[Flashback] Changing of the Leaves

 Sept 18, 2010

Our goal this Saturday was to see fall in all of it's Colorado glory. If you have never been to the mountains in mid to late September, you are missing out. This is the time of the year that the Aspens are changing from green to all shades between yellow and red. There are some really great places to check out this beautiful transformation. We chose Kenosha pass for this year's leaf watching. Also on our agenda was Georgia Pass and Boreas Pass.

On our way out we borrowed Dawn's neighbor's (Becky) dog - Boo and went "up."
I was surprised that so many people were up taking pictures of Fall. When we got to Kenosha Pass we almost couldn't find a place to park the car. Once I parked the Jeep in a very narrow spot between two cars that had bike racks on their back ends, we got out and and took some pics and some video footage of the  scenery. Next we went to the Colorado Trail for a small hike. The wind was blowing and the leaves were falling and I tried to get it on video but every time I would get everything all ready, the wind would stop and I would get footage of trees standing still-not very interesting on video. I believe I eventually got it but it probably won't be as interesting  as it was in person.

After that adventure we got back in the Jeep and made our way to the beginning of Georgia Pass which is near Boreas Pass. We saw some antelope along the way. The road was an easy to moderate off road excursion.
We started up and it really wasn't all that bad. Both the dogs (Boo and Cheyenne) enjoyed the ride as well. We finally got to the top and got out for a bit of a look around because we had officially hit the part that was "moderate" in Dawn's off road book. I was not liking the look of things. You see, my Jeep is my only vehicle and it has "soccer mom" tires and stock clearance. I am also a novice at off-roading and we have been teaching ourselves how to do it by starting easy and working our way up.

Now the pictures do not even begin to show the level of scariness I was facing. As a matter of fact the pictures make it look like a cake walk. We took a break and sat on the hillside to just enjoy the moment of being "up" and took some pics with  the dogs.While we were sitting there a truck came up and was bouncing all over the place. At this point I had decided that I wasn't willing to try it.
Boo who had been chewing a stick he had found started acting funny. To make a long story short-Dawn saved his life. It took some water, a couple of borrowed dog biscuits from a German shepherd named Cash and Dawn getting chewed on to make it happened but  it did and Boo is happy.
The owners of Cash were also the ones who had passed us in the truck. The guy, whose hands were covered in oil and who had recently been under his trucking fixing it, said there was nothing to worry about going down the trail.  His girlfriend kept saying how beautiful it was and how it wasn't "that bad." Needless to say we waited til they left and we went back the way we came.
If I had more clearance under my Jeep I would have done it, but I am still not a good judge of how big of a rock I can climb over(On a recent trip I went through a large puddle and had a rock dent my gas tank).

By the time we made it down, we had decided that we didn't have enough time for Boreas so we made one last stop at a different spot on Kenosha. While Dawn was taking scenery pictures, I was trying to get the Jeep at a good angle with the trees to make it look like it was in a commercial. It didn't work like I wanted it to. Oh well.

And as always, at the end of a good day, we headed home!