Ride out to Dead Horse Point
McDonald's
Drove up to Telluride
Lodge
Walk around Telluride
Evening in by the fire
SNOW!
Late morning on the wifi
Others go out to town- I do paperwork
Walk up a track in the hill in the snow
Snowman and playing in the snow
Chicken and bacon dinner
Distance:
Total Distance:
Before we left Moab we had a quick morning run out to Dead Horse Point.
This high piece of land is formed in a meander of the Colorado River. It is surrounded by cliffs and the connection between point and main land is very narrow. Thus it was used as a place to catch wild horses. Large crews of men would gather them up and her them down to the point. From here the best horses were selected and extracted to be transported to people's ranches. The rest were left where they were.
But horses base most of their behaviour on fear. They remember that which has scared them, and when and where it occurred. All of the pent up fear from being herded hit them deeply. They didn't voluntarily move from the point, even once them men had gone. So they stayed there and died from dehydration, leaving the place littered with bodies.
And that's how it got the name.
It a nice enough place, but we didn't do much in the way of walking, it was cold, and early in the morning- so it wasn't as good as the other national parks we've been to.
Back in Moab one of our crew wanted to get breakfast at McDonald's. Not too different from NZ, although 20 chicken nuggets costs only $4 which is so cheap it scares me. Though it didn't stop me taking the last few Mitch couldn't finish.
From here we were driving towards the Rocky Mountains.
From Moab we could see the La Sal Mountains. La Sal comes from the Spanish for Salt. Spanish explorers saw them from near the Moab area and thought all of the white stuff was salt, apparently. Really? They didn't know about snow on mountains, nor realise that salt dissolves easily and would soon be washed away? Maybe they truly believed that and were idiots/dehydrated. Or maybe it was just a nickname and it's stuck.
We drove up into the mountainous region until we finally came upon the tourist town of Telluride ("Telly-Ride"). This is a quaint little town of early 1900s architecture surrounded by mountains, pine trees, and snow. It hosts skiers in winter and hikers, mountain bikers, and the lazy people who appreciate a view in winter. Oh, and rich people. House and accommodation prices are ridiculous. We looked at a few $5million houses at the real estate office window. You don't get much, but it looks great.
We had a large lodge-flat. It's part of a complex of flats but which look like 2 storey lodges on the inside. It was big and beautiful and luxury after 9 days in cold tents. In addition we arrived during the "penalty box"- the 2 week period when the town switches from winter season to summer season. The winter locals and staff leave before the summer locals and staff arrive. This leaves half of the shops shut and only the true locals hanging around.
We had a walk around town, checking in on shops and various places before returning to our nice warm flat.
We couldn't get the wifi to work, which was something of a blessing. We had a nice night in by the fire, eating lasagne, and watching TV. Utter luxury after the freezing campsites. Our only concern was our tour guide. He didn't come back for dinner. He's the most experienced, he should know what he's doing and not get in trouble. I'd seen him outside on the phone just after we'd come back from town. Where was he? He returned at 10pm-he'd fallen asleep in the minibus!!!
The next morning we awoke to SNOW!!!
There had already been the reminents of winter left littering the town and mountains. Now we had a half inch and more steadily falling. It was beginning to bring the temperature down enough to settle everywhere and would continue to do so until we left.
Our guide had got the wifi working so we had a morning of catching up on everything internet related that hadn't been done in the past week (emails home, photos, updates, etc.). After this we had bacon and eggs we'd bought specially knowing we'd have a proper kitchen at Telluride.
The others had a few things they wanted to get from town and I had a heap of paperwork to get started on so we organised to meet back up for a late lunch at the lodge. As I worked away in the warmth they were steadily getting covered in an entertaining and novel amount of snow. They arrived back like walking snowmen. The landscape around us had become powder white and has become a winter wonderland.
After lunch we walked up a track into the forest. Ahead of us a local guy was putting on his cross country skiies and slid away. Maybe if the shops and slopes had been open we'd have gone skiing, but without lifts nor skiies we were more than happy enough. We plodded through the snow up hill, having minor snowball fights and jumping into snow drifts. As we got higher we found a place to build a snowman. We moved higher, making snow angels and burying Mitch the Aussie in snow. We reached the clear patch under a ski lift. Here I climbed up the slope until e snow was over my thighs, this was high enough to roll down. Well, we didn't even have a sled! After this we were cold and hungry enough to go back to our fire.
That evening our guide, Don, made cheesy potatoes (like nachos, but with diced potato) and the girls, Laura and Ness, made something amazingly tasty. Bits of chicken breast rapped in bacon, stood on their end for cooking in the oven with homemade garlic butter on top. They were great. Mitch and I did the washing up.
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