Colorado Aspens; Day 4

Another day in Colorado enjoying the changing aspens and mountains. The route today was so simple even I could memorize it. Highway 14 from Fort Collins to Walden and back. The highway parallels the Cache la Poudre River for much of the way through Poudre Canyon. It also goes over Cameron Pass at 10,276 feet.

At 8:30 we departed our hotel. It was sunny and 45 degrees. Our first stop was at Picnic Rock picnic area, where we could walk down by the Cache la Poudre River.

Next we stopped at the Greyrock Mountain Trailhead, where a foot bridge crossed the river. We walked across and did a little exploring.

Further west in Poudre Canyon we encountered two young bighorn sheep on the highway. No adults were to be seen. We drove by them 3 times to get a good photo.

We were over 40 miles into the trip before we started seeing the pretty aspens but, again, they were beautiful. Like yesterday, we saw large areas of burned forest. In the photo below you can see some burn on the mountain in the background.

We wanted to eat lunch in Gould, Colorado but the only restaurant in this very small town was closed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Rather than eat out of the cooler we decided to drive 21 miles further west to Walden for lunch. It was a good choice that provided some beautiful mountain and aspen scenery.

Outside Walden we saw some pronghorn antelope well off the highway.

We enjoyed our lunch of cheeseburger, fries and onion rings at the River Rock Cafe in Walden.

We drove nonstop back to Fort Collins, where we gassed up the Scape and had a pumpkin pie blizzard at DQ. Back in our hotel at 4:30 we enjoyed another dip in the hotel's hot tub. It was 81 degrees when we arrived at our hotel. Our route today covered 211 miles.

Click here to see all the photos taken today - Day 4

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