About three weeks ago Paige and I were getting stir crazy so I recommended that we head west. We hadn’t been to the mountains in several years and Montana is too far away for what we could manage given the Current State of Things at American Universities. As such, Colorado (California-hippy-wanna-be-Montana) seemed like a good option. We spent several days in the far northern part of the state and then looped around to the southwest for a couple days in the canyons before heading back to Fort Bliss (aka Lawrence). Paige had to work a fair amount but still got some downtime. Meanwhile, I pushed everything off on my co-authors for the the whole time we were gone such that I had an actual 8-day vacation. Despite the environs, I am pleased to report that I made it back home without visiting a shaman or buying sandals, tie-dye shirts, random bandana head wraps, or healing crystals.
As I begin, let me just say that I am a very big fan of northwest Kansas and northeast Colorado. Most people think it is awful but I love the big sky and the wide open spaces. So ... instead of taking the interstate to Denver and up from there, we veered north around Colby, Kansas (queue John Denver’s “
Matthew”) and spent a good bit of time on back roads. The main attraction of the detour other than prairie atmosphere and the glorious lack of people was Pawnee National Grassland (PNG). PNG is home to Pawnee Buttes, twin formations that basically are like a smaller version of Devil’s Tower in northeast Wyoming. The hike to the first butte is a fairly leisurely 3.5 mile round trip that includes high plains and canyons. If those things appeal to you, you will enjoy this place. The roads in PNG are unpaved, but they are easily passable with a regular car.
After the PNG adventure, we headed to our digs outside of Red Feather Lakes, a little village about 40 miles or so northwest of Fort Collins. The house we rented is on a dirt road adjacent to national forest land within easy walking distance to about 25 miles of trails. We also did a couple hikes in the Poudre Wilderness area just a few miles away. The Lady Moon Trail probably was the best of the lot. It’s a 6.5 mile trek featuring the aptly named Disappointment Falls (pic #1 below). We had moose on hikes (pic #2 below) and Hollis even spotted a moose in the yard one morning. Paige is a huge moose fan, so she was very happy with the whole deal. I also stumbled upon my retirement villa (pic #3 below) while hiking alone one afternoon, so that takes away substantial uncertainty about the future. The view from the doorstep (behind me, in the picture) looks down on a stream and willow thicket surrounded by aspen. The builder has good taste.
After a few nights at Red Feather Lakes we headed west to Walden, a town of about 600 people on the high plains (8,000 feet) northwest of Estes Park, northeast of Steamboat Springs, and just 20 miles south of the Wyoming border. Walden bills itself as the moose viewing capital of Colorado and it did not disappoint. State Forest State Park and the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge both delivered in the moose (and bear, elk, antelope, and prairie dog) department. In addition to moose, Walden has a quality Mexican food trailer, raising even more questions about why the entire state of Kansas is incapable of producing a single restaurant that serves edible Mexican food. Walden also has a great little coffee shop that was business-as-usual (no plague hysteria). The shop is located on Main Street between Stockman's Bar and Mountain View Baptist Church. I'm not sure how intentional the sequencing was, but it seems to fit.
After Walden, we headed southwest to Grand Junction, gateway to Colorado National Monument. Our time in Tucson during my PhD program turned me into a desert rat so I was really looking forward to this part of the trip. The drive through the park takes about an hour on a narrow, winding road with multiple short walks to overlooks. Some have barrier fences; some don’t. There are several hikes that looked interesting, but our schedule wouldn’t accommodate an extra day. Maybe next time. As for the town, I was expecting Grand Junction to be a bit of a dump because Hollis announced, upon our arrival, that it has the highest crime rate of any decent-sized town in the state. But a lot of it feels like a typical, if semi-sketchy, college town (Grand Junction is home to Colorado Mesa University, which I had never heard of). There is A-grade coffee and B-grade pizza, so things certainly could be worse.
We closed out the trip at Black Canyon of the Gunnison (BCG) National Park, which is a little more than an hour east of Grand Junction. The canyon is about 3,000 feet deep — about half as deep as the Grand Canyon at its deepest spot — but the walls are pretty much straight down. To add some perspective, the "Painted Wall" cliff in pic #1 below is roughly twice as tall as the Empire State Building. Standing at the various viewing points and looking out and down, things seems freakishly two-dimensional. I thought pictures might be pointless and after having looked at the ones I took, I would say that my judgment was largely correct. As usual, there's no substitute for being there. Hiking opportunities at BCG are limited, but the (short) Warner Trail at the top is worth doing. Other than that, there are a variety of quick walks to probably a dozen different viewpoints on the road from the park entrance to the top. The visitor's center does issue eight passes per day to people who want to climb down to the bottom of the canyon (and back up again). My 52 year-old brain knows that would be awesome, but isn't entirely sure that my 52 year-old body could take it. Overall, BCG and the Colorado National Monument add some terrific variety to the standard Rocky Mountain trip, even if you aren’t as much of a fan of desert and canyon landscapes as I am.
In closing, I will note that it was terrific to go on an actual road trip again. That was always how we did things when the kids were growing up, but in recent years it primarily has been Paige and me getting on a plane and going to Europe. I won’t go quite so far as to say I am 100% done with that, but it certainly feels that way right now. The American West has firmly recaptured its spot as Top Dog.
Oh, and here are the
REAL Disappointment Falls. We didn’t think they were that disappointing.
Happy Trails,
Mike
