3. Goldhill, Colorado.

I got attached to the Goldhill Store, good coffee, laid back jazz on the sound system, friendly locals, Tuesday evenings Mexican food, sometimes live music. One morning, heading for 80 degrees outside, two fluorescent clad guys came in from working on the Gold Run road, washed out in a huge flood a few years ago and now finally being rebuilt. I’d been gardening, had started at 0800 to avoid the heat, at Jeff's place where I was staying. Goldhill is at 8000+ feet in the steep terrain of the Front Range, and the mix of heat and altitude took its toll; lots of water and a second coffee generally sorted me out.

Colorado weather is unpredictable ... I’d arrived two and a half weeks before and spent the first three days in cloud; on the fourth day the sun broke through, and I got my first view of the Rockies snow capped to the west, a 70 mile panorama of the continental divide, including some of the ‘fourteeners’ (14000+ft). Since then it turned hot, with humidity often building during the day to release in a huge orgasm of a thunderstorm mid afternoon.

Jeff, the brother of my friend Jane C from back home, has been here since the 70’s. He’s a builder, and was busy juggling jobs; one of his workers, Tommy, was also staying, quite a different character, and sometimes there were, shall I say, robust exchanges. Jeff constructed the ‘architecturally dazzling’ Boulder teahouse, shipped in pieces as a present from sister city Dushanbe in Tajikistan. He has an interest in both Buddhism and native American teachings, and out back, where the forest begins, he's built a singing chamber and sweat lodge. Apparently there's a legend of the Arapahoe that once you come to these parts you never really leave; it sure is a great place to hang out.

Heading 3000 rugged feet downhill to Boulder the plains stretch east into the haze for over 800 miles to St Louis on the Mississhippi. Boulder is affluent, a city of trust funders I'm told, or trustafarians as one guy put it, very white, a low rise sprawl, very green, fit and health conscious with lots of cycling, jogging, yoga, you name it, trendy, touristy, craft beers, coffee shops and wholefood stores. Many interesting organisations here and I've contacted a few environmentalists around the area.

I met up with ex Findhorner Vance Martin and staff from the Wild Foundation (see wild.org); Honor Cowen from a sustainability consultancy Anthesis, apparently one of the fastest growing UK companies (see anthesisgroup.com); and I was due to head out with a camera trap crew from Rocky Mountain Wild but had to call off because of car trouble (see rockymountainwild.org). If you google these organisations I promise that you'll have hours of interest and inspiration ahead. Otherwise I was tramping around looking to buy a trusty vehicle to carry me on my journey north.

It was good to retreat up the mountain at the end of each day. Goldhill as you might guess is an old mining town, with wooden houses some dating from the boom days of the 19th century, an old hotel, the store, the inn, a school, a small museum, dusty dirt streets, a mix of old timers, young families and the hippyish influx of the 70’s onwards. The long hair is generally white or grey now. Marijuana is now legal in Colorado for both medical and recreational purposes, although I imagine it's been pretty common in these mountain towns for many decades. Coming down the steep hill into town the sign reads ‘Established 1859; Elevation 8463; Population 118; Total 10440’. Querky eh? There's a great community feel, very friendly folk and a vibrant music scene ... bluegrass is popular, check out the Caribou Mountain Collective who played at the inn; and a local blues singer Mary Russell who played in the store with a few friends. Both on youtube.

The hills here are well forested in every direction, a lot of it secondary growth around the old pits and spoil heaps, the trees returning after the miners left. A mix of lodgepole pine, Douglas fir and ponderosa pine (red-barked like a Scots, but with longer needles), and frequent groves of aspen which have come into vibrant green leaf, and flower, over the past two weeks. Lots of prostrate juniper, and bearberry patches. All very familiar in a way, although much drier soils than in the Highlands. Sitting outside in the early morning or evening the soundscape seems familiar too ... songs of an American robin, for me misnamed, it’s really a thrush; the descending notes of a finch, woodpeckers hammering, house martins flitting about. Then suddenly there's a high trill and a hummingbird zips by like a bullet; they don't stay still for long but I catch some iridescent green and a scarlet breast.

There are two big forest issues here, fire being the primary concern with parts of the surrounding hillsides still scorched from a blaze in 2010 which destroyed over 150 homes; due to the suppression of the natural fire cycle, when fires do occur they can be devastating. Secondly there are bark beetles attacking the lodgepoles, with dead or dying individuals common. Climate change is of course exacerbating the situation and the dynamic interaction between the two issues is complex.

A few tame foxes wander through town, sometimes coming to visit as I was gardening; and they're barking and screeching at night. One day I saw a moose gnawing at the bark of an aspen; since then I've been noticing teeth marks on the aspens at 4-6 feet above ground. Sap rising I guess. Beehives down the road are ringed with electric wire to keep the bears away. And there's an interesting poster in the window of the store, informing folk that there are mountain lion about, with some advice on what to do if you should meet one ... including ‘talk loudly and firmly to the lion in a low voice’ and if you're attacked ‘don't run, fight back, don't quit’. I've not yet spent a night in the tent to fully consider these words of wisdom.

Finding a car turned out to be more of a process than expected. I’d made a connection with the guys at Mountain Motors in north Boulder and they’d checked out a couple for me. I was looking for a van, something I could sleep in when needed, but there were few available … the economy in Boulder was thriving it seemed. Then I answered an ad on craigslist (like gumtree), and connected with Kerry who’d coincidentally been thinking of visiting the Findhorn community, near where I live. She was selling a Hyundai Tucson, a 4x4 SUV, and I could just about stretch out in the back. In the end we haggled ... I was trying to give her more, she was beating me down! I picked up the car on the Friday before a long weekend, with Memorial Day, a public holiday, on the coming Monday. Feeling perky and excited to be getting ready for off, I drove around town to get an emissions test, car registration, insurance and then, on a hot and busy afternoon, to various places to pick up more camping gear and food for the trip. I was just about to head into the hills, back to Jeff's place for a final night and the power went, I crawled to a stop; it started up again some minutes later and the same happened. Luckily my insurance covered rescue and I got taken back to Mountain Motors. My new mate Will there was surprised, perhaps embarrassed to see me turn up … he’d checked the car over for me, but there was nothing he could do, it was 1730 and they were all about to knock off for the long weekend.

So I was destined to spend a few more days in Goldhill, joining my second sweat whilst there, this time in the Lakota tradition. And I caught something of the Memorial Day music festival at the Inn. It turned out that the mechanics could find nothing wrong with the car, Will was puzzled, I was relieved and picked it up mid-week to prepare again for the trip, a bright rainbow at the garage a good omen for the journey ahead. Although I was realising that six months was a big chunk of time to have bitten off for the trip, I was also aware that my US visa would expire in a month's time; it was time to hit the road.