From Alamosa we made our way up to Denver via Florissant National Monument, where we saw some fairly uninteresting fossilised trees, and Colorado Springs home of the very popular rock formation, Garden of the Gods.

Our couch surfing host, Joey, put us up in his "man cave" and was barely around while we were there. The first time we actually met him was when he came home late at night, after a few drinks and being heavily rained on at a concert. We were woken by a sopping wet guy wanting to give his "couchsurfers" a hug. We enjoyed what little time we got to know Joey but actually ended up spending more time with his house mate.

In Denver we were able to drive out to the Rocky Mountains National Park and a few other mountainous areas close by. We spent three days hiking around different trails in the area. On our first day we got incredibly lucky with the weather, as the freezing cold winds stopped just when we started and by the time we summited Hallett Peak all the clouds had cleared and we had some nice views of the Rockies. On our way up we passed a lot of people who had not managed to get to the top because they had followed all the advice and left early in the morning, they all looked very much the worse for wear and were having an all-around bad time - for once our lack of organisation paid off.

As it turned out, luck was not to be ever in our favour. On our way to Grand Junction we decided to attempt to climb to the top of Mt Audubon, which peaks above 12,000 ft. Apparently, climbs this high should be started at 4 or 5 am, primarily because crazy thunderstorms roll in just about every afternoon with little notice and, above the tree line, hikers can find themselves in dire straits. Out of nowhere sleet was lashing our faces, we couldn't see 10 feet ahead of us and lost the path, feeling in our limbs was a distant memory and, looking back, we weren't even thinking straight. For some crazy reason we even decided to split up at one point but quickly realised our mistake and found each other again. We ran for miles trying to get to any shelter from the freezing wind but getting below the tree line wasn't much better. When we got to the bottom the clouds parted, the sun came out and we thanked our lucky stars we both made it out in one piece.