We have now left the desert plateau of Utah behind us and arrived, 9,500 feet high in the Rocky Mountains, in the city of Aspen. Nobody warned us that we were going to witness the most breathtaking natural display of Fall colour. The Aspen trees covering these mountains have decided to treat us to a spectacular display of red, green, gold and yellow. To quote from this towns most famous resident “I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky”.

We started a sparkling, blue sky, crystal clear, day with a “lung buster” on the Little Cloud Trail on Aspen Mountain…(we are both really feeling the altitude!) and then, on a recommendation, made our way to a neighbouring mountain, Maroon Bells, a few miles outside Aspen.

The Aspen trees here had their volume turned up to 11.

After a picnic lunch by the lake we took in a couple of hiking trails alongside the lake and up into the mountains, closing the afternoon out with a 4 mile hike along the Maroon Creek Trail to meet the shuttle bus half way back to the transit base at Aspen Highlands.

It has been a magical day and we feel truly blessed to have witnessed the Fall colour with such glorious late summer sunshine.

We are fortunate to be able to continue our journey east over the Independence Pass. This high level route rises to 12,095 feet as it crosses the summit of the pass at the “Continental Divide”. The pass closes to all traffic when the weather deteriorates, normally from October to April.

Today our route takes us through more spectacular Aspens until evergreen fir trees replace them, at around 10,000 feet.

We pause our traverse of the Independence Pass to view the Cascades and Ice Caves. The trail into “Bear Country” is initially well signposted, but seemingly at the point of no return all signs vanish. The rushing river leads us to the Cascades but sadly the Ice Caves elude us and slightly alarmed at the feeling of being sized up for lunch we decide to return to the car… if we could only find the trail we followed on the way in!

Continuing upwards we reach the tree line somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 feet, the flora of the upper reaches of the pass is now mainly scrubby grass, pretty much the only plant able to cope with the savage climate at this altitude.

The “Top of the Rockies” is reached with due fanfare and, to be fair, the views are exceptional in all directions.

Peering over the edge we see the route of our descent snaking sinuously back into the trees and eventually more Aspens on the east side towards Twin Lakes.