In God's Time: Mission Trip to Denver, CO

We started down the trails. They weren't as flat as I had hoped they would be and were quite rocky in some places. You had to climb up and down different rocks at some points. Oh well. It was better than climbing those stairs! The scenery was beautiful as we walked, and there were pretty streams throughout.

I love how smooth the rock is from the running water.

We came upon a map of the trails that we studied to find the elevator down.

I think it is too small for you to see, but where we were, the elevation was 6800 feet. The highest point is at Inspiration Point, and it is 7200 feet. We continued to look over the map, and then it hit us. None of these trails lead us to an elevator. NONE! We were going to have to climb back down those stairs! Being that I was still very dizzy, I said I was not going to walk around up there any longer and was ready to tackle the stairs back down. The others agreed with me because they weren't feeling too hot either. So, we didn't do any more exploring up there (That's a shame, really. I just felt so bad.) and headed back to those wretched stairs.

As we made our way back to the stairs, I snapped some more pictures. In my dizziness though, I forgot to snap pictures of the names of the different falls. Sorry about that.

Notice the stairs carved in the rock that we had to take to get back to the two flights of stairs. The people on the stairs are part of my group headed back down, too.

This is looking down over the railing from the rock stairs.

Going down...the first flight. Notice that the stairs were wet, as was the railing which I gripped tightly with both hands curled up in my sweater so my hands wouldn't slip.

And, the second flight of stairs. I, of course, waited until those people came up first. I wasn't about to pass people on the stairs and have to let go of both railings. The teepee at the bottom was pretty cool. They had Indian presentations. We didn't get to see it though.

We finally all made it safely to the bottom. Now we wanted to see where the elevator led. There IS an elevator! Along the way....

The Evergreens were lovely.

We finally came to the Mountain Elevator.

We walked in, and it was like a cave. There were pictures lining the wall of the history of Seven Falls and the many famous people who have visited the falls. One stood out to me over all of the many Presidents and famous diplomats and actors...

Yep, Walt Disney and his family visited Seven Falls. How cool is that? You can find Disney almost anywhere.

We took the elevator up to the top where there was a gift shop and some beautiful views.

I love how this pretty little plant found a way to grow and bloom in rock.

[

A quick zoom to the other side...the scary stairs that I conquered!

We went down the elevator since the rest of our group was making their way down the stairs. There were chipmunks all over the place. They were the cutest little things.

This little fellow was eating something. He didn't seem frightened of us at all. He's probably used to a lot of people being around.

We were all getting hungry and had packed stuff to have a picnic there. So, we gathered around and made our sandwiches, grabbed some chips, cookies and drinks and sat around in the parking lot to eat. The chipmunks must have smelled our food and some gathered around wanting some. They really enjoyed potato chips.