Red Rock Canyon and Amphitheater, Morrison Colorado

Last week-end, on the way back of the Lair of the Bear Canyon, we also visited Red Rock Canyon.
It is hard to miss with the vibrant red and orange colors.

First you are driving in a wild desert landscape with slanted colorful rocks all around.

After a short drive in the park, you arrive to the parking lot for the amphitheater. You are now much closer to the stones.

Let's go to the amphitheater.

Look on the left.

This is some weird design. The colors are melting into each other. This reminded me a bit of the colors from Death Valley outside of Las Vegas, but in a smaller scale. Still very impressive though.

Here's the amphitheater.

This amphitheater is famous for its sound as it is naturally enclosed with rocks.

An entire array of stars from U2 to John Tesh have spoken about their extraordinary experiences on stage there.

Wanna be a Rock Star? Here's the view from the stage.

While I was sitting on stage taking this picture, Robert decided to run up the stairs all the way to the top, and give himself a good sweat. Here is is, checking me out with his binoculars. Look for the cowboy hat, black shirt and white pants in the center, leaning against the railing.

And here's stinky wet man going back down those stairs, much slower this time...

On the way out of the Amphitheater, there is a great view where you can barely see Downtown Denver in the background. Look for it towards the middle left, behind the green hill.

What a magical place. We'll definitely go see a concert there soon. It must be something at night!

Can't wait to hear that famous sound...

COLORADO IS BEAUTIFUL!

The Lair of the Bear, Morrison Colorado

Robert and I recently bought a little book called "The Best Denver Hikes" featuring thirty different hikes, from easy to difficult, within one hour drive from Denver. On our path to get in shape and hoping to lose a few pounds, we decided that we will do all thirty hikes, and keep a blog about it, and also keep a record of our travels.

So on August 8th 2010 we decided to go for an easy hike, and headed towards Morrison to check out the Lair of the Bear trail.

As soon as we arrived, the sun went away and it decided to rain lighty. A whimpy rain really, compared to the "slap in the face, beat you into submission" Florida rain we just came from.

Not an umbrella in sight, we put on our hats and kept going. We immediately saw families having fun along the river, so we took the less-visited Bruin Bluff Trail, looking for some quiet nature time, and we found it. Here are a few pictures of the beginning of our trip, going up into the hills.

Did I mention Robert is wearing his cowboy hat?

Time to go down to the river and valley, and play.

You know Robert is always looking for gold.

The water wasn't that cold, and that was surprising. Robert spoke with a fly-fisherman who had had some luck with trout. We learned that any Rainbow trout had to be put back in the water, and there is a two trout limit for any other kind of trout.   

 

After the river, we entered the valley which was breathtaking. I love the picture below with the sky battling between sun and rain. Look at the light on that tree! The trail is very inviting.

This is bear country. I always keep that in mind. The river was on our right, and we were crossing a few people but this is still the unknown. You hope that the amount of human activity will scare away the bears, but that didn't happen on our last camping trip in Nevada when a bear ran through our camp, and I almost peed in my pants.

I haven't gone camping since, to Robert's despair.

Now I need an RV and a shotgun to go camping.
We're still working on getting an RV. And on a shot gun for that matter...

Just in case, I carried a knife at my belt.
Not that the knife could have done much against a black bear.
No, we did not see one, thank goodness. I have enough gray hair already.


But we did encouter a dangerous creature! See below.

Isn't this butterfly or moth beautiful? I didn't notice the other two little insects on the leaf when I took the picture.

Here are other little jewels we encountered. I am a sucker for flowers and animals.

It may be mountain time, but there are signs of desert too. Here's a cactus. Watch where you walk...

And the trail ends, close to the parking area.

We thought our trip was over, but on our way out of the park here is the view we got. I could help but park illegally and take this picture:

And then, a few miles down here's another surprise.

On our drive to the park, I had seen an interesting natural sculpture that I had missed on the way in. I had not been fast enough to take out my camera. I wasn't about to miss it on the way out. Here it is:

It looks like two stones kissing. At least that's what we saw. What a great day!

It turns out Red Rocks Park was just down the road from us, but we'll save that for next time.

COLORADO IS BEAUTIFUL!