COTTONWOOD PASS AND THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

Jackie and Buddy are great hiking companions. Since they will be our neighbors for a week, we have plans for more high country hiking while we are together. Today we drove up Cottonwood Pass to the Continental Divide, then hiked south along the divide on a ridgetop that gave us views into both the east and west drainages. I took, hmmmmmmm....

I don't know how many pictures! Here are those that give the best feel for the glory of the hike and the day - captions are below each photo; double click on any photo to see it in large format (and use your back arrow to return to the blog).

We weren't the only people at the parking lot - a willing photographer took this "tourist shot" before we set out on the trail. Men on the Atlantic side, women on the Pacific.

We were above 12,000 feet for the entire hike, looking across valleys to peaks above
14,000 feet. Before long, we were above treeline, where the meadows were covered with
six-inch tall wildflowers.

We four, in the rocks stacked at the top of the first summit we crested, around 12,500 feet.

Sharp-eyed Jackie spotted this ptarmagin as it moved in the rocks. I took half a dozen photos - in three of them, I couldn't find the bird even though I knew it was there. As we hiked, it ran along the side of the trail just ahead of us, finally angling away. As we stopped to watch, we saw a fluffy chick hop around the rocks not far from mom.

This is what I usually see along the trail: Jackie's back! The woman is phenomenal -
she can out-hike all of us.

This is the view to the west from the Continental Divide. This tiny photo can't do it justice; double click on the photo if you would like to see the larger version.

We kept hiking towards the second, higher summit, watching a dark cloud form and grow in our direction. Just as we crested the summit, the rain began, mixed with small hailstones.
Time to turn back.

As we headed down the final slope to the parking lot (that's Odel in his orange raincoat, with Buddy ahead of him and Jackie out in front), the rain stopped and the sun reappeared. At this high altitude, the sunshine dried our clothes quickly. The winding ribbon you see in the background is the road over the divide, heading down the western side. We hopped in the Jeep and drove a short distance to an overlook with a picnic table and ate our lunch in the sunshine.

I had marked a few geocaches on our GPS, in case we had the energy to search 'em out. One was within a quarter mile of our picnic spot, so off we went. Here are Buddy, Odel, and Jackie searching for the cache...

... and here is the victory shot! Geocaching is new to Jackie and Buddy, but they've taken to it.

As we drove away from the overlook, Jackie and Odel spotted two beautiful bucks on the side of the road. Look at them pose together (double click for a larger photo).

Peaks, lake, hail, sunshine, a geocache, a ptarmagin and this pair...
what more could we ask for from a hike?

SETTLED IN AT BUENA VISTA, COLORADO

Yesterday we moved into our spacious new site at Valley Mobile Park (read our review and see photos here) in Buena Vista. Look at all that space!

This is a mellow park that we liked as soon as we visited a couple weeks ago, when we were searching for a site we could reserve for a couple weeks in August. It used to be a mobile home park, and about a dozen mobile homes remain. The rest of the spaces have been made into HUGE RV sites, each with a bit of landscaping, a concrete pad, and a picnic table in good condition. The owners are friendly, the views pretty, the location convenient... and Luna loves it, the all-important criterion.

As I write this, we are awaiting the arrival of Buddy and Jackie to be our neighbors for the next week. We've got hikes, geocaching, and sightseeing drives planned, and a special dinner out as an early celebration of Jackie's birthday.

We took it easy over the weekend, enjoying some of the local sights and activities. Salida, 20 miles south of Buena Vista, is a much larger town - they have a Walmart and a Safeway, for instance (Buena Vista has one small - but well stocked - market).

Buddy and Jackie have been staying at an RV park there, where we first met them 3 years ago, and on Saturday we drove over to meet them at the farmer's market and explore the fun downtown.

Here are some photos from our visit to the farmer's market. Clockwise from upper left: Odel didn't try to resist homemade apricot ice cream for breakfast; Odel grins at his cone while Buddy and Jackie look on; colorful radishes at a produce stand; Odel and Buddy wander the market.

It was a small farmer's market, but I picked up a few bags of freshly picked salad greens, a bulb of fennel and a bunch of vibrant kale... definitely worth the visit.

Salida and Buena Vista are all about the outdoors. The Arkansas River is famous for rafting and kayaking, and both towns have kayak "practice rapids", a fun place to linger and watch kayakers improve their skills.

We spent several minutes leaning on the bridge railing taking in the scene, then turned away and almost bumped into a couple who looked mighty familiar... it was the Noonans, who we first met in Bisbee, Arizona, where they workamped at one of our favorite RV parks, Queen Mine. They were in colorful lycra biking garb, mingling with all the other fit folks strolling around Salida on a beautiful morning. Small world!

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DYNAMITE HIKE

Yesterday was moving day - eight miles north from Nathrop, Colorado, back to Buena Vista, Colorado. We didn't even bother to hook up Jules when we left Chalk Creek RV Park (read our review and see photos here). We were set up by noon, and spend the rest of the day doing a whole lot of nothing.

Today was a different story! Denver, like a lot of the nation, is experiencing a heat wave, and so are we here at 8100 feet up in the Rockies. That meant today was a good day to visit another alpine lake.


We met up with Buddy and Jackie at 9 am and took off for Waterdog Lakes, along the east side of Monarch Pass. The trail to the upper lake is 2 miles long and was rated "easy" on one of the websites we've been using, even though it starts at 10,200 feet elevation and gains 1,300 feet by the time you reach the upper lake at 11,500 feet.

EASY! What were they thinking??

We missed the official trailhead, so started at a spur trail that went up quickly and steeply for a quarter mile before joining the official trail. A steep climb is not my favorite way to warm up for a hike! The trail remained fairly steep and very rocky for the entire hike - once again, I straggled along in the rear sucking up the thin air.

It was worth it. These high-elevation hikes to alpine lakes surrounded by wildflowers in glacier-scoured bowls... they are indescribable. The air smells wonderful, the colors are vivid, the water is clear. We sat on a big rock to eat our lunch, comfortable in t-shirts with the sunshine on our faces and the breeze at our backs - a fine, fine way to begin August.

After lunch, we poked around the edges of Upper Waterdog Lake. We found a few small patches of Colorado's state flower, the Rocky Mountain Columbine - rare and protected by law. Standing on a bluff above the lake, we watched trout laze near the shore. What a spot!

The return hike was far easier; we were back home around 3 pm. I hauled my pack inside and cleaned it out, took off my hiking boots and jeans, reclined on the bed and took a 2 hour nap. Whew!