Independence Day long weekend is a good reason for traveling somewhere. And it's an even better reason to go to the mountains where it is not as hot as downhill and enjoy a nice, quiet environment, fresh air and endless mountain ridges.
We started early in the morning and by 10AM we were already crossing the Rockies.
We decided to go to Gunnison county not only because we wanted to escape noisy and hot Denver. We also would like to explore some new places we always wanted to see but postponed for some reason.
We took Highway 285 and we were in Buena Vista just a couple hours later. We always crossed the Rockies on Monarch Pass but wanted to see something different so turned to County Road 306 to cross the mountains at Cottonwood Pass. The winding road brought us up to the summit where we stopped and looked around. The Cottonwood Pass (elevation 12,126 feet) is located near the border of Gunnison and Chaffee counties. Looks like you can stay here forever looking at the mountain's peaks, lakes and high altitude tundra... You still can find a lot of snow around the pass (despite the middle of the Summer), but that day it was pretty warm around here and we enjoyed spending some time there after about 3 hours of sitting in the car.
Just a few minutes there, breathing the fresh and cold mountain air and we were recharged and ready for adventures. So we continued on a dirty (but still pretty good) road going downhills and
just half an hour later we made a next stop at Taylor Park Reservoir where we smelled the scent of
alpine flowers and fresh grass.
The meadows were blooming and that was
amazing to have all together - the lake, the snow covered mountain's
peaks, the meadows, the flowers.
That was a moment when we found
ourselves finally free from a big and busy city and understood that we are now on a
VACATION!
To read the next part:
Pictures were taken on July 03, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment