Glenwood Springs

Glenwood Springs, Colorado is famous for the hot springs spa located on the outskirts of town.

We found it to be a bit commercialized for our tastes so we searched out the secret hot springs on the other side of town instead. We enjoyed them by ourselves for a spell and then had an adventure meeting a couple of locals who were as different from each other as two people could possibly be. That was an interesting conversation, let me tell you.
We camped east of town at another fantastic site alongside another river ($free-fifty, of course).
In the morning we headed to a popular attraction called hanging lake.
Where do we begin?? The hike was short and really fun. It climbed steeply in a fairly narrow canyon alongside a stream the entire way. We crossed 8 or 9 bridges during the hike and had amazing views near the top.

The water was clear and aqua and cold. Mark and I were able to climb above the falls and from there it really did look like a "hanging lake."

We were glad it was a weekday and that we had gotten an early start because on our hike out we ran across group after group of people heading up. We felt lucky that we had the hanging lake nearly all to ourselves.

After hanging lake Mark rode an incredible river trail through the canyon back to Glenwood Springs. The trail was actually closed for a section because the high river had washed some of it away, in fact the river was covering some of it as well. Mark was determined to carry on so he held on tight, hugged the gorge wall, and even climbed a fence with his bike to get down to town.
Fortunately he's still alive--but unfortunately, he didn't have the camera.