WEDNESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2023.

(Glenwood Springs, CO – Denver, CO)

[Editor’s note: it’s been a long day. All is fine, we are in Denver, and just about sorted for our flight to Atlanta tomorrow morning, but…I’m tired! So…check back in another 24 hours to see if I’ve posted the update! Thank you and good night!]

[p.s. By way of compensation, the video for yesterday’s hike at Maroon Lake is here: https://vimeo.com/882760618]

[Editor’s note: thank you for your patience. Normal service is now resumed.]

The weather forecast was for light snow at breakfast time, not settling, and then a ‘proper’ bit of snow coming layers in the evening and overnight. When I got up and peered out of the window, they had the first part right. It was lightly snowing, but but sticking to the ground. It had, however, given the nearby mountainsides a light dusting of white. It was quite pretty…

We had breakfast, packed up and checked out. We had decided to do the short walk to Doc Holliday’s grave in the old cemetery. This was correctly described as a short walk but, where I had read it as a slight climb, it was closer to a steep ascent up the mountainside. The views were good though, looking down over Glenwood Springs. We found a Doc’s grave, as well as Kid Curry’s, and browsed the old grave markers. We could see weather coming, and there were a few flakes of snow while we walked around.

After that we briefly stopped off at City Market, and then joined I-70 for the eastbound trip. The standing joke between us is that if there’s going to bad weather, it happens when I’m driving. Snow, downpours, flash floods…I’ve had them all. I was going to drive, but…the next section of our route goes up to high altitude. There was a risk of snow. I pointed this out and Andrew took the wheel. We didn’t want to tempt fate.

We had barely gone anywhere when the snow started. Gorgeous Glenwood Canyon was wet, with sleet and mist. Still, it wasn’t too bad. There was a touch of snow as we followed the winding Colorado River higher into the mountains, but we felt like we were staying ahead of the weather.

Hunger got the better of us and in looked on Google for a nearby diner. Route 6 diner in Vail sounded like it might be suitable l, and we detoured off I-70 to find it (yes, it’s located on route 6, in case you were wondering). This turned out to be a complete gem. It has both a cafe and bar, was very authentically eclectic and served great food. The coffee was even better. Once we were replete, though, we moved along, mindful of the weather.

There were increasing signs of snow, including pretty fir trees and white hillsides. The hard shoulder was covered over, and the road surface started to be covered with slushy snow, just wheel tracks in the outside large. We went for snow mode on the car, and turned on the heated windscreen to enable us to use the windscreen wash without it freezing. Ice was clinging to the outside of the car and the air temperature was down to 24F (-4C). We stopped less than an hour later at the Columbia store, where further bargains were just being given away. It wasn’t long before we were back on the road, and we climbed higher to to the Eisenhower- Johnson tunnels at 11,158 feet. We hiked it might be better on the other side of the mountain, and the temperature in the tunnel did rise to 33F, momentarily giving us hope.

At first, the hills were less snowy, and the roads clearer, but we soon descended into cloud, which turned out to be freezing, with more snow. The roads got slushy again, and we saw at least a dozen snowploughs at intervals heading the other way. Despite the conditions, the trucks just roll on at speed, ac decision which nearly resulted in catastrophe for one truck in front of us as it skidded out in a turn. It wasn’t until we turned onto Route 6 in the Denver metro area that the roads improved and became simply wet.

At that point, the need for extreme concentration due to the conditions was replaced with the need to concentrate on multiple lanes of rush hour traffic. I attempted to make sure I gave advance notice of lane changes and junctions as we worked our way to REI’s flagship store in Denver. We only stayed around 15 minutes in total, picking up an order for a backpack that I couldn’t get in Grand Junction.

Then it was back into the traffic to head for the hotel. In total, it was 4 hours from leaving the Route 6 cafe in Vail at 2.20 pm to arriving at the Wydham hotel near Denver airport. We were both tired. We brought in everything from the car, all our stray belongings including hiking boots, walking poles, sunglasses etc, all of which had lived in the car for the last couple of weeks, ready for packing up properly. Before we did that we went for dinner at a nearby Ruby Tuesdays. We figured we’d best eat before we were too tired to go out. Then it was back to pack, repack and juggle things around. Whether it properly fits in will have to wait until the morning. And so, too tired to blog, we went to bed.