Georgetown, Guanella pass, it’s not broken!
19 Aug 2012 Leave a Comment
After church we loaded up and headed up to Georgetown.
Here is the view coming over the hill at Genesee.
The haze is smoke from the fires further West of here. We stopped in Georgetown to fill up on coffee and guess what we found in the gift shop?
Another Mr. Otter, he looks almost exactly like the old Mr. Otter, only….newer…and with no holes….and his fur isn’t burned. Hannah named him George. We started up the pass, nice views.
If you’re wondering what those reservoirs are on the way up (if you are driving up, they were on the wrong side of the car for pictures), it’s the hydroelectric station. They pump water up into the hills and the force of gravity pulling the water downhill runs the turbines and powers the grid.
We stopped at the summit and walked around.
This is the spot we picnicked at on Father’s day while James was in Iraq, it was June and it snowed on us! (June 2011)
This time there was no snow, but it was nice and cool.
Mt. Bierstadt is the peak on the right, the 14′er in this set (14,065.) Mt. Sawtooth is next to it on the left, it does look kind of like a saw on top.
Mt. Spalding is next and then the hill to the left of it is Gray wolf mountain.
Some flowers on the trail, not many flowers left up at this height right now.
We learned about red algae through signs while on this trail. Red algae grows on the snow and then snow fleas feast on that, so don’t eat red snow…or yellow snow.
We went to the other side of the trail and just looked at the trail sign. There was a giant moose swimming in the pond, we weren’t that close to it so here is the picture zoomed in from far away; trust me, it was a moose.
We got in the car and headed down the pass toward 285, a nice landscape picture on the way.
We got closer to the creek on the way down, so we stopped to look at it.
Here is one picture, here is the picture I got right before the screaming ensued.
Hannah was the last one out of the van, she shut the door, then opened it again to toss in her otter. Unfortunately she only opened it halfway and the van was tilted downhill, so the door promptly closed on her fingers. We all scrambled back to the van and opened the door, her ring finger and pinky were at an odd angle. We jumped back in the van and continued to the hospital, which was an hour and a half away. At the ER we got x-rays and a splint, but it’s just to protect the finger from bumping.
They didn’t see any breaks, but it is swollen and tender. Hannah is very lucky the door wasn’t open all the way, that much force shutting on little fingers would not have been a pretty sight.
All’s well that ends well.
