grizfam | Alice in Detroit

Hi all! Happy new year and I hope you had a joy filled holiday season. I have been slacking on my adventure sharing (per usual) but I now found this handy dandy new website that can resize my pictures in minutes. Life changed. I have not been out urban exploring as much as I used to for a couple of reasons. 1) Detroit is a changing and boards are being put up everywhere; they are even covering decade old graffiti 2) lost touch with my urban exploring god partner who has been out there killing it 3) I feel like I have become more in touch with nature instead of dead and decaying buildings. So that is going to be my focus from now; it is time for the evolution of Alice.

I went on back to back trips in late September/ beginning of October. First was Colorado and then I flew home at 7am on a Sunday morning and did the 8 hour drive to the Upper Peninsula. This post is going to be about Colorado but SURPRISE my next one is going to be filled with UP pictures. God I wish I could live there, most beautiful place I have ever witnessed for sure. Anyways, not to talk shit about my Colorado experience, here are some pictures of the cool shit I did, which includes hiking to hanging lake (don’t fucking do it, it was so hard), driving up Pike’s Peak, which is the tallest mountain in the continental United States, and my personal favorite, visiting the Garden of the God’s. (OK but really I went to Colorado to go see my favorite DJ GRiZ kill it at Red Rocks which is this awesome amphitheater built into the side of a mountain, so fucking cool)

First up in the gallery is Hanging Lake. Hanging Lake is a very popular tourist destination with estimates of over 100,000 people visiting each year. The hike is about 2.5 miles which doesn’t sound too bad until you realize it is straight fucking up and you are from Michigan so you can’t fucking breathe in the elevation change. I probably say down 15 times, one of which is documented below:

The hike was totally worth it though because not only did you get to see a lake on the side of a mountain that has not moved in over a century, there is also a waterfall if you decide to keep climbing up a little further (which I did because at this point, fuck it why wouldn’t I?). The legend of hanging lake goes that a man was looking for gold when he found a stream and followed it all the way up to here. The ecosystem of the lake is very delicate and is not allowed to be touched as the shoreline is made out of travertine from other rocks disintegrating. The reason why the water is a turquoise color is because of the carbonate materials that have dissolved in the water. Here is some of the majestic beauty that is Hanging Lake, enjoy:

Pike’s Peak is the most visited mountain in the United States and the second most visited mountain in the world, behind Mount Fuji in Japan. The ascent and descent drive is probably one of the more scariest things that I have ever done, which apparently they do races on the damn thing so that thought absolutely terrifies me. Also, there is a hiking trail that around 15,000 people try to climb each year which doesn’t include the marathon race that is put on yearly. We got to drive all the way to the top, which was really cool because I got to see the “dead line” which was explained to me as the point that trees can no longer grow anymore. Anyways, here are some cool pictures:

Now on to my personal favorite, the Garden of the Gods. This place is absolutely breathtaking and is named that way for a reason.We spent hours here before driving to Pike’s Peak, which you can see both from each other. The place has been designated as a public park since the early 1800s and the over 400 acres of land was donated by a man named Charles Elliot Perkins. He made a rule stating that no building or structure shall be permitted to be built on this land unless it benefits it as a whole. The entire park is free to visit and I highly recommend checking it out.