Colorado - September 2012

Friday – September 21

This morning we spent in Estes Park, wandering a couple of blocks of downtown shops (John was looking for a hat).  He did some  wine tasting and we enjoyed the landscaping and small parks downtown - Riverside Plaza is shown at left.  We went to 2 thrift stores and bought a plastic steamer for microwave use.  We had brought all sorts of camp cookware but I hadn't planned on using a microwave so they are all metal!   We had lunch back at the motel then drove down to Wild Basin and hiked to the Calypso Cascades (about 4 miles round trip).  We had started out thinking we'd just go to Copeland Falls but we had time and it wasn't very strenuous so we decided to go on.  We got to the Trailhead about 2:15 PM; Copeland Falls is very close - after taking pictures and looking at rocks and driftwood for a while, we continued on about 3 PM and arrived at the Cascades about 4. 

Below is, left to right, lower Copeland Falls;  the first good Stellars Jay picture we've gotten (taken by John) and a view looking down over the upper portion of Copeland Falls.  There is a very faint rainbow at the right just past the foam (it shows up somewhat better in the enlargement).

   

We followed North St. Vrain Creek up (it did get steeper after this point) to the Calypso Cascades where it meets Cony Creek.  We crossed a few wooden bridges that provided nice photo opportunities!  So below you see the creek at a photogenic point and then the Calypso Cascades. It's hard to see the steepness of the cascades in the picture - it isn't a long "fall" but it is cascading down for about 200 feet.  At the right is a picture of us standing on a bridge over North St. Vrain Creek.  Below that, on the right is a picture someone took for us standing on the bridge at the foot of the Cascades.

    

Wild Basin is located on the eastern border of RMNP and almost at the southern edge so the drive back up to Estes Park takes some time, though it is lovely.  I used our new microwave steamer to cook a spaghetti dinner tonight that took a little more time than I had estimated - first I forgot about boiling water at high altitudes (the noodles had to be cooked longer) and second, I only had the one microwave-safe pan so had to cook the noodles, then do the meat and sauce.  Even using the camp stove, I have 2 burners so could brown meat and boil water simultaneously!  I'm so spoiled.

Saturday, September 22

We started this morning by driving down to Allenspark (a small town about 15 miles or so south of Estes Park) for their "Golden Glow Festival."  We saw some posters for it and the musicians sounded interesting.  It had potential but it’s just too small a venue.  There were only about 8 vendors and about 25 chairs set up for the audience for musicians - what you see at the left is pretty much the entirety of the festival.  We visited the "Western Trail" gift shop, all the booths, bought a packet of blended herbal tea, listened to about 20 minutes of mediocre music then got lunch to go from the very nice Tapestry of Life Coffee Shop across the street from the festival site and headed back north to Lily Lake.

The dam at Lily Lake is under construction so the parking lot is closed and about 500 feet of the trail is blocked off at the east end (near the road) so you can’t do the full loop on either the Lake or the Ridge trails.  However, the views are awesome (good views of Long's Peak and Mount Meeker - at left) and you CAN still walk most of either trail if you are willing to turn around and go back the way you came when you come to the closure.  So we had our very yummy lunches first and then walked about half way around on the Lake Trail,  cut up to the Lily Lake Ridge Trail and took that one most of the way back before it rejoined the lower lake trail.  It was interesting to me how very different it was at the lake level and up on the ridge.  The ridge (rising on the right in the picture to the right above) was almost like high desert.  The picture on the lower right was taken from about halfway up the ridge, looking back down at the lake.  

It's such a beautiful setting that there were actually 2 weddings held there while we were hiking!  It seemed a little odd to see folks in long flowing gowns and high heels walking around a lake!  There was a duck near the picnic area who amused us with her begging – she even jumped up about 18” or so to grab a piece of bread from someone.  The picture to the left is just another view from the lake, taken looking southeast if I have my directions right.

Coming back into Estes Park, we stopped at the visitor center and got directions to get to the Lumpy Ridge Trailhead for tomorrow's hike.  (The "normal" way to get there is closed due to road construction, but apparently there is another route.)  They are having some sort of beer and brats festival tonight and every lot in town is overflowing.  The lines of cars at the traffic lights are enormous and don’t even think about making a left turn onto a main road.  Fortunately, we were coming into town on the east end and could get back to our motel pretty easily with a right hand turn.  We made a Safeway stop to pick up items we'll want for the next 3 days of camping and there weren't even many empty parking spots in the grocery store lot!  Unbelievable.  And this isn't even "high season."

When we went back into town later, we used the Hwy 34 Bypass, came in on the west edge of town and parked in the lot near the Cultural Arts Council (outside of the major activity area) and just walked back to Bob and Tony's where we had great pizza.

On our way back to the Art Gallery after supper, we passed Mrs. Walsh's Garden and had to check it out.  It is a gated, but not locked, garden open to the public from dawn to dusk.  Judy Lamy began the project in 1996 in honor of her grandmother, Mrs. Winifred Walsh, and it is now supported by the Community Foundation.  Besides being a lovely garden, there were also benches there where one can relax, read or just enjoy the peace for a while.  This scene (at the right) including the bronze statue of the reader at the left of the waterfall (shows up better in the enlarged view), appeared in several of the art works we saw at the final exhibition of the Plein Air Rockies 2012 competition which is where we went next.  Apparently one of the categories was "Mrs. Walsh's Garden!"  There were somewhere around 100 entries in the finals, exhibited and for sale; most were oil or watercolors and some were absolutely stunning.  We didn’t stay long but participated in the wine tasting, cheese and crackers; it was a fun activity and a break from the hiking and camping.

Sunday September 23 –

We were up and clean and checked out around 9:30 AM.   The round about way to get to the Lumpy Ridge Trail Head worked fine – we went out Dry Gulch to Devil’s Gulch and backtracked to the Trailhead.  AFTER the hike we also found out that the route going up Steamer St. works, too – it is just labeled “Local Traffic Only” because it’s residential and they don’t want lots of trailhead traffic running through their neighborhood.  Can't blame them.

So we left the trailhead for Gem Lake around 9:50. Anne Hoekstra told me about the hike but I didn’t remember her mentioning that it is up, up and up.  She says she did - I guess I have selective memory!    We computed it was approximately a 10% average grade the whole way:  1.7 miles UPHILL to Gem Lake.  Very steep with lots of tall steps that made it harder for shorter people like me.  Thank goodness for hiking poles.  We did stop a lot to take pictures and breathe and drink and it took us right around 2 hours.  It’s a lovely place and the scenery - both at the lake and on the trail - was stunning.  The lake area seemed fairly busy today (it was a beautiful day) – probably a couple dozen people all together in and out while we were there. 

The pictures below include one of John's collection of "natural Bonsai" pictures; a privy provided along the trail near the Lake (a little more upscale than the one along the Lulu City trail!) and a view of what I'm calling "spires" though I have no idea if they have an official name or not!

    

We had lunch on the "beach" portion of the lakeside and were entertained by chipmunks. Some were pretty aggressive, trying to climb into laps or backpacks. John got his finger nipped by one when he didn't produce a snack.  Below left to right are: Gem Lake, us posing at Gem Lake (across the lake on the left in the first picture) and a view of Estes Park and mountains beyond taken from near the top of the trail.

   

We left at 12:25 to head down and got back to the .5 mile point in just 45 minutes – it was all downhill and we had taken so many pictures going up that we didn’t need to stop so much coming back down.  So we decided to go on and do the loop around the base of the Twin Owls (the rock formation at left).  That was *mostly* downhill though there were some climbs towards the end.  We got back to the trailhead (1.7 miles going up, 2.3 miles coming back) at 1:50.  We had guessed 4 hours plus additional time for lunch so were very pleased with ourselves.  

We were hot and tired, however, so we stopped at an ice cream store in Estes Park (in the 300 block of East Elkhorn, across from US Bank - I can't find its name) and that tasted really good!  Then we drove out Hwy 36 through the Beaver Meadows entrance to RMNP and down to Moraine Campground.  This campground is much larger and comes with lots more bureaucracy.  Everything was entered in the computer and we were assigned a campsite (at Timber Creek, you just pick your own place then self-register – rangers and site hosts are around but it was more loosely run).   The camp rules are essentially the same as at Timber Creek but I have the impression – maybe the larger size, or the density of visitors – that they have more problems here and so are more adamant about enforcement.

We had the tent set up by 4 PM and had a rest break before supper – I copied all my pictures from today to the computer and updated the log; John read for a while and then fixed a yummy brat stew for supper.  The GOOD news is that the predicted low here is 46 tonight!  Wow – that’s not even freezing.  And tomorrow we'll do the Fern Lake Trail which is very close to the campground.
 

Monday September 24 –

Wow, last night really was only in the 40’s – my heavy sweats were too warm!  Yay!  Slept well overnight – still went to bed early because there was nothing to do in the dark!

This morning I fixed pancakes for breakfast (so nice to not have to wear gloves because of the cold!) and cleaned up from last night - we had put everything away but not actually washed the dishes.  We left about 10 AM for the Fern Lake Trailhead.   In the context of the whole park, it's just "around the corner" from the campground but it is several miles so we drove.  The route goes through the elk viewing area so we saw lots of elk on the way but we didn't stop to gawk or take pictures since we've already seen plenty of elk.  We left the trailhead about 10:20 and got to The Pool (1.7 miles but fairly level) at 11:30.   The trail follows the Big Thompson River most of the way and it was just beautiful.  A sample of the color and the tall Ponderosa Pines are on the left.  It also weaves through an area known as Arch Rocks - see the pictures on the right.  Evidently these came down from the mountains in an earlier epoch and now they stand almost as sculptures.  

A bridge goes over the river at The Pool: an area just below the point where Sprague Creek and Fern Creek join the river so it is a little livelier and includes several small cascades.   We each found a good sitting-on rock and enjoyed the water for about 15 minutes, had a small snack, then set off for Fern Falls. Pictures below show Barb on her rock at The Pool and some of the pictures I was taking from the rock - the bridge over the river and a closer look at some of the cascades below the bridge.


The trail to Fern Falls (falls picture at left)  is only another mile but quite steep.  We got there at 12:35 so it took us less than an hour – remembering my general guideline of 1 mile per hour in the mountains, I was happy with that.  We saw a gray headed junco along the way – we didn't get good pictures of it but enough to identify it.  We had lunch at the falls, John played with crossing the falls on logs (at the right) and we enjoyed the entertaining chipmunks and ground squirrels.  I didn't include stellars jay pictures since we've seen those already, but this little golden mantled ground squirrel on the left below charmed us with his determination to find lunch!  We had to read about the differences between the chipmunks and the ground squirrels - the easiest way to tell them apart is the stripes.  Notice this fellow doesn't have stripes all across his back or on his head: compare to the chipmunk below him!  The picture in the lower right is John sitting at the Big Thompson River near the trailhead, probably trying to figure out a way to bring the whole thing back to Iowa!  

Coming back, it took us about half an hour to get back to the Pool and another hour to reach the trailhead.  It sprinkled a little on our way back down but not badly.  While it was drizzling on us, we were passed by a wrangler with a mule team hauling supplies back down from a group trip.  Hmmm, maybe next time! 

We drove slowly through the elk viewing area; saw a lot but didn’t stop for more pictures.  After getting back to camp about 3, we enjoyed the quiet time to rest, read, look up birds (like the gray headed junco) and recharge camera batteries and Nook while camp is fairly empty.  John's beef curry for supper was very good – interrupted briefly by rain but it didn’t get bad so we managed to finish cooking and even clean up!  Then we sat in the car (for both the shelter and the comfy seats) and read for a while.  When the rain stopped and it was dark we moved to bed!  It was cooler but still not as cold as at Timber Creek.