Whistles, Bells & Mountain Peaks (part 1)

Darcy, and the coach

Today was my first tour out to the Rockies.  I had to be ready for collection by 7.45am for being taken to the Cherry Creek shopping centre, where the tours all depart from.  It'll be the same procedure again tomorrow.

Squaw's Apron, the V-shaped pattern formed by streams

This was the Whistles, Bells and Mountain Peaks tour by Gray Line.  I was pleased when our driver introduced himself as Darcy - as all the reviews of the tour I read said that he was really good, and he turned out to be as good as reviews said.  The coach itself was a bit knackered, several of the speakers didn't work, and the headrest of the row in front would come off in your hand if you touched it.  So I moved across the aisle to the left hand side, which turned out to be best anyway, as most of the things to see were on that side - and it means you weren't above all the cliff edges next to the side of the road!

The initial part of the journey was mainly getting out of Denver and on the way to the mountains.  We stopped briefly at a Marine war memorial, and then went on up the Squaw Pass Road, saw Squaw's Apron and the Continental Divide.

There are lots of trees, everywhere, and some superb rock formations, the ones in this picture were also at Juniper Pass were we saw the apron.

It is amazing that so many trees can grow on such steep slopes as they do.  Darcy explained the main different types of tree, and how they relied on the occasional forest fires to renew the forest.

By this time, we had climbed to some seven thousand feet above sea level already, and the temperature in the shade was noticeably cooler than it had been in Denver when we set off, although in the sun it was pleasantly warm.  I had followed the instructions to bring a light jacket - but I didn't need it today.

Echo Lake

Our next stop was lunch at the Echo Lake Lodge - at 11am!  Nobody much minded though, as we'd had such an early start.  Darcy had phoned out lunch orders in in advance, having collected them just before we set off, so we didn't have to wait long - although it would have helped if everybody could have remembered what they had ordered!

Because we were all good and returned to the coach before the time we were asked to be there, we had an extra stop at the Echo Lake itself, which was beautiful.

We were able to wander around for a few minutes, and take lots of photographs.  I took some photos of other people and they took photos of me in return.

Our next stop was Georgetown, where we had an appointment with a train at 1.40pm that we had to make.

I'll continue this in the next post ...