The
Hatch,
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Arrival April 26 , 2003
A gorgeous vista off of a BLM road that we visited on our way down to the Arkansas River Valley. The large mountain in the background is Mt. Harvard, a 14,420' monster between Faiplay and Buena Vista, Colorado. This panorama was 3 separate images spliced together in Photoshop. We had a reasonably early flight out of Philadelphia that was unfortunately delayed over an hour. We weren't even off the ground, and I was chomping at the bit to get the show on the road. I definitely needed this trip. Being comfortably early, we grabbed something to eat and talked about what our gameplan would be once we landed in Denver. We had two options: 1. Head straight down to Colorado Springs, then cut over towards Canon City. 2. Head out of Denver on the South side, then turn due west and head into the mountains, and follow the Arkansas from Salida down into Canon City. This seemed like a no brainer since this was my first trip to Colorado. The long, scenic route it would be. After an uneventful flight into a pretty quiet airport, we quickly made our way towards the rental car counter where we decided to upgrade to a Jeep Grand Cherokee with little hesitation. It took us a wee bit longer to physically get out of the airport, over to the rental agency, and get our car that we had originally thought. We were on our way quickly enough, and after a quick bite at a suburban sports bar, About 45 minutes outside of Denver, Tom pulled out a couple of CDs he'd brought. I plucked one and began to play what would end up being our theme music of the trip--Bill Frisell--the Willies. A great piece of work. So good in fact, and so appropriate considering our mountainous surroundings, we never swapped it out for another. Just a couple of songs into the CD, we spied a BLM road shooting off to the right, only a moment before rounding the big bend that would drop us into the valley. From there, we enjoy extra dollars spent on the Cherokee and zip up the rut-filled dirt road. Paying more attention to stray rocks that would tear up the Jeep's undercarriage than to the splendor that lay before us, we almost missed the half-dozen mule deer that were crossing in front of us. I had not a clue that we would be seeing wildlife like this so close to the interstate. We reached what we perceived to be the highest point on the access road and saw a place to pull off and soak in a view like none I've ever seen. We paused for a quick photo-op, then blasted down to the interstate and made our way towards Salida. Once on Rt. 50, just on the west side of Salida, the Arkansas careened down the valley on our left. Fly fishermen occassionally dotted the river, but with so much water to share, we were undaunted in our quest. Starting to really feel the bug, it dawned on both of us that we had not yet gotten our licenses. We stopped into a little fast-mart in Cotopaxi, picked-up our licenses, then raced back down the road to look for a spot to work the kinks out of our casts, and hopefully beat nightfall. The further down the road we went, the more the bug hits we registered on the windshield. Sunday was going to be a great day. |
