These photos are from my hike to mueller state park west of colorado springs. The fall and winter here is the home for a lot of elk....I found only a few here now though although I did find a few coyote....boy can they howl when they are close! The buildings are of the old cheesman ranch. I will be heading south tomorrow to see pueblo and parts of new mexico and who knows what else i will see.....so check back

Red rock canyon near manitou springs is where maggie decided to go rock climbing!! It was a pretty nice place, just opened in the past few months so they are still doing some work on the trails.....but i did find out it will be a great place to go mountain biking. I saw the dog sign in manitou springs and found it pretty funny, guess i'm easily humored. Sorry if you cant enlarge the dog sign picture. I took it with my phone......

The reason I ended up turning that short hike into a longer one today was basically because of the sign you see....I just had to go see if there were any sheep there. I didn't see any but did find the old homestead fire place and basic foundation from somewhere back in the late 1800's and it all sat in the middle of the rock formations you see....I don't know who lived there but I know they would have had to love it!.....I saw more mulies there but they were too far away for pix....The picture of the one 1800's ranch house is still intact and fairly well preserved...

Sorry its been a few days since my last post but had to work a few days.....anyway today I went to an area that has loads of elk....but they have the area they are at closed to hikers or anyone till tomorrow, of course, because of the cows being so aggressive when they are calving. Anyway i got some nice scenery and a picture of a couple mule deer does down in a creek bottom i suprised. Elevation is about 10,300. The one picture is of an aspen that had been chewed on by an Elk....they like to eat the bark in the winter when the snow gets high. One thing i do have to quit doing though is, wondering whats over the other mtn. I ended up turning a nice 7 mile hike into a 12 1/2 mile hike. Oh well i think i left one of my love handles on the other side of that mtn. Ha Ha Ha....

Oh yeah i almost forgot....not really, these pictures wouldnt fit on my last posting.....check out the face of the mountain lion on the sign.....some people cant help themselves....anyway i had to laugh because this sign was facing so you would see it when you came back down the trail.....YOU COULDN'T SEE IT WHEN YOU WERE ON YOUR WAY UP!!!!!!!!! I left it that way in case anyone from Naples is coming up there to hike...lol.....just kidding........NOT!

Well i decided to start my quest to climb Pikes Peak.......I went from 6,000 ft to 10,000 ft today up barr trail....i was approximately 1/2 mile from barr camp before i decided it was too hot to continue for today...98 degrees......so next time i will start at 0500 and be a lot more comfortable...these are just a few pix of the nice trail and as far as the steepness i guess it averages a 10 percent grade....also included are a few pix of Pikes Peak from the trail. Oh and one pix from my apartment of the sun setting over the mountains.

Maggie and I found another beautiful place to hike....and we'll be going back, there are a lot more trails to go on other than the 4 hours worth we hiked. Check out the flower, i had to darken it to get the true colors out of the picture....it was getting darker and the flash made it too bright. The lake is Palmer lake just north of colorado springs.

And a few more pix from rocky mountain national park.....

A few more pix from the Rockies!

Here are a few pictures from Rocky Mountain National Forest, Estes Park. I saw many more animals than just the Elk and the Marmot but they were just a bit too far away to get good pictures...One Moose in particular was close but in too much cover for good photos....but i went from a hot 93 to snow showers at over 12,000 ft....you can tell you are too high when you look down into the clouds, like in the one picture....im exhausted tonight...more pix on the way of estes park, just not tonight.....

Just a few more pictures from Seven Falls, and the grave marker of Helen Hunt Jackson from the top of Inspiration Point...her Marker says the rest.....