September 8, 2008

September 8, 2008

From Parker, CO, we headed south to Colorado Springs. There we revisited the Garden of the Gods. The Garden is a compact, city-park sized version of Arches National Park in Utah (albeit minus the arches). They both have these magnificent red fins formed when the ancient sandstone was uplifted, then tilted sideways, and allowed to erode in sheets. We stop at several spots along the park road and walk amidst the rocks. It is a beautiful spot… if it only wasn’t cold and cloudy!

The weather report said it was warmer and sunnier to the west, so we made a sharp right turn and drove to Florissant Fossil Bed National Monument. What an awesome spot! The first thing we did was hike the one-mile Petrified Trail. Before we went ten yards, we came face to face with a giant petrified tree stump still in the ground. It is an ancient redwood tree. It is the first of ten we see on this short hike. About a 100 more are still buried. We have seen several petrified “forests”, but this is the first that actually looks like a “forest”. And giant redwoods no less! Theory goes that 34 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch, a forest here was flattened by a “lahar” mudflow from an erupting volcano. The hot blast leveled and incinerated everything in its path, but the largest redwoods. The redwood tops rotted away and the stumps were buried by regular ash eruptions. Florissant has some of the largest and smallest of fossils. Besides the redwoods, the volcanic ash also entombed exquisitely preserved insects of all kinds from tarantulas to butterflies. After the hike we listen to a fascinating ranger talk. The rangers often make or break a park. When you have a great ranger, interesting history and neat science, it works and is why we go out of our way to visit National Park sites. More often than not the combo works great.

After the talk, we return to the Visitor Center for the film and a look at the fossil exhibits. Amazingly the park was almost destroyed in the 60’s to make way for a housing development. One buyer who took advantage before LBJ saved it was Walt Disney. He came and bought one of the stumps. Supposedly it adorns Frontierland in Anaheim’s Disneyland. Gotta check that out this winter!

From Florissant we continue west over mountain highlands, thru a very wide and dry valley, over another mountain pass to the Arkansas River valley, where we stay the night at an RV park in Buena Vista, CO.