touring Dinosaur National Monument

Day 1 we all headed up the mountain with dubious hopes of a flyable day. Pretty soon the weather closed in as expected. A few months ago I knew that with the strong El Nino building, the monsoon was likely going to remain strong late, but I was still keen to go because Dinosaur was new and a different and interesting place to be. I was happy with my choice despite that risk of not flying so much.

I was not dissapointed, just down the street there was a view point that a few of us walked to overlooking the green river canyon. I think is actually more scenic than the Grand Canyon. It's 4000 feet deep, has the confluence of two rivers, and many different rock types.

Breathtaking views looking west into the sunset.

Then to the north west is the confluence of the Yampa and Green rivers.

Dinosaur, Colorado

First time in this part of the country, and it definitely shouldn't be the last ! What a fantastic place to have a flying event. We ran out of steam on route and decided to camp where we stopped, we awoke here.

We went and checked in and got our paper work completed. Then headed up for a freefly to get some feel for the land, conditions were great. In fact likely the best of the meet.

Later was the opening ceremony, it was a treat to see so many familiar faces from years passed.

The town locals were very friendly and helpfull. The townmares son Richard drove for us all week and did a fantastic job. PS this is not a picture of Richard.

This little guy is also not Richard, (well, not our Richard anyway) it's a horny toad lizard found at launch by Glen.

Uvas Canyon

Today we went for a short hike in Uvas Canyon park. South to get out of the smoke, and lots of shade to escape the sun.

I wasn't honestly expecting to find any water in the falls but there was a trickle in one of them. 

Enough to get our feet wet and cool off.

There are a few redwoods in the canyon, then with elevation it turns to Madrone and Tan oak. It's pretty close to the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake. I don't know if that explains some of the weird leaning.

I always thought the Madrone tree was a cool tree. Lots of colour.

The walk looked a bit short on the map, but turned out to be a nice length.

more flats than miles

We went to Del Valle again, this time with our bike.

Last time Maddy spotted a trail she thought she'd like.

We gave it a go

After a little while something felt not quite right, the back tyre was soft, an odd feeling on a tandem. So in the blazing heat I changed it out.

While doing that Heidi realized we were short a shoe.

After the turn around spot, we kept our eyes peeled, it wasn't hard to find in the middle of the trail a mile back or so.

We managed one more hill climb, but on the decent the spare tube also gave out, I tried the first tube again to try and limp back, but it was flat in less time than it took to inflate. It was a hot short ride but fun anyway, even if we had more flats than miles. Ended with a refreshing dip in the lake.