Hiking Red Rocks

Aptly named Red Rocks is 6.6 miles from my house.

Its amphitheater is touted by Denver's tourist bureau as being "6,450 feet above sea level" and "the only naturally occurring, acoustically perfect amphitheatre in the world." Concerts began in 1906 and have included performers from opera to rock and roll. The Beatles played there in 1964. Jethro Tull caused a stir and a riot in 1971 which led to a five-year ban on rock concerts.  Jethro Tull was back at Red Rocks again in 2008 and 2011. And there's no lack of rock and roll during the summer season or country and western or symphony or genres of music I'm too old to know about.

It is also home to an annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb when first responders from around the country come to climb the bleachers in full gear to equal the 110 stories of New York City's World Trade Towers.

But there's much more to Red Rocks than an amphitheatre and rock and roll. The park has 868 acres of geologic wonders, wildlife, and more sky than you can imagine. When we have company Red Rocks is one of the area sites we show off. We hiked there last Sunday.

  
                                                and hiking trails.

This time of year, patches of snow still blanket north facing hillsides and shaded hollows. Grass greens quickly under Colorado's sun. And snow melt feeds tiny rivulets throughout the park.

         

                                                                These are water sparkles not flowers.

But there are flowers, even here where snow is possible in May and no one sets out annuals until after Mother's Day.

The Dandelion, disdained in lawns

is welcome in the wild

       Hollygrape flowers          

 .                                      

I didn't get any photos of the wildlife. We were there in the middle of the day so we saw none of the mule deer, rabbits, various and sundry rodents, mountain lions, coyote, or rattlesnakes. I did, however, hear meadow larks call, and saw magpies and scrub jays. Not to mention people of all shapes and sizes and their children and dogs.

and, of course, Colorado's glorious blue sky.

That's the prairie and Denver there in the distance.

Trail Riding with Scott in His Toy

   

                                            Before                                      After

Some while ago my husband Scott decided he wanted a 4-Wheeler. He asked if I might be interested in riding the mountain trails with him. If my answer were "yes," he would buy a side-by-side ATV. If my answer were "no," he would buy the standard motor-cycle style 4-wheeler.

As you can see, I said "Yes." It was a good answer when he asked me to marry him and it was still a good answer for riding with him in an ATV.

When he first got it, it was what you see in the Before picture -- It had four wheels, two seats with seat belts, roll-bars, a flat bed, head lamps, a steering wheel -- the standard stuff. Turn the man loose with his tools and it's got a roof, a windshield, side rails on the bed, heavy-duty front and rear bumpers, a winch, serious back-up lights, overhead spot-lights, and ways and means of attaching everything you could possible need out back of beyond.

In July, he took it for a shake-down run by himself to see how it did. Last Wednesday he took me with him. (I guess to see how I'd do.)

Everything went fine. We took I-70 west through Idaho Springs then turned off on Chicago Creek Road, a road I'm familiar with because we use it to get to Mount Evans, my second favorite 14er. (If it had a restaurant at the top that made high altitude donuts, it would move ahead of Pike's Peak.) That road is a well-maintained, paved, two-lane highway. We were trailering the Toy behind my husband's pickup. And all was going well.

Our goal, however, was Saxon Mountain, so we turned onto Cascade Creek Road. Well-maintained, not paved. And one-lane. It is curvy, with trees and/or the mountain coming right down to the road's edge on my side and the creek at the bottom of a drop-off on his side. "So," I wondered silently. "What do we do if we meet someone coming the other way?" Backing that truck and trailer down a narrow road with no forgiveness on either side could not be a good idea. And there were no lay-bys.

As it turns out, I never found out what we would do, 'cause nobody came the other way.

We unloaded and buckled up. He set the way-point for where we were starting, consulted his map, and entered the coordinates for the first place he wanted to go into his GPS. It was like space travel will be, set the coordinates and go. Of course with space flight, you won't have to worry about switch-backs or mundane obstacles. You know -- falling rock, streams, downed trees. I figured our way would at least be free of rogue asteroids and meteors.

After our first switch-back we came to this abandoned mine.

Gold was discovered here in 1866. After gold, they discovered silver. So Saxon Mountain is pocked with mines. Most of the mines are collapsed and filled-in vertical shafts. This one goes into the mountain horizontally, at least as far as we could see, looking through the gate. The second structure is across the trail. I believe it housed the stamp mill.

   

                                             and this was the miner's home-sweet-home.

While doing a bit of research on mining in Colorado I happened onto the website for Mountain Magazine with an article that includes a first-hand account of mining in Colorado's high country in the 1890's from Carl Fulton. It's not long and it's worth taking the time to read, if you're interested in what life was like back then.

We saw a bachelor herd of Mule Deer. They'll soon be seeking the does for fall breeding season, at least the ones who are old enough. There were several spikes with the more mature bucks. We saw Clark's Nutcrackers. They're Corvidae like crows and jays. And I saw my first grouse in the wild, a Dusky Grouse. And, that old standby, the robin.

There were beaucoup chipmunks and little dark-colored squirrels. Sorry, no photos of wildlife. The ATV on that trail was too energetic to allow photography and when we'd stop, the wildlife fled.

               

In the mountains, it's all about the light.            And just because we're in the back-

               Still photography doesn't do the Aspens           country, that doesn't mean there's no

               justice. Any little breeze sets the leaves            civilization. There were street signs.
               to fluttering, flashing now silver, now
               green.                                                                                                                               

                               The meadows were still sporting their wild flowers.

  

Indian Paint Brush and Dwarf                       Silvery Lupine        

                              Golden Aster                                                                                  

 

Ahhhh, but the summit. It's over 11,000 feet. That's where the vistas and wildflowers are breathtaking. Down in the valley -- 3,000 feet down, to be more precise -- is I-70 snaking around to the right. And the buildings and things more to the center of the picture is Georgetown.

A Bristlecone Pine

The yellow blooms are Nodding Groundsel and the pale purple are Alpine Daisy

We came down different trails than we used going up. They were even more extreme. We had one scary, near-rollover which my husband handled by going pale and telling me, "Lean that way!" I responded with "I already am!" We held steady tipped like that for three hours or a fraction of a second. He let the Toy settle itself and we went on our merry way.

It was a 20-mile, six hour trip. I got home exhausted, My arms hurt from holding on. At times it was like shooting the rapids on a river. It was thrilling and I know exactly how Rose Sayer felt on the African Queen.

I learned some very important things. The Toy is both powerful and very stable. My husband is a capable, prudent man, and my life is safe in his hands.

Red Rocks -- A Day Trip

July 27, 2015
from center front clockwise: Silas, John Riley, Sonja,
and John Ryan

That's my son, his lovely wife, and their two brilliant sons. They live in Texas, so they particularly enjoyed our relatively mild mid-day temps. Their daughter was in Alabama for a mission trip. We missed her, but maybe she can come up later this year.

Red Rocks was 'discovered' in 1820 by a U.S. Army expedition. (The Ute apparently knew it was here long before that.) The Beatles played Red Rocks 51 years ago this month on their first American tour. And, after living 6.5 miles from it for almost four years, we've added it to our list of favorite day-trips. 

Running the steps in the amphitheater is a popular pastime with the locals. I make do with hiking the trails and taking too many photos.

And maybe sometime soon I'll add it to night trips. (Movies on the Rocks--live music, a comedian, and a classic movie. All for $12. BYOP--Bring Your Own Picnic.) 

The Rocky Mountains are primarily granite,    but scattered about in Colorado are magnificent  outcroppings of sandstone, testifying to the area's ancient history as a great inland sea.


And yes the sky is exactly this blue. 

Because we are in the rain shadow of the Rockies, our climate is that of a high plains desert.

And our native flora are often as architectural as the mountains. 
This is Common Mullein and, although it was the
end of July, it was not yet in bloom. That tall, leafless bit
at the top boasts brilliant yellow blooms now.

Many of our other wildflowers were showing the wear and tear of our fierce sun
and sporadic rainfall.

Pineywoods Geranium                              Toadflax                                     Dwarf Golden Aster

This year is being considered a 'wet' year. Keep in mind, however, that even during our wet years we measure rainfall in fractions of an inch and rain events rarely last longer that 20 or 30 minutes. 

While we were in the park we met a young man from Illinois. I explained about our arcane water laws. By interstate compacts with our downstream U.S.neighbors and international treaties with Mexico, we may keep only one-third of the water that falls on Colorado. It is illegal to catch and hold rain water that falls on our property. It is illegal to dig a water well without permission. That water is all spoken for.

And, this year in particular, our neighbors in Utah, Arizona, California, and Northern Mexico are in particular need. The young man from Illinois could not understand. When it comes to water, his home state is a land of plenty. The Southwest United States is not.

This is as close to lush as we come,

and we love it.

Green Mountain -- a travelogue

My Green Mountain.

That’s how I always refer to it. It’s two miles from our house, but it’s recognizable from almost any place in the Denver area because unlike the rest of the foothills it has a bald, rounded top. So whether I’m at the Museum of Nature and Science down in Denver or the Woodcraft store south of Denver in the town of Centennial, I know which way is home.

This picture was taken May 10, 2015, Mother’s Day. That was our last snow of the 2014-15 winter season. In this picture, weather is coming out of the mountains, obscuring the taller foothills behind Green Mountain and the Front Range 14ers behind them.

We moved to Denver almost four years ago from Edmond, Oklahoma. I had never been interested in exercise or hiking. In Oklahoma if you can't get there in a car, why go? The weather there is not conducive to outdoor activities in the summer -- too hot. Or the winter -- too cold. And there are few sidewalks or walking or biking trails in or near urban areas. They're changing though.

In Lakewood, which is our town, there are bike lanes and sidewalks and trails in the parks and open spaces. Green Mountain is in William F. Hayden Park.

Denver is located at altitude 5,280 feet. Our house is at 5,700 feet and Green Mountain’s summit is at 6,854 feet.

I’ve hiked to Green Mountain's summit and I’ve walked its shoulders in every season. It’s always beautiful – sometimes white with snow, sometimes brown and brittle. This spring and summer it fits its name, green.

                      

           This is my favorite starting point the Utah                   This is my daughter Grace 

           Street Trail Head. No motorized vehicles                     heading west up the trail. In 

           are allowed on the trails, but bicycles are                     that direction, as you can see,           welcome as are horses and hikers.                                the sky was a brilliant blue.                    

But looking northeast, out across the prairie that day, the haze almost completely obscured Denver.

Weather here is peculiarly local. Looking more to the east, back toward our neighborhood, you can almost see where the haze begins.

          A month after the last snow of the season, wildflowers are peaking on Green Mountain.

                                        Canadian Thistle                                Mariposa Lily  

                                        

                                  Orange Paint Brush                               Plains Larkspur

    

                                         Prickly Poppy                                  Saffron Ragwort

Yucca, also called Spanish Bayonet

After an hour on the mountain, I'm ready to head home and get ready for my exercise class. Not only do we have beautiful places to hike, but Lakewood has five rec centers with excellent facilities and staffs. 

           It's good to top the last ridge and be back where we began, Utah Street Trail Head.