Colorado can be a crazy place. I forgot to mention in my last post our nutso experience driving up and over Monarch Pass on our way from the Black Canyon to Denver. Monarch Pass, like many passes in CO, are pretty high up there. Monarch sits right on the continental divide at an elevation of 11,312 feet...that's higher than the majority of the peaks in the Wasatch.

Anyway, we were driving along up this pass when it started to rain. No big deal. Then it started to rain a little harder, still no big deal. The wipers went from intermittent, to always going, and then finally to full bore as the rain kept getting harder and harder. Then it started to turn to hail...then bigger hail...harder and bigger still.

By this point people are slowing way down as visibility is not good and you wouldn't want to drive off the side of this road, that it for certain. But THEN something happened that I have never experienced before...the inside of my windshield almost instantly fogged up. No problem, I thought, just fire up the ol' defrost...which I did. But it seemed to have no effect. So flipped the fan to turbo, turned on the A/C, started messing around with the temperature dial...nothing seemed to even put a dent in this strange, new, death fog that had encompassed the inside of my windshield. Soon it was to the point where I could see basically nothing, so Bart starts wiping the windshield with his hand.

We continued this way for a few more minutes when Shelley radioed that Mike had pulled over at the top of the pass to "wait it out". I was happy to do the same. We pulled right up next to the gift shop they have at the top and decided to go inside to kill time while we waited out the hail. In hindsight, I think I made good time the whole 15 feet from my car to the front door of the shop...but that didn't keep the entire rear half of me from getting completely and totally soaked from the torrential hail onslaught. Mike later commented that he was slipping around and was doubtful he would even make it to the top. Crazy-go-nuts. It was nice and sunny at Black Canyon of the Gunnison earlier that morning. I guess it comes with the territory. Here's a pic of our cars parked at the gift shop at the top...