Maroon Bells and Fall Colors

We're back from a whirlwind but fun trip to Aspen! Jennefer wanted to get me out for my first opportunity to see the Maroon Bells mountains up close, and we were also hoping for some good views of Fall colors. We only had a few days for this trip, as we had to squeeze it into our surprising full schedule. We left Monday mid-morning, after John's visit. We took a slightly longer and slower route, that routed us over Independence Pass. I've heard so many good things about that pass over the years, that I was hoping it would be worth the detour, to finally see it. 

We started seeing some Fall colors, as soon as we got a little bit West on highway I-70. We pulled off into a scenic viewpoint above Dillon Reservoir and the town of Frisco, and snapped our first Fall color pictures. 

Some pretty Fall color all by itself, on the side of Sheep Mountain, to the northwest of the Robinson Tailings pond, along highway 9/91 just before Fremont Pass. 

We stopped for a delicious Fajitas lunch at Casa Sanchez in the high altitude town of Leadville, which has the highest paved airport in the continental United States. I remember this, since I flew there with an instructor on my mountain flying checkout, and then some years later, I flew a friend and his daughters there. I've even got a Leadville souvenir coffee mug in my kitchen cabinet, that proclaims that I've landed there. 

We saw some amazing Fall colors along the way up highway 82 to Independence Pass. Most of the colors were on one side of the road or the other, but here, there was a short section of lush yellow leaves on both sides. 

This was all new territory for Mandy too, and she was busy enjoying the new smells, while we were snapping pictures of the Fall colors. 

We stopped at the Continental Divide, which crosses the road at Independence Pass. There was a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains from the end of the paved path to the scenic overlook, but it sure was cold and windy up there! 

You can see Jennefer's hair blowing in the wind at the viewpoint (I would've lost my hat, except for the handy Tilley hat's chin strap), and she's gritting her teeth from the cold, while she waits for me to take the picture (sorry, but I just HAD to include this pic to show our chilly and windy distress! ;-) On our way back down the short trail to the car, we were getting hit by snow pellets. 

More Fall colors, on the way down from Independence Pass.

I caught a few of the redder colors from the road, as we were driving past a meadow that was covered in tall reddish grass. 

This is a two-way road. Wow. Super narrow. 

Some colors on a hillside, as we were getting close to the town of Aspen. 

After we arrived at our hotel in Aspen, we were treated to a pleasant view of Fall colors on the mountainside visible from the front door. I snapped this pic when taking Mandy out for a break before dinner. 

Tuesday Morning. We were glad to have researched the hike to see Maroon Bells before we left Denver, because we learned that driving to the trailhead during the 8-5 daytime was not allowed, and reservations were required to ride the Shuttle bus down. They also said that a parking lot reservation would be required, even to drive ourselves down to the trailhead early in the morning before 8am. We found that all of those parking lot reservations were long gone, probably booked up months in advance. We later heard that there is always a long line of photographers, with their cameras on tripods, every morning at sunrise, to film the Maroon Bells at their finest moment. So we found ourselves lucky to grab a shuttle bus reservation for 11:15am on Tuesday. Here's the view out the back door, after picking up our shuttle bus tickets at the Aspen Highlands Ski Area. 

There was already a pretty view of the Fall colors and mountains, even from the Shuttle drop off area. 

The foliage around Maroon Lake provided a beautifully colorful lead-in to the view of the Maroon Bells, as we were starting our hike. We could see some clouds starting to form around the tops of the Bells to the west, which was the way we would be hiking. Hmm...

We really liked this particularly tall stand of Aspen trees by the trail. 

We saw just a few of the wild critters out in this area. I would've gotten a better picture of this deer grazing amidst the Aspens, except that some hikers went off the trail to get closer to it, which of course spooked it, so it was on its way out, when I snapped this pic. It stopped for a moment, to peek at us through the trees. 

This photo should give you a pretty good idea of what the trail was like. Lots of rocks and tricky footing along the way. Not bad, if you're looking where you're going. 

This is perhaps my favorite picture of the Maroon Bells from this hike. 

Interesting look up the hill at the sun through thin clouds, on our way up the trail. 

More Fall Aspen colors, as we're heading down the trail, with a new perspective. 

One last look back at the Maroon Bells, now enshrouded in what we will soon realize are rain clouds. 

At first we just heard these, thinking they were birds, but later we saw a few of them - wild and very cute Pikas. This one kept peeking out at us from different spots, and then finally just came right out on some rocks by the trail, and posed for a picture.

Seeing more pretty reds, as we are hurrying down the trail in the rain. 

I really liked something about this dark rock and the yellow leaves. 

Pretty raindrops on an Aspen leaf, stuck to the side of an interesting rock. 

Cold wet view of Maroon Lake through wet Aspen leaves, on our way back down in the rain. 

This was our last view of Fall colors at Maroon Bells, as we're waiting for the shuttle bus to come and take us back to the car. 

Wednesday morning. Raining steadily, with a little sunlight peeking through every once in awhile. Already time to be heading back home. We found a delightful little breakfast restaurant named Poppycock's, where we enjoyed our favorite breakfast combination. 

We were planning to make a big loop of it, and head home by way of  heading North to Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, then I-70 East to Denver. While we were eating, I got a popup notice on my phone, warning me that highway I-70 was closed just east of Glenwood Springs. So we headed back the way we came - East on highway 82 and back over Independence Pass. The wet Aspen and low lying clouds looked really nice to me, as we were climbing the hill toward the pass. 

I wondered if things would be different at the pass, with the rain we were having in Aspen. I was right to wonder. It was snowing heavily on Independence Pass, but it looked like it had only started recently, so there was less than a half inch of icy slush accumulating on the road. We were over the pass and on our way down, before we knew it. In this pic, we’d just encountered the snow, but it hadn’t gotten heavy yet. 

And finally, we were back home safe, enjoying our view of the front range foothills.