Sept 15 Sept 22 Oct 1 Oct 6 Oct 20 Oct 27 Nov 3 Nov 17 Nov 23	Wednesday, October 27 We had planned a hike at Caribou Ranch for this morning, but, fortunately, checked the weather forecast before setting out. The forecast for that region stated a 10% chance of snow, highs near 38 and winds gusting to 47 mph! So, we went with Plan B... We left the house about our normal time heading for Colorado Springs, where the forecast was sunny, highs around 48 and winds in the 10-15 mph range. Our destination for today would be the Garden of the Gods Park, a city owned park. The photo on the left shows the view of the Garden of the Gods with Pike's Peak in the background. This was taken from the Visitor's Center. The drive down was typically boring as only interstate driving can be, with small pockets of heavy traffic, especially as we went through downtown Denver. We pulled into the parking lot for the Visitor’s Center about 9:45 and went inside long enough to use the facilities and pick up a trail map. The nice lady behind the desk made a few recommendations as to which trails to hike and we were back in the car. In the distance, we could sort of see Pike’s Peak towering over the city, wearing a cloak of clouds. These broke about noon and we had nice views of Pike’s Peak most of the rest of the day. We parked at the recommended pull-out, loaded up, and started down the Palmer Trail. The photo to the right shows the view from our parking spot. The formation with the arch is known as Kissing Camels. If you let your imagination take over, the portion on the right sort of looks like a kneeling camel with its mouth against something... The terrain looked level enough that I wondered if we’d need our hiking sticks at all, but wound up carrying them anyway. They would come in handy before too long... Palmer Trail soon merged into the Siamese Twins Trail and we approached one of the more photographed locations in this park - the view of Pike’s Peak through the window formed by the Siamese Twins formation. Pike’s Peak was still very cloudy, but I tried anyway (the two photos to the center and left)...The photo on the right shows the Siamese Twins as we approached them on the trail with our trail in the foreground and Pike's Peak in the distance. The trail wound down the other side of this formation, mostly over sandstone formations. In places, I would wonder where the trail went. Fortunately, the horse droppings along the way marked the trail quite nicely... The photo on the left shows me with Pike's Peak in the background. The photo on the right, while taken on the Scotsman's Trail, is typical of what we were scrambling over most of the day - almost smooth sandstone. In this case, our trail continues around the rock in the foreground. The Siamese Twins Trail soon landed in a parking lot where we found another map that had additional trails on it - trails that weren’t included on the paper guide we had. So, we plotted a different route back to the car and took off down Cabin Canyon Trail to Balanced Rock Trail. Balanced Rock Trail promptly deadended shortly after crossing one of the roads in the area. After floundering for a few minutes, we decided to just hike along the road until we (hopefully) found the next trail in our planned sequence. Along the way, we saw the Trading Post located in the park. We walked in and again used the facilities and asked if they had a better map. Well, they had a different map, but it didn’t have some of the trails located on the official map and it had none of the trails we were looking for... So, on we trekked. As we had approached the Trading Post, we had spotted a string of trail horses taking off down the road, so that’s the direction we took. We found another parking lot with the same very complete map that we’d consulted earlier and actually located our next trail in the sequence - Strausenback Trail. Strausenback was the name of the man who founded the Trading Post in the 1920s. We started up that trail and promptly spotted a “Trail Closed” sign.... However, the sign was next to the trail, the trail wasn’t blocked in any way, and there were fresh horse tracks leading up the trail. We continued, with trepidation, to see how far we could actually go on it. From the looks of things, they were repairing the trail and the horses were allowed on it. We soon reached the other end of this trail where there was another “Trail Closed” sign. The trail still wasn’t blocked off or anything... This trail led to the Scotsman’s Trail, which would eventually take us back to our car. By the time we reached our car, it was past lunchtime and the constant cold wind was starting to take its toll. We drove back to the Trading Post for a hot lunch (soup for me and chili for Carl) and a pair of hot teas. After lunch, we drove back to one of the other parking lots and spent about an hour strolling along the Central Garden Trail, a paved sidewalk through the main part of the formations that make up this park. Since this section was handicapped accessible, we left the hiking sticks and the backpack in the car, taking only the cameras and a water bottle. This was a heavily traveled portion of the park and there were lots of other people along the trail. We spotted one rock climber (rock climbing is by permit only) along the way. She's in these two photos. The formation she's climbing is called Sleeping Giant. The photo on the left shows one of the many sandstone formation in this central portion of the Gardens. The photo on the right shows a close view of the rippled sandstone on these vertical walls. Back when the sandstone was being formed, these ripples were formed by wave action. Then the sandstone hardened and was tipped on end, exposing the ripples. These formation are well worth a visit if you’re ever in the area. It was a pleasant stroll. The photo on the left is looking south over the central garden showing the row upon row of jagged formations that fill this basin. The photo on the right shows the entrance to the Gardens. By 2:30, we were back at the car, so we loaded up and headed for home, again encountering rush hour traffic as we drove through downtown Denver. It was definitely a less strenuous hike than the last two have been, but a pleasant day of being tourist in our new state. Next...