Hike Until You Drop

Two hikes in one day can really do a body in. The first was longish and uphill, but almost relaxing. The other was short, all uphill, and all strenuous. Both left me with a hankering to return to Glenwood Springs to explore more of what this Colorado River area has to offer.

A six-mile, round-trip hike along Grizzly Creek is a study in contrasts to Utah. Rocky gray cliffs, rushing water, granite boulders and jutting stone, evergreens everywhere, aspen, willow, shrubs, berries, flowers. Flickers, jays, robins, tits, wrens. The temp this morning is a brisk 55 degrees, with deep shadows still at 9am. Except for all the aspens and exposed rock, I could be on a trail at Mount Rainier back home.

It’s a solitary wander this early in the morning, although traffic picks up around 10:30 on my return trip—two women running with a Newfoundland and Labrador, three men with abbreviated fishing poles, an older British gentleman with a walking stick, a brawny fellow with a timid Yorkie and a bold Chihuahua.

Grizzly Creek, foreground, feeding into the Colorado. The following images are from the trail.

Getting back to my truck, I consider whether to drive the next few miles for a second hike to a place called Hanging Lake. It’s almost noon. I’m tired. I’m hungry. The day is getting hotter. The next trail is rated “difficult.” And the woman at Glenwood’s excellent visitor center had said Hanging Lake was an extremely popular and busy destination.

But sometimes popularity leads to true beauty, so I drive to the trailhead, cinch up my boot laces, and head onto the most exhausting mile-long stair-step hike I’ve done in a long time. Rocks and tree roots. An almost unrelenting climb. Happily, the trail is also under much shade, criss-crosses the river several times, and offers lots of scenic excuses to stop and catch my breath, which a lot of us are doing often. Almost at the mile mark (it’s 1.2 miles all told), a middle-aged couple coming down the trail meets me panting my way up. I step aside to yield the right of way in this narrow spot.

“You’re almost there,” she offers encouragingly. “It’s really, really worth it. Be sure to go to Spouting Rock. It’s another bit of a climb at the beginning, but gets easier after the rocky part. You’ll love it.”

I gulp more water and press on to what becomes the even harder last tenth of a mile on the main trail: actual stone steps, shin- to knee-high, twisting over and around each other. The way is so winding and tight that the trail builders have installed a pipe grab-rail and a couple of small turnouts for rest stops, viewpoints, and traffic control as people walk in opposing directions.

Muscles protesting as I reach the top, I decide to push the final bit to Spouting Rock first, which turns out to be a good choice. Twin waterfalls pounding down with icy water. Lots of it to enjoy in spray and photos. A chance to walk behind them, just like in the adventure movies. Then I backtrack to Hanging Lake itself, which actually surprises me with the suddenness of its appearance just around the corner.

This lake is one of the many wonders that was specifically saved when the engineers built I-70 through Glenwood Canyon. It’s easy to understand why. Clear as glass, aqua blue, and fed by the overflow of Spouting Rock above and behind it, the lake is held in place by a lip of slowly growing minerals, the same kind that create travertine marble. It spills down the hillside through natural and smooth falls that leave the lip undisturbed.

A woman next to me tells her 10-year-old son that the felled tree that spans to the center of the lake was there when she was a little girl. People like to walk out on it to get photos, and no swimming is allowed.

Going down the trail is a lot faster than going up. Somewhere around the 3/4-mile marker, a woman in her fifties is catching her breath on a series of hard switchbacks. Her face looks pained. “Is it worth it?” she begs of me.

“Definitely,” I say. “You’re almost there. And be sure to go to Spouting Rock. It’s another bit of a climb at the beginning, but gets easier after the rocky part. You’ll love it.”

The trail gets off to a rocky start...

...and pretty much stays that way most of the trip.

Hanging Lake at last.

A peek from above, care of another trip to Spouting Rock.

Returning to the land of level ground, an open gorge, and a slow Colorado River.

Time Out for Old-Time Fun

At the confluence of I-70 to Denver, state highway 6, Hwy 82 to Aspen, and a crazy quilt of turns leading to the heart of town sits a crush of national hotel chains and a schizophrenic assortment of international one-offs: Rosi’s Little Bavaria Restaurant, its wooden building trimmed like an alpine hotel; Fiesta Guadalajara, offering adobe archways and Mexican fare; and a Sioux Villa Curio shop (are things you buy there called Siouxvenirs?).

Welcome to Hotel Row of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a town that nestles in a triangular basin of Rocky Mountain gorges along the Colorado River. My RV park is a few miles back down Hwy 6, and last night I had only enough energy to wander to this oasis and treat myself to a margarita and enchilada dinner after my escapade with the trailer tires.

Today I’ve returned to this area, not for the world’s largest hot springs pool at Glenwood Hot Springs (think public swimming pool magnified by 1,000—urg), nor for the Yampah Vapor Caves (geothermal caverns used by the Ute Indians, a spa I’d like to try sometime), nor for passage into town for the historical, educational, and retail offerings of Glenwood Springs.

Nope. Today I’m out for unadulterated tourism and kidlike goofiness at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park.

This place is like Disneyland when it opened in 1955. Small, intimate, and—by today’s standards of thrill-a-nanosecond amusements—old-time hokey-pokey fun with a western theme.

A 32-foot climbing wall (yes I did). A mechanical bull (no I didn’t). Laser tag, shooting gallery, a human maze (“Fort WhereAmI”), 4D theater, bungee trampolines. Two thrill rides: Swing Shot, which sends me screeching and swinging over a cliff high above Colorado River whitewater rafters, and Canyon Flyer, a spit-drying, seat-of-the-pants, “wahoo!”-inducing downhill coaster whose speed I (somewhat) controlled with a personal hand brake. Gift shop and one restaurant, which overlooks the Rockies, the Colorado, and the town of Glenwood Springs.

A park map reminiscent of old Disneyland.

The frontier lives on.

I made it to the top on the easy side, and was almost too afraid to let go to come down. But it sure was fun when I did!

A 600-plus-foot dropoff.

Riding in front was scarier. I felt like I was going to fall out right about here...

Each to her own car for the alpine coaster.

Away we go!

Survive one high-speed turn...and, OMG, there’s another!

Getting to the park requires a scenic, 10-minute gondola ride to the top of the mountain. (When the park opened ten years ago, only buses on dusty roads could get you there.)

Up, up, up...

Looking west. My RV park is way off there in the distance, where the Colorado bends around the hill.

Looking south. Town of Glenwood Springs.

The highlight of the park is its core business—a cavern tour that opened in the late 1800s as the Fairy Caves, and shut down in 1917 because of the war. For years the caverns languished and ultimately died because they had been exposed to open air. In 1992, a dedicated couple got access to the caves and found a tall, long, 8" wide crevice (dubbed “jam crack”) that led them to undiscovered and pristine caverns, now known as The Barn and King’s Row. They bought development rights to make these treasures available to the public.

The difference was that they poured a lot of money and technology into resuscitating the old caves, protecting the new ones they had found, and keeping the mountain as pristine as possible even as they’ve expanded the park over the years. Thus the cave tour entrances are sealed with double-door airlocks to keep exterior air exchange to a minimum, and sensors are everywhere to monitor the health of the formations. Even some of the older caves have started to generate new minerals now that exterior exposure has been closed off.

Water drips from revived mineral formation in the original caves.

In The Barn...a space as big as, well, a barn.

In King’s Row, named after a lumpy formation that looks like chess pieces (visible on the "horizon," left of center).

The gondola going up the hillside, and the alpine coaster going down it, travel alongside mature trees that were there before construction. Rather than scrape the hillside for installation of the lift, as is done at most ski resorts, they brought in all the gondola supports and equipment by helicopter. The result is a park that, at only ten years old, looks like it’s been here for decades.

After taking the cavern tour, lunch, and a couple of amusements, I hung around the park for a while, mostly people-watching and waiting for the Canyon Coaster to come online (it was under maintenance when I arrived and well worth the wait).

For five minutes, I watched a father clamber after his daughter through a 20x20x10-foot open-air wooden "Speleobox" made to simulate a spelunking experience. Think 3-dimensional labyrinth that you crawl through using your elbows. The little girl was all turned around in it and couldn’t find her way out through all the levels, holes, twists, and dead-ends. The father had wiggled in after her and was talking her through it, while I, from the outside, circled the box and helped talk the father through to his daughter.

The wife came up beside me, also watching the progress. “This is such a wonderful place,” she said, waving a hand to encompass the park. “So simple and relaxed. You don’t get many ways like this to spend the day anymore.”

This happy, simple park has one happy, simple goal: To make people smile. Hey, it worked for me.

Back at our site, Patchouli finds his own funhouse mirror...

...and plays out his favorite role as Rocky Mountain Lion.

My Knight in Shining Tow Truck

Welcome to Colorado, here’s your blowout.

Yes, folks, barely 1,000 miles into the trip, I have my first trailer mishap…an entire tread unwinding itself from a tire. (And here I was thinking I’d have nothing to write about for the day except a ginger pancake breakfast in Moab and 200 miles of pretty scenery to Glenwood Springs…)

I’ve long known that I have some seriously good guardian angels. A host of them, in fact. They, like Derek of Burney’s Pro Tow in the land of Grand Junction, CO, seem to be working 24-1/2 hours a day on my behalf. So as far as blowouts go, this one went about as good as it can get.

Now when you’re driving a normal car, with only one axle at each end of it, you know rather quickly when you have a tire problem. The vehicle suddenly swerves, lurches, lists, or gives some other obvious indication of abrupt lameness.

When you have a rig with dual or triple axles at the same end, however, you can sometimes lose an entire wheel before you know anything’s wrong—there’s an extra axle or two that tries to carry the burden, and you may feel no change in the towing.

So when I saw a flash of black rubber unpeeling behind me in the left-hand side mirror, my first thought was that I’d rolled over a road hazard. Split-seconds later came the rest: Uh, there hadn’t been a road hazard ahead of me to run over. Wow, someone’s just had a blowout—must be that Corolla over there, who’s also slowing down as if in shock. No, all four of their tires are intact. And they’re still going slowly, trying to get my attention. Aw, shit, that must mean…

Mind you, I’m on I-70, a dual-lane interstate that zips at 75mph. I’ve been humming along more slowly, right-hand lane as usual. I need a place to pull over safely to check out the damage. An on-ramp is to my right, no shoulder in sight. Flashers on, I keep moving, keep slowing, seeking safe harbor from semis, pickups, and other traffic zooming around me. Whew, an extra-wide shoulder presents itself after the on-ramp, I drive over the rumble strips to get completely off the highway, and inspect the damage.

The rearmost tire on the left side of the trailer has been completely scalped.

Hmmm, Onstar, AAA, or Good Sam? Thank goodness I have choices for support. Ten minutes on hold waiting for a Good Sam Emergency Road Service dispatcher, and about thirty minutes later, Derek of Pro Tow shows up to help. Ironically, I had passed him about 45 miles back helping out a guy in a 40' motorhome with a similar blowout.

Tow trucks are considered emergency vehicles. It’s common courtesy (as well as the law in some states) to move away from them on the highway, so workers can deal safely with a disabled vehicle. “Safely” in Derek’s case was to not get mowed down by a semi while his back was 6 inches from the I-70 traffic. I had already spent a half hour inside the rig getting buffeted by wind pressure from everything that passed, and being there with Derek right next to these things was a little scary.

To make myself useful, I stood by the tow truck and shooed people into the far lane. I got pretty good at it, too, for most drivers at least edged over to give us room, and many of the semis that hadn’t already seen us a quarter mile back shoved over and waved. Even still, I earnestly wished I’d packed a full-body fluorescent jump suit and the paddles those guys use at airplane gates.

Taking off the flat.

Getting the spare.

Derek explained that the tire’s outer tread had separated from the inner, creating an air pocket that heated up, expanded like a balloon, and blew its lid. We looked at the other tires. The tread of the rearmost tire at the right was quite bloated (instead of nice and flat), indicating that separation was undoubtedly going on there, too. Another pop-off was due soon. OK, I’ll take two new tires to go, please.


Damage to the rig included some nasty rubber marks on the sidewall and the under-edging just behind the tires, caused by the tread as it ripped and snaked away. Its force also sheared off the handle that opens the valve on the rear gray-water tank. What used to be an overly long 12" of aluminum rod is now a perfect length of 3", albeit a bit bent and without a handle. At least the valve still works.

The whole service job cost me nothing (I think my three years of Good Sam Road Service just paid for itself), and I happily handed Derek a twenty for his time. He pointed me to Rifle, 9 miles away, to a Walmart Superstore that has a tire service center. I prefer not to frequent Walmarts for many reasons, but getting help there was better than risking another problem with the remaining faulty tire.

I bought the rig used, a 2005 unit, just two months ago. By my best guess, it’s been sitting in the Arizona heat for the last two or three years, getting little use. Tires deteriorate. I’d already been a little worried about their condition when I bought the trailer, and figured I was on borrowed time with them. Replacing two today just seemed par for the course.

But at Walmart, I noticed that three of the tires were all the same (non-standard) brand, including the one that had just blown. The fourth had already been replaced by the previous owners. That meant that two of the four originals had gone bad, a third was about to go, and the fourth…well, who knows its quality given the fate of its three brethren?

So off they all came, and the Flying Heart now has four brand-spanking-new Goodyear tow-specific tires, smelling all fresh and stinky of new rubber. I’m smiling and feeling a heck of a lot more confident about the next 3,000 miles of the trip, and about spending more time on the road in general.