Introduction
The storm was approaching us and we were approaching it. I never saw a storm so dramatic. I was driving on I-70 west and on the border of Kansas and Colorado. My eyes can roll to anywhere on the horizon because there is nothing there other than green fields with limitless emptiness. It's the wild west of America with remarkable low density of human beings per kilometer. Here the weird sense of loneliness will almost certainly grasp you even if you are driving on an interstate highway.

I was driving west towards Colorado and the storm was moving east towards us. I can see the dark clouds with frequent lightning breaking the sky into thousands of pieces. I can feel the winds swirling around the vast world in front of my car. I can see the frontline of the storm marked by a weak sign of sunlight while the backyard of the storm is in the dark unknown. I can see that I am driving straight into the storm's forbidden territory. I was not terrified, but was spellbound by the amazing view of the thunderstorm in front of me. Then, it came, with unprecedented wind power and merciless rain force. At times, I felt that my car is just a toy that can be thrown away from the road without much effort. I stopped at a rest area to wait the storm out, but the experience to drive the car through it was so thrilling that I was on road again after a short break. After driving another half an hour in that plundering weather, I saw the end of it - a silver line of sunshine at the end of the clouds. This part of the world is so broad, so empty, so vast and so wild that one can experience such a storm only there - no where else.

Well - that's the kind of welcome was offered by Colorado to us. I was on a road trip to Colorado with my business school friend Ashish. We drove through states like Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas to reach Colorado - a tiring three days of driving. Kentucky was a pretty state with green rolling hills, while Kansas was a brutal spacious and featureless corridor that we need to cross before we hit the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

Why Colorado?
"If you want to surf, go to the coasts; for everything else, come to Colorado". I saw this line in one of those marketing materials. Surprisingly, it is not an exaggeration. I heard and read about the uncompromising beauty of this western US state for a long time now. As a Himalayan mountaineer, I wanted to explore and experience the Rocky Mountains.

Last year, I did a cross country drive from New York to San Francisco, visiting 14 national parks. But my only encounter with Rocky Mountain was in Yellowstone area. I was attracted to it at first sight. Rocky can not be compared to Himalayas in any respect - size, height, savageness, beauty, myth, stories, wildlife - but it has a place of its own in the west. It is a very old mountain range stretched from Alaska to Colorado reaching several 14 thousand feet peaks on the way - 54 of them are in Colorado. Being in USA, it was attacked by modern civilization - with highways and accessibility, but still was able to maintain some of the wilderness of the old days.

In 2003 summer, I got some time out after my graduation from business school and thought that this is my best chance to spend some time in the company of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Ashish, my classmate, came with me. As he is not a mountaineer in any sense, I gave up any ambitious plan of climbing or hardcore mountaineering, but decided to do anything we will like. We were just there to enjoy.

Camping in Colorado Springs
Our first stop was in Colorado Springs. I did not like the city. It is in a beautiful setting at the foothills of the Rockies with a superb view of Pikes peak (14,252 ft) to its west, but it is a overdeveloped city. Neither it has a nice downtown, nor has a wild western look and feel. So we decided to get out of there and camp somewhere inside the mountains. Driving another 20 miles into the hills, we found an amazing place - Mueller state park. The campgrounds in there are majestic - with superb views and full amenities. It is very close to a small town called Divide and the approach road passes through some of the amazing green meadows. Behind those meadows, one can see the snow-capped high rocky mountain peaks standing with great pride. We camped there for two nights. First night, it rained while we were cooking. We were wet, but managed to eat after the storm was over. For Ashish, it was his first camping, but he got used to the unusual circumstances with ease.

We visited the standard destinations in Colorado Springs, but the real good ones were Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. It was fun to drive on the Pikes Peak highway and reach the fourteen thousand feet high peak in a matter of hours. The views from the road and from the top were breathtaking.

Rafting on the Arkansas river
With a couple of days of peaceful relaxation in the Colorado Spring, we were up for some action. We decided to try some whitewater rafting. The Arkansas river is famous for its rapids - dramatic, beautiful, savage and fun. But we were just a starter in rafting. So we drove to Canon City and went to a river expedition company called Echo river.

Around 1 PM, we were on a bus to move to the launching station for rafts. We decided to be on a raft where everyone paddles actively. Ashish and I volunteered for the front seats which are more prone to be attacked by big waves, but of course, we wanted to have the maximum fun and thrill. Our leader was thin, tall and a very nice guy. The route was 9 miles long with rapids of grade 2-3. Rapids can be of grades 1-5 while grade 1 is the easiest one - mostly peaceful rides, while grade 5 is the most difficult - huge whitewaters and deep wholes. We decided to do the moderate one as it was the first time for Ashish.

The rafting was fun. As front paddlers, we took most of the waves, but no accident happened - no one thrown away from the boat. The setting was superb - we were floating through the deep gorge of the Arkansas river. A historic railroad was following us on one of the banks of the river. That region got a lot of history with the ancient settlers and miners looking for gold in the area. Grade 3 rapids were incredible rides - we struggled through them by paddling hard as instructed by the guide. When we reached the end of the rafting journey, I thought that it was not enough - I could take more and harder rapids - may be next time!

Fishing in Blue Mesa
Our next destination was Gunnison. I wanted to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison river National Park. But on the way to the park, we were mesmerized by the beauty of the Blue Mesa Lake. We decided to spend a night besides the lake, visit the nearby national park and then, try our luck with fishing.

We rented a fishing boat from the marina where we were camping. It was a red boat and very simple to ride. We also rented a fishing rod and some supplies to try our luck. None of us had any past experience in fishing, so we took a little tutorial from the guys who run the marina. They were very friendly and helpful.

The lake of Blue Mesa is a huge water body encircled by rugged cliffs. As we camped last night besides the lake, we were amazed to see how the evening comes down on this remote world - the spectacular lights and shades on the nearby and far away cliffs, the reflections on the clear blue water of the lake. In one word, the setting was spectacular. And that's all Colorado is all about - remote, beautiful and peaceful.

The morning sun cleared all the fogs over the lake and as we cruised on our small boat across the blue water, we were already thrilled. I was driving a boat for the first time in my life. Then, I decided to test my skill as a fisherman. Wow! The first time I threw the line into the water with a lure of corn, I caught a 2.5 pound salmon. We were excited. Then, it was Ashish's turn. He got a small German Trout in his second attempt. What a day!

Then I was trying again. After a long wait, I felt the tension in my fishing line. As I tried to roll the line, I understood that this time it won't be easy, because the fish I got at the end of the line was really a big one - probably a monster salmon. It was a fight between a man and a fish for over 10 minutes - I tried with all my recently-learnt skills, but at the end, the fish snapped the line and got away. Anyway, it was an exciting lesson for me.

We came back with two fishes and a lot of pride on our fisherman skills. The guys at the marina helped us cleaning and cutting filet out of the fishes. We ate those fishes next night - sitting in a pristine campsite in the Rocky Mountains.

Driving through the Rockies
We drove to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison national park. The Gunnison River here created the steepest canyon of the world with her 2 billion years of erosive power. It was quite a spectacular view. We also walked on a trail to move into the canyon and see some of the interesting points where you cannot just drive.

Driving in Colorado is just an amazing experience. The roads winding through the Rocky Mountains, high mountain passes, snowy peaks and deep valleys, cascades and mighty rivers - all will welcome you if you just keep driving. The road from Gunnison to Aspen was one of them. Aspen is a breathtaking city, but nothing can be more frustrating for a skier to go to Aspen and see its ski slopes which hardly got any snow, but flourishing with greenery of summer. So, I was disappointed ( I was carrying my skies with a slim hope that at least one slope would be open), but I did not miss the chance to enjoy a lazy summer afternoon in Aspen.

We also drove to Denver. We liked it a lot. The downtown was terrific - neat, clean and full of very well behaved and well dressed ladies and gentlemen. We ate in a Swiss restaurant (the experience was not very pleasant though) and then had a beer in a local brewery. Sitting in the Denver downtown, sipping the wonderful beer, and watching the downtown life - we had a pleasant evening in Denver.

Hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park
We visited the Rocky Mountain National Park which is famous for its spectacular vistas of the Rockies - incredible lakes, high peaks, snow and ice clad passes, the deep forests, the cascades and waterfalls, and an abundant of wildlife.

We camped at the Glacier Basin campsite - a truly wonderful place to camp. There were numerous ice and rock climbing routes in the park, but I was in no position try them without a partner. So I decided to take Ashish to some of the pretty hiking trails in the park.

On the first day, we tried to hike to the top of a mountain called Flattop Mountain. The trail reaches almost 13000 ft. The tree line in the Rockies is at around 10,000 ft and the nature above the line (called tundra) is especially very hostile. Even in summer, the clouds and thunderstorms move into the high peaks and ridges by 12 noon and make the life very difficult for hikers who are exposed in the high tundra. So the trick to hike here is to start early and done by midday.

We did not start that early and was caught in such a thunderstorm on our way to the Flattop summit. We reached around 12000 ft and then had to turn back because of the storm. The trail was tough - steep grades with plenty of ice/snow patches as we moved up. Ashish was not at ease to walk over those ice patches, but he did extremely well otherwise. But still we were not moving fast enough to beat the storm, so I decided to call it a day. But we got superb views of the mountains and the lakes from the high ridge.

Next day hike was to the Mills lake - one of the spectacular lakes for which this area is famous for. It was a short 2.5 miles hike, but it was extremely rewarding. We reached the lake early this time, to enjoy the breathtaking view. The blue sky and mountains behind the pristine lake reflected on the clear, blue water was quite a view. We felt extremely satisfied.

Epilogue
As a whole, it was a great trip. I took many shots with my cameras. I tried to reinvent my black and white photography skills. Colorado is such a pretty state - one can do all kinds of outdoor activities in the most dramatic and spectacular settings. That's the beauty of it. My long cherished dream of spending some quite time in the intimacy of the rocky mountain also got fulfilled. I like to come back again to Colorado sometime in the future.