Winter Road Trip: Colorado to Utah (Colorado Mountain Living), Episode 5
Click the image above to watch the video
Winter in the Colorado Rockies is around six months long—so around February, I’m usually craving a change of scenery. Even though it’s been warmer out than usual, everything is still asleep right now, so you’re either looking at dead plant material or snow—there’s not much change going on.
In the late spring and summer, though, when things start sprouting up from the ground, the environment is constantly changing, and it goes fast, so you have to play close attention.
Winter is much slower and much longer. And as much as I love snowy mountain-tops, and warm beverages in front of the wood stove, I usually need a break from it by the fourth month—so last weekend, I took a road trip to Utah with my friend Carrie and her dog Chula. Maggie and Frida stayed at home with my friend Tim.
The trip was broken into two travel days and two exploration days.
The first day we drove through slushy mountain roads, into the beautiful Utah desert. It was a long 7 hour drive, so we were pretty pooped by the time we reached the Airbnb.
The second day, however, was our first adventure day, and on that day we saw some incredible petroglyphs and pictographs—the first at the Rochester Panel and the second in Buckhorn Wash.
To get to the panel, we had to take a mini hike, which was absolutely gorgeous.
We unfortunately arrived at an odd time of day, however, where the panel was partially shaded and partially in the sun, so I wasn’t able to get the best full sized view, but the individual works were pretty amazing up close.
The panel was incredible, but so was everything else around it.
After we saw the Rochester Panel, we got back in the car and drove out to Buckhorn Wash—and holy moly, was that place gorgeous.
We started by seeing the petroglyphs, but then went to see pictographs and eventually a dinosaur print.
All the pictographs and petroglyphs we saw were old—the petroglyphs between 1-2,000 years old and the pictographs were painted over 2,000 years ago. It was mind blowing to see that the paint had lasted that long.
On the second adventure day, we took a trip out to Black Dragon Canyon, which is my absolute favorite thing along I-70. I pass it every time I go back and forth to California, but I’d never explored it until this day.
On the way we stopped at a couple beautiful pullout spots, before we got to the canyon itself.
And then we finally arrived. But to explore the canyon, you have to get in the car and drive to the back side.
It looks like a completely different world over there, but it’s still breathtakingly beautiful. It was about a mile and a half hike back and I loved every step.
I’m a little obsessed with rocks, you see. And I could probably spend an entire month looking at rocks in that canyon.
Walking through the canyon may have been my favorite part of the whole trip. There’s something about those massive walls so high above my head, but also so close together that was both comforting and awe inspiring at the same time.
Here the pictographs were pretty high up and hard to see, so I don’t have any good shots of them, but at this point, it was time to turn around and head back to our Airbnb.
And then the next morning, it was time to head out.
Thank you so much for reading along and watching my video!
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.