Heading north on hwy 24, we spotted a beautiful canyon off to the left on a dirt road. We intended to go just a little way, but it was so scenic we ended up about 5 miles in and found a free state campground. Biked further up the road about 2 miles or so one way, then hiked another 1 or 2 miles up the hillside. Do not know what the elevation was but temp dropped to below freezing that night 09/28. The next morning, we took a 4 mile hike up the opposite hillside over some incredible country. At noon, we continued up hwy 24 north and took hwy 82 to Aspen Co. We went over Independence pass at 12,098 feet elevation. Trees are at full peak and scenery is incredible! We ended up at Maroon Lake just outside of Aspen in a National campground just steps from the lake and stayed two nights so we could hike the area. This is the most amazing scenery yet. The lake is cupped by the famous 'Three Maroon Bells' - 14K foot mountains that each look like the materhorn in Switzerland. The surrounding jagged peaks on the other side are red rock and the entire area is ablaze in full fall beauty. We took a bazillion pics, but only a few are here on this blog. We hiked the area behind the lake up to a crater lake - at 10k feet, we both seem to be pretty acclimated to the elevation. After coming back down from the 7 1/2 mile hike to Crater Lake, we hiked up the river to find the headwaters because we had noticed that the river seemed to stop about a mile or so up the canyon. We found the headwaters of the river itself, coming right out of the rocks gushing from the hillside in a very large amount - had never before seen such a massive amount of water coming straight out of mountain just below a glacier.
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