Our time in Loveland, CO was coming to a close, we were moving down to Golden, CO for a week. We arrived, set up and then made our plans for the next day. The next day we went up the Independence Pass. Another road trip but we planned on stopping and enjoying some small hikes along the pass.
We started out early, about mid morning we arrived at the first stop, “The Continental Divide”. Walked out on the boardwalk to the end took some pictures of the mountains around us.
The next stop was a hike up to Linkins Lake, an alpine lake up in the mountains. The starting elevation was about 11,500 feet and we had another 532 elevation to go to get up to the lake. The hike was next to a little stream that was coming from the lake above. We had to stop often because of the elevation. We finally made it to the lake which was gorgeous. There were some other people up there that were fishing, we were able to see the brown trout fish they caught. We recovered for a little bit and then went back down to the truck.
The next stop was at the Independence Townsite Ghost town that was at a elevation of 10,830 feet. It was founded on July 4, 1879. It was a thriving mining camp and became a ghost town in the late 1800s when the trains came into Aspen.
Our last stop was at The Grottos which includes an ice rock and some very cool cascades. It was short little walk and not a lot of elevation gain. After this we headed to drive through Aspen. Oh my is this a fancy city. We passed the airport and all I saw was rows and rows of private plans. Our end goal was to stay the night in Glenwood Springs so we can enjoy the Hot Springs Pool the next morning.
Glenwood Springs Hot Spring Pool
The Hot Springs pool was huge. It kind of reminded us of a public community pool but with the benefits of all the minerals that are in the water. We stayed for about 1.5 hours. Mainly stayed in the hot 104 degree pool. Once it started to get crowded we decided to head back home since we had a good 2 hour drive.
