Mt. of the Holy Cross
We woke up early to get on on the trail to the Mount of the Holy Cross. We stopped by the ranger station to get some info on the trail and headed off to the trail-head. Once we got on the road to the trail it was super bumpy and rough. It felt like we were driving across a vibrating massage chair! Once we got past about 8 miles of that, we parked and started up the Half Moon Pass trail to the find the Mount of the Holy Cross!
On the trail
Since the air was much thinner that what we were used to, we often had to stop for breaks and we became awfully tired after a we got to the crest of the mountain that looked out over Holy Cross Mountain. Once we got to the top, the mountains lined up perfectly, but the river in to foreground was not there. We think the artist may have taken some “artistic license” and added the river in that was actually the river in the valley below us.
Original engraving
We could see where the snow would fall into the crevice of the mountain to form into the shape of a cross, but there was no snow there this time of year. We continued down the path, and went through this area filled with large rocks, almost like giant gravel. We heard little squeak-chirp calls and then saw some movement in the rocks. Then, a pika hopped up onto a rock and squeaked at us. The American Pika is a small member of the rabbit family that lives in the rocky areas above the tree-line. It looks similar to a chinchilla in some ways.
Pika
We named this “Pika Pass”. We continued down, and the path lead us along a cliff with lots of switchbacks. There was a grove of Aspen trees that glowed with their golden yellow all around as we walked.
Aspen Grove
We went down to the river and ate lunch there.
Lunch
On the way back to the trailhead, we moved much faster because we had adjusted to the thinner air and had eaten a good lunch. On our way out there were some red squirrels that were very friendly.
Friendly Squirrel
We traveled on to the condo in Dillon where we were staying that night and slept very well.