Such a fun Wednesday!!!

Today we went back to the same drive I took with DD and Boyfriend over the weekend, a giant loop around Independence Pass, through Vail, Glenwood Canyon, and back to Beaver Creek. We had such a great time! We really wanted to hike the ridge at the pull-off where the Continental Divide is marked but the sky was darkening and we know enough not to hike a ridge when a mountain thunderstorm is approaching.

We stopped at Independence, the town that gave the pass its name. It is a ghost town now, obviously, with an interesting history. My favorite bit is that when there were about 100 families left, in the middle of winter when there had been too many storms and supplies were cut off, they dismantled their houses and made skis, using them to escape to Aspen.

Our next stop was the Grottos, where we had heard there were ice caves. How cool is this, no pun intended? There was indeed a cave that was not too hard to get down into, about a 10 foot drop into a hole, and there was still a giant slab or two of ice. We had to crawl under the slab of ice to go further into the cave - it was awesome! What fun.

After the ice caves we found a lovely cascade of water over huge boulders, very worth exploring, but again we heard thunder and got off the rocks. Plus we were getting kind of hungry! We went to Aspen to eat and we were really dirty, with mud smears from the cave, so it was kind of funny.

It was a great day, and tomorrow is supposed to be more biking! We need to plan longer vacations so we can rest more in between the good stuff!