Mt. Evan, Colorado

We left the craziness of the sounds of Harleys in South Dakota and headed for Denver, Colorado. I didn’t take many pictures as I think I’m getting used to all the strange looking hills and rocks.

As we drove, we could see rain off in the distance, to the right, straight ahead, and to the left. We somehow missed most of it.
The sunset over the Colorado Rocky Mountains as seen from close to Denver was very pretty.
Now that we are in the Denver area, we found that there are so many beautiful roads to ride so the question is, where do we start? After talking to people about their favorite rides, we decided on Mt. Evan.

Of course it was a very scenic ride toward Mt. Evan.

Just before we got to Mt. Evans I spotted an old gold mine and mill in Idaho Springs.

We decided on Mt. Evan mostly because the “Road to the Stars” is the highest paved road in North America. Construction on this road began in 1924 and completed in 1930. The workers used ropes to pull themselves and their equipment up and down the steep cliffs. It was the first major road in Colorado, designed specifically as a scenic drive. We were told the road is 14 miles and would take about 1 ½ hours. The “Road to the Stars” proved to be an OMG! and an OH SH__! road! Some of the photos I took as we drove up the mountain I could not even look at what I was taking a picture of! I just did a point and shoot! Below shows you what the road looked like. Check out the switchbacks!

And check out our view from the side of the road!

And here are some photos of the view.

Once we got to the top, the parking lot is 14,130 feet in elevation where there was the magnificent ruins of a restaurant and gift shop that burned down in 1979. Bill really thought the building was cool looking (that’s the building inspector in him), so he just had to get a picture of us in front of it. I on the other hand, liked the view.

Across the parking lot was a huge hill or rocks which people were climbing to get the most spectacular view from the very top of Mt. Evan, 14,264 feet in elevation. Breathing was a little difficult, but since we drove all that way, we had to see what it looked like from the top. Not to mention it was about 35 degrees and windy.

Before going back down the mountain, we met a couple who have been traveling on their motorcycle since June. He is originally from Switzerland and she is from Canada, where they presently reside. What a nice couple. They were on their way to visit some of the national parks that we’ve already seen, so hopefully my blog will guide them a bit.
On our way back down, we saw some mountain goats that didn’t seem to be afraid of us.

We waited to get back down to the town of Idaho Springs, where it was warmer. While at the visitor center we met 2 families from Maryland, one from Bowie and they now live in Colorado and work for the same airline as my daughter’s ex-boyfriend and the other who presently lives in Owens and works with my neighbor, Larry. What a small world!