An Early Morning Drive

It is definitely fall in the mountains. The aspens are golden and beautiful and I really wanted to take a drive through the mountains, catch a beautiful sunrise, and get some photos. There is this picture that Erin has in her head of aspens that I've been trying to find for a few years now. I didn't get it quite right, it is sooo hard to know exactly what's in her head, but I got close this time. So, Sunday I got up at O-400 (what's the O stand for, oh my god its early!, thanks Robin Williams) and drove the Jeep up to Kenosha pass to see the sunrise. Blitz accompanied me, he loves to ride up in the passenger seat of the Jeep. We started out so early that he curled up in a little ball beside me and napped for a while.

From Kenosha you can't see the sun rise, there's a mountain ridge right in your way, but the light on the aspens is beautiful.



After watching the sunrise, and giving Blitz a chance to stretch his legs and roam through the aspen forests, we headed off to Georgia Pass. There were some beautiful stands of aspen along the way and I stopped for a few more photos.


Erin said this one was close to what she wanted, but not quite. Oh well, I'll have to try again next year :).

I headed up over Georgia pass, sorry no photos. There was some snow on the trail and some of the tippy sections were a little unnerving, since half of the road was covered in ice! I cleared through those sections fine and headed back down below tree line and then BANG - hissssss. I had hit a rock and torn a giant gash in one of my tires. Fortunately I was able to get the tire changed fairly swiftly. From there I had a very steep and rocky descent, it wasn't icy, but was wet and sometimes seemed more like a slip and slide then a trail. It was so steep and bumpy that poor Blitz was getting bounced all around the Jeep. I let him out and he trotted down the trail and waited for me at the bottom. He seemed much happier on his own four feet through that section.

We stopped again in Georgetown for a few more photos and made it home by 1 PM so I could spend some time playing with Xander. It was a fun trip.



-Jake