A start to October - Maroon Bells

I'm a bit delayed on getting in a post about our most recent hike, but life sometimes just simply gets busy.  What I can say is that Maroon Bells is gorgeous, despite that every time we go it gets busier and busier.  This last time, though, took the cake when it came to the large amount of people we saw there... it bordered on alarming.

My fiancé (it's still so exciting to say that!) and I have decided that, while we have some time before our projected wedding date, we would take some time to tour a couple of potential spots for our wedding.  I am very attracted to the idea of the mountains for our wedding day, but also want to be mindful of expenses.  Maroon Bells is not only beautiful, but has been a meaningful spot for us during the course of our relationship.  There is a little amphitheater up there which could be a great place to tie the knot and is an inexpensive ceremony space to boot.  So we decided to take a look to see if this might be the location for our wedding in 2018.

A couple of our friends agreed to join us in the trek up to Aspen in the early morning on a Saturday in early October, the leaves changing, the air starting to get crisper as the seasons transition.  We dropped off our dog with my future sister-in-law, picked up our friends, and set off for our three hour jaunt to get to Aspen.  It was smooth sailing until we get closer to Maroon Bells.  Suddenly there was a massive amount of traffic, we literally sat for an hour to drive half a mile near the entrance to the mountains.  When we got up a ways a park ranger informed us that all parking lots at the bells were completely full and that we had to go back into town to fetch the local bus to take us to the guided tour bus to get to the mountain.  I can say that it was a bit frustrating.  So another hour went by for us to get back to town, fetch one bus, get tickets for the guided tour bus, hop on that bus and then ride to the mountain base at Maroon Lake.  We were informed by the guided tour driver that at any given moment there were at least 1,500 people on the mountain that day.  It was actually heartbreaking to see so many people there.  Granted it was a Saturday, and one of the last good weekends to see the fall leaves, however sometimes you want to tell people, "get off my dang mountain!"

Maroon Bells is one of the most photographed places in the world (the most photographed peaks in North America).  The bells actually look like a painting across the sky they are so magnificent.  It catches your breath.

Photographs literally don't do it justice...

But to see all these people, and knowing that they are simply there for a photo-op and not to actually unite with nature and experience the mountain, my heart sunk and my level of irritation rose.  There was absolutely no space that you could go to simply be separate and take peace with the mountain.  I tried to shrug it off, I tried to stay in the moment and enjoy as much as I could simply because we were there.

We took a look at the amphitheater, nothing terribly "wowing" about the small space other than the magnificent view behind it.  We decided to trek down a path toward Crater Lake, about a mile and a half one way.  It took longer to walk than expected, having to regularly stop behind someone who was snapping a picture or having to move to the side to pass or let someone else through on the trail.  Ultimately since we didn't start our short hike until about 2:30 pm, and the last shuttle to take us down from the mountain was leaving at 4:30 pm, we turned back around at 3:30 pm without getting all the way to Crater Lake, but near enough that we could see a little bit of it in the distance.

Crater Lake in the distance...

Our day turned out to be so much longer than we initially intended, the length being added due to the throngs of people on the mountain and the hordes of cars.  Don't they know that this is my mountain?  That this is our spot?

What was good to see for wedding purposes is that while it is a beautiful location, it would be a logistical nightmare, more stress than we will want on our wedding day.  And we still got to see the mountains, and walk in the fresh air a bit.  I love opportunities to be in nature, to recenter myself, to ground myself.  We made the most of our jaunt, and we were in good company which made it all the more enjoyable.  We learned a good lesson, and we got to view the bells which is always a wonderful thing.

We grabbed a "quick" bite in the town of Aspen (what was also discovered is that there really isn't a "quick" option in Aspen... no fast food eateries, and even when you request quick service it's still a couple hours for a sit-down meal), and then we made our way back to Denver, arriving home much later than we had anticipated for the day.  Maybe visiting on a Saturday wasn't the best idea, but I'm still glad that we went.

Regardless of any amount of griping I could do about crowds and how much longer our day was than we had hoped, it is still a beautiful space, and we had a great short hike in a special and meaningful place.