Day 19 : Another travel day

Today was another day of travel - 6 1/2 hours from Salt Lake City in Utah to Aspen/Snowmass in Colorado. It was a beautiful day for a drive, the sun was shining and the skies were clear. You will see from the photos that the contrails of the planes flying across the US were also clear. At times it was impossible to count how many we could see. The scenery was amazing, and luckily kept changing or it would have become very boring.
Most of Utah that we drove through, seemed to be uninhabited, just rocky canyons and snow covered high plains. The rock formations were interesting and always different, at times there were very clearly defined layers and it was very easy to see how earth's natural forces have shaped this landscape. The further we travelled into Colorado the more the landscape changed and the more signs of habitation and land use.
We are staying in Snowmass for a week, and have lucked into an apartment about 50 metre walk from the slopes. Snowmass looks like my sort of mountain - I think  am going to enjoy our time here. Aspen is about 8 miles away so we will make use of the shuttle buses to ski and visit there.

Arrived, dropped our luggage, went shopping and as we returned to the car with the view of Snowmass in front of us, I could see Margo licking her lips This is Margo's sort of mountain!! Then we get the forecast and it will be bluebird and sunny for a week!! - Margo is pouring over the maps and the local papers working out how to attack the mountain!!!!
Drive was easy - couldn't believe the news on TV showing the Eisenhower Tunnel (further on the road to Denver) bumper to bumper due to snow on the approaches - seems the storm we had yesterday (remember Regulator Johnson?) has slowly moved to Colorado and we followed behind it in the good weather!

Snowmass looks like it is very well laid out - once we have worked out the lay of the land and the village we will then venture to the 3 other mountain areas that are on the same lift ticket (Aspen, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk) if I can pry Margo away from Snowmass! - the X games are on here next week so we may see some crazy people doing crazy stuff - I will just say to them Pfffft try skiing Regulator Johnson in a blizzard!!!