The past weeks I have been working on a power supply project and other wondrous things.
The power supply project started out as, “just swap out all the old capacitors”. I made a trip in to OEM parts, found most of the needed parts and over a few days of getting a few minutes on the power supply and other things, I got them all swapped out. Hooked it up and it may even be a bit worse than it was before? Will not regulate the voltage at all now, before it held at about 13 to 16 volts and not it is 15.8 to 16.2 volts? Well the regulator parts are not much so I ordered replacements for them and will swap that out next.
We did make it to the Wednesday evening music in the park and this time it wasn’t so damn cold… and the music was pretty good. Nice evening in the park.
Next up was a trip to Lakewood to take care of grandsons dogs up there. The last time they came here they were a bit of a mess and created a lot of mess so best they stay where they belong… I guess? We went up Friday about noon and the family there left right after lunch… They were headed down to see Grandpa in OK and buy a new car in Wichita?
On gaining our senses Saturday morning we determined that it would be nice to get out and do something over all day with the dogs… So we took off for parts west. Not really knowing where or what we would do just spend a few hours out in the mountains and see things , maybe we had no seen before and enjoy it. The day was great for that so we took off, through Morrison and on up to Evergreen… when we got to the “Evergreen parkway” we turned north. Along the way north we saw the sign pointing to Mt Evans… hey why not? so off we went in that direction. A new road for us. On the way we passed a ski area I was unaware of… small cleared area basically? Echo Mountain Resort. I didn’t see much resort but did get a shot of the 5 or 6 runs there.
Had some nice views along the road at the same point..
It was a pretty drive, not too strenuous and not over loaded with people… until we got to the turn off to Mt Evans… The lodge at the bottom was full the parking lots were full and a line waiting to get on the 14 mile road to the top… oh well we came this far we decided to try it but at the same time it hit me that hey, we have a Golden Pass or Senior Pass. I bought two of them when we qualified at 62… carry one in each vehicle. We fumbled through the glove compartment as we inched up in line and found it with time to spare. I saw the car in front use the same things so I knew we were in luck as the normal fee to drive to the top is $15. I paid $10 or $20? for them way back and we had not used them yet. Had big plans for those pass cards but so far hadn’t pulled them out… but this time we just went on through and smiled all the way up the road…and it was a damn long bumpy road for being paved…
All the way up about every 5 miles there were signs that “Road Narrows”. Well it got down to a 1+ lane the last 4 miles but still had enough room to squeeze through when meeting others… but once we got almost to the top… both sides were filled with those that couldn’t park at the top – too many up there.
not real visible but there is a mountain goat at the front bumper of the parked car… but more of that to come…
We round the bend on the final approach and looking up…
Yep there is a peak up there but the ants in colored shirts are everywhere… there was a decent trail switchback up the last bit of mountain but you almost had to hold hands going up and coming down to not get pushed over the side… some of the more hardy individuals were just “rock scrambling” up. We didn’t make that last few hundred feet as we weren’t really interested in the mile hike up from a parking spot so we slowly circled the parking lot at the top, got a few pictures and made our way out.
Besides there aren’t any trees and too many people to “relieve myself” behind a rock… Can you guess what the line of people is for and how long it takes to get there?
Oh and the main reason I took the picture was to show the old Summit House. Would have been nice to see it before the fire… But at the time I took the picture I also notice the White goat and so had several of those in the vicinity… the goats up here have no fear….Also at the top is the Meyer-Womble Observatory.
Actually I am guessing that they are sure it is their mountain and we need to give way and we did as the little ones dashed back and forth across the road…
Now it wouldn’t be right if I hadn’t taken flower pictures so I did that too
according to the stop at the Goliath Natural area this small plant with flowers had a huge tuber root that can be 4 ft. long… Next to this one…
and there are bees above timberline…
It seems the colors are much brighter above 11,000 ft.?
And some are just a bit scary?
So that was our day trip up Mt Evans… and the Senior pass is not paid for…
WD0AJG