My next destination was to head north and west up to Aspen. Driving through Poncha Springs and Buena Vista took me past the Sawatch Range of mountains which holds the distinction of having 15 “fourteeners”, mountain peaks over 14,000 feet, including 8 of the twenty highest peaks in the Rockies. This mountain range is also famous for the “Collegiate Peaks”, a series of mountain tops named after famous colleges and universities — Mounts Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. From there I headed west over Independence Pass, the second-highest paved mountain pass in Colorado which reaches a height of 12,095 feet. Click here for a site that has lots of cool pictures and stories of the pass. The scenery was gorgeous and it was particularly beautiful to see the trees changing color for autumn and being surrounded by snowcapped mountain peaks.
I finally arrived in Aspen late in the evening and got a room at a hotel called the Tyrolean Lodge, one of the least expensive (but still very comfortable) hotels in Aspen — and, as I later learned, probably the only moderately priced hotel in town where there’s a desk clerk available (on-call) after 7pm. I made friends with the desk clerk, Matt, who invited me back to his place to hang out that night. He became a good friend and I spent time with him and his friends while I stayed in Aspen for a few days. I connected up with a Kundalini yoga friend known as “Yogi Himmat” who showed me around town a bit. And I also made friends with a sweet woman named Autumn who took me on a hike up to the Rim Trail overlooking Snowmass. At the top of this trail there is a stone mosaic with a Yin Yang symbol in the middle which you can see pictures of here.
Aspen is a neat little town surrounded by some amazingly beautiful mountains and natural landscapes. I found a great photo blog called Aspen Views where you can see for yourself. Some of the highlights of touring around Aspen included: hiking Smugglers Trail which overlooks Aspen, strolling through a beautiful cemetery with some very cool headstones, and a short scenic hike up to Maroon Bells, a mountain just a few miles from Aspen consisting of two peaks that have a maroon color and distinctly bee-hive shape and are purported to be the most photographed peaks in North America. One night while standing outside of the apartment of my CouchSurfing host, a red fox strolled through the parking lot and circled around me in a 15-foot arch, stopped to have a short look at me and sniff a child’s toy that was sitting out on the lawn, and then wandered off around the side of the building — very cool!
The one thing about Aspen that I’m not so fond of is the wealth-gap that exists in the town. The combination of Aspen’s beauty, abundance of artistic culture, and being well-known as an upscale ski resort and tourist destination has attracted many rich people to buy up properties in the area and build McMansions and high-end getaway cabins. The limited property (being nestled in a tiny mountain valley) and expensive homes has created a hyper-inflated real estate market which in turn drives many business owners to increase prices for their products and services which raises the cost of living for everyone. So then you have the “working class” of people who are stuck paying extravagant housing and rental prices and putting nearly all their earnings back into just living expenses. As a result, the town is severely lacking in talented people in just about every profession.
Aspen is a beautiful place with lots to offer outdoors and indoors, and you can always find some great people to make friends with. I would definitely go back to visit, but certainly not a place where I’d want to live.
