Touring Southwest Colorado

Six Friends, a Yukon and all of Colorado to Explore

Picnic at Great Sand Dune Park

Friends are such an  important part of our lives, and, after nearly 50 years, the friends (Ben & Lauriece Aguirre, John Cunningham, and Lois & Martin Simpson) we made during our 1970 graduate school days at Tulane are some of the dearest and most important. 

Every year or two we somehow manage to get together to renew ties and talk over old times. This past week, we all (save Martin who was recovering from hip surgery and remained in New Orleans) gathered first at our apartment in Denver and then headed out for a tour of the southwestern part of Colorado.

View of a Colorado Mesa

We have come to love Colorado since we first visited in 2012, but with all of our gallavanting, we have not explored Colorado all that much. This past week we discovered that there is a lot to see and do in this beautiful State.  

Our iPhone photos, do not do justice to the beauty and grandeur of the Colorado countryside.

After spending a rainy and disappointing weekend at Rocky Mountain National Park (which is normally fantastic), we headed south and west.  Our first stop was the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The drive through the San Luis Valley is incredible.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

The Great Sand Dune

The Great Sand Dune, nestled against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is thousands of miles from any ocean, making it all the more impressive when you arrive at the Park.

Standing more than 750 feet high, it clearly reminds you of all of the movies you have seen featuring the Sahara or some other great desert.

Lois, John, Lauriece and Larry

We knew that climbing to the top of the Dunes was beyond us, but several of us wanted to at least walk out onto the sand to experience it first hand.


It was worth the effort, although the blowing sand along with the strenuous effort it takes to walk in sand, limited our progress.



Accommodations near the Great Sand Dunes are few and far between--we ended up staying at a very interesting house in the town of Crestone. It seems that Crestone (or Creosote as Lois dubbed it--probably a tribute to Martin, who is always making up funny puns...we missed him !) is home to a number of religious centers, including Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Native American.

John, Lois, Lauriece, Ben and Larry in front of our own private Stupa

Our comfortable but unusual octagonal house, complete with Stupa, was built for his Holiness Gyalwang Karmapa, head of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism.


One unanticipated side benefit:  with its very dry climate and isolated location, the night sky in Crestone reveals thousands of stars which we cannot see in the urban areas where most of us live.



Of course, we had to wait until 3:00 am, when the moon had set to see it at its full glory.

Gunnison Black Canyon

Entry path to our "Shrangri La"

The third leg of our journey took us to the area around Gunnison Black Forest National Park.  Again the scenery did not disappoint.

The land in this area of Colorado is punctuated by mesas--and driving up and down one mesa after another can be interesting and challenging.

Late afternoon, after driving some four or five hours from Crestone across quite a number of mesas, we arrived in the town of Hotchkiss where we checked in with our host, who gave us detailed instructions on finding our next AirBnB accommodation.

Mural on patio wall...Who does this ?  Very clever and lovely

This was necessary as the house, La Hacienda, sits high up on a mesa, surrounded by hundreds of acres of public lands.  Quite isolated and amazingly beautiful.

What a lovely and idyllic setting and what a stunning and comfortable place.

Upon our arrival, we were all dumbstruck with admiration and envy. There was room enough for all of us to spread around. The interior and exterior spaces were all charming.

John, Lois, Sue and Lauriece resting

Sitting on the back covered veranda was relaxing and restorative.

Every where you looked, you were struck by the classy personal  and decorative touches, including a lovely mural painted on one of the walls of the veranda.

View towards the valley and mountains

The views from the house seemed to go on forever!

And we were all reluctant to leave such a comfortable and unique locale, but we had driven a long way to see the glories of Gunnison Black Canyon, which were said to be only a half hour away.

Black Canyon

At only 2000 feet in depth and some hundreds of yards at its widest, the Black Canyon is dwarfed by the Grand Canyon, but it is still very awe inspiring and wonderful.

As we drove along the north rim, stopping every few minutes at designated view points, we were often alone in the park.

Larry on the rim

Other popular National Parks, like Rocky Mountain, often seem to be crawling with visitors and jammed with cars.

The serenity of our experience at Black Canyon greatly added to our pleasure and delight.

Lauriece, Ben, Larry, Lois and John

In our photos we all look quite nonchalant, posing on the rim, while the walls just beyond us plunge hundreds of feet to the floor of the canyon and the fast flowing Gunnison River.  Gives you the shivers !

Birds, mostly swifts, constantly flew and swooped through the canyon and around our heads. At one stop a beautiful and majestic hawk soared over our heads, floating on the warm updrafts.

Lois on the rim

Just walking to the edge and peeping over can induce vertigo and the feeling of being pulled into what seems like a giant abyss.

You don't get over that, but you keep going back for a look again and again because the sights and views are so extraordinary.

The rock formations are unique and often whimsical, like the aptly named Sleeping Camel Rock.

Not Sleeping Camel, but similar

Lauriece helping Ben maneuver the climb

One of many varieties of wild flowers

Although the surrounding countryside is very arid, the park, at least at this time of year, seemed very lush and green.

At the time of our visit, mid-May, many of the bushes and trees were in bloom and a myriad of wild flowers, most no more than a few inches high, carpeted much of the landscape.

Can you see the prairie dog ?

We didn't see much wildlife, but just as we drove into the North Rim, a lone prairie dog stood as a sentinel--both welcoming and keeping an eye on us.

We stopped and gazed back for several minutes, but he never faltered in his watch and stood there as we drove away.

Gunnison River through the Black Canyon

Beautiful dead tree "sculptures"

The ladies:  Lois, Sue and Lauriece

Final Day Group Selfie

Happy campers were we during our week long, 1000 mile journey across Colorado--we delighted in being together and were every day, and seemingly every hour, awe-struck by the varied natural beauty of Colorado. 

We were all pretty exhausted by the time we returned to Denver, but we look forward to our next adventure, and hope it will not be long in coming. Thanks John, Lois, Lauriece & Ben for a wonderful week!  Martin, don't miss the next one !