what the tours would entail. When we found out that they would be small size, no greater than 10 people including the guide, and would be led by a naturalist, we were interested. When we saw that nobody else was interested, we got really interested. 🤣

Well, by the time the ranger got moving, the group had grown to 6 plus her, but that was a fine group size. At least everyone was prepared for the hike and in good enough physical shape to do it, plus interested in learning while we walked.



Our guide's forte was flowers. That wasn't exactly what we expected. One of the other guides said it would be about geology. Our guide obliquely said that geology was his specialty. But that's okay; I know more about geology than flowers, so I'm good to learn!

Unfortunately, though, I'm not great at remember things about flowers. Like, I can barely remember their names. That fushcia one above? No idea was it is. Ditto this lilac colored one next.



There was one new-to-me flower I remember the name of. It's the orange sneeze-bag, or something like that. Yes, I totally remember that one because its name is amusing. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it. It was off the path, where I'd need my telephoto lens to get a good picture of it, and it was in deep shade.



This flower (above) I know the name of only because Hawk told me while I was preparing to publish this blog. It's a columbine. It's the state flower of Colorado!



Since columbine is the state flower I'll include two photos of them here. This second columbine picture (above) shows the color variation in the species. This one has more clearly differentiated purple and white leaves, while the first one has a fainter purple color.

Our little tour group was a fun group to walk with. Two of the members were older than us, an Indian couple who live on a Caribbean island and have traveled the world. It was fun comparing notes with them about some of the places we've both visited and getting tips on places we've yet to see. The other couple were younger but also world-wise. "The US is the 6th country I've lived in," one noted. All in all this was quite pleasantly the opposite of what too many of the few group tours we've joined have been like.



The cadence of our group's chit-chat changed when we broke out of the forest onto the moraine below Crater Lake. Here we could see the Maroon Bells clearly again, and everyone focused on getting there.

Oh, wait, there was one more flower we talked about.



"Wow, I haven't seen a dandelion in a long time!" I exclaimed.

"OMG, what a beautiful flower!" one of the group said. "I've never seen one before. What did you call it?"

OMG, you really haven't seen a dandelion before? I thought to myself. In the eastern US they grow as weeds. My parents had hundreds of them in their yard every summer until my dad started paying a lawn service to take care of them.

Colorado Travelog #23
Ridgway, CO - Tuesday, 5 Jul 2022, 11pm

So. Earlier today I told Hawk about my bucket list item from 30+ years ago to visit Maroon Lake in Colorado, suggesting we plan another trip like this one to see it... and she said, basically, "Why not now?" Since that moment we've been reworking our plans for this trip to get there.

I started changing hotel reservations plans from my mobile phone while parked on the side of a street. I made more reservations and changes from my computer at a restaurant. And I've spend another few hours online after getting back to our vacation condo this evening completing the plans. Here's how we'll spend the rest of the week:

• Tomorrow (Wednesday) we'll hike in Telluride then drive north to Montrose to stay for the night. This is more-or-less our original plan for tomorrow, though while things were up in the air I canceled our hotel stay for tomorrow night and later rebooked it. It's a points stay, and the price went up from 23k points to 24k.


• Thursday we'll visit Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. That's also within the parameters of our original plan (we allowed some flexibility on whether to hike there or Great Sand Dunes) though instead of driving to Alamosa, near Great Sand Dunes, we'll drive back to Glenwood Springs for the night.


• Friday we'll hike Hanging Lake in Glenwood Canyon. Yes, I got a hiking reservation for it! Friday night we'll stay through in Glenwood Springs. Hawk got us 2 nights at the Marriott Residence Inn with a cert and points.


• Saturday we'll visit Maroon Lake above the ski resort town of Aspen. Maroon Lake also has a permit-based system, and Saturday morning is what I could get a slot for. It's about an hour drive from Glenwood Springs to Aspen. We're not staying in Aspen because hotels are, like, $500/night on up there.


• We'll do more than just visit Maroon Lake; we'll hike from Maroon Lake up to Crater Lake, a round trip of about 4 miles at high elevation. Saturday evening we'll drive back to Denver and crash at a hotel near the airport. Hawk booked that on points, too.


• We'll fly home Sunday morning. That's different from our previous plan of flying home Saturday evening. Yay, no change fees. But boo, paying higher prices for last-minute fares. It cost about $180 more to book Sunday at the last moment, but it's worth it to make this all possible.

Also a tradeoff is that we will not visit Great Sand Dunes National Park or Garden of the Gods on this trip. But since we've visited both before— and have been to GotG, like, three times— that's okay. Swapping in a trip to Maroon Lake is worth it.