Monsoon Season

Currently In: South Fork, CO
Up Next: Bayfield, CO and Antonito, CO before we head to New Mexico


Although it's been really warm in Colorado for most of the summer, late July begins the monsoon season - a little, sometimes heavy, rain every day.  Johnny and I checked the forecast for the day and headed into Colorado Springs where we thought we could fit in a hike to the Seven Falls before the heavy rain started falling.

The Falls experienced a washout in the 2013 flood.  It was bought by the Broadmoor Hotel and many improvements were made.  The 1/2 mile walk to the start of the Falls was really beautiful, like walking through a canyon.

There is a pavilion at the base of the Falls for people to enjoy the scenery.  You can see some of the Falls right from there.

We got to the base of the steps.

Then we turned the corner and oh no!  224 steps total.

But we were also rewarded with more beautiful views.

Made it to the top!

We hiked to the Midnight Falls and saw more vistas. So unusual.

Here are Midnight Falls and small cave next to it.

It was very crowded on the way down!

We stopped for lunch at "1858", the restaurant at the bottom.

When we got to our car, the sky already looked ominous.  And we had a 30 minute drive in front of us toward the dark sky.

It was hailing so hard on our way up the mountain we pulled over.  Many cars with Colorado license plates were pulled over so we figured we should, too.   I couldn't open my window to get this photo.

Once the hail stopped, we got back on the road but it was a long traffic back up.  I had time to open my window and snap these photos.  Almost like snow.  It was 47 degrees out, where 2 days prior it had been 97!

It took us 90 minutes to get back to our campground.  Mudslides covered the highway and construction trucks were clearing it so cars moved slowly.

We made it back to the campground safely.  Our car has a couple of small bumps from the hail that was about the size of a marble.  Apparently there was hail in Woodland Hills, too.  We saw one person's windshield that needed to be replaced.  We had some minor damage to the sewer hose, but we carry extra hoses so feel lucky that was the extent of any problems.  One neighbor told us they were ready to send the cavalry out after us!

We took in one last view of Pike's Peak before moving to the next adventure...