Family fun in Colorado waters

Thanks to Sally for taking this cute picture of the fam in the raft we fondly call the Battlestar. 

She, Travis, Henry, and I had floated on the Arkansas in it several years ago, but on a different section. This time we started at the Big Bend (not the one in Texas) put-in—one of the fabulous facilities provided by the Arkansas River Headwaters Recreation Area—and finished up at the ramp in the middle of beautiful downtown Salida.

Unfortunately the day we picked for this excursion (after needed repairs were made to the raft we didn't really have much choice) was cloudy, a little rainy, and somewhat chilly, especially for the two members of our party who couldn't get their heart rates up by paddling...

and of course Mom sacrificed her jacket;
notice Gramma selfishly putting hers on in the background

But everyone enjoyed it anyway. The first section, where rocks were more of an issue, was a little more exciting than we had expected, but sailing into town was pretty relaxing...

[Parenthetical aside regarding the raft: Henry and an engineer friend later spent 3 days designing and partially constructing a super-storage-facility for the raft in our cabin's garage:

The idea is that next time it won't need as much repair if it's stored properly. We'll see.]

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Although the raft trip was our major interaction with Colorado streams, it wasn't our only one.

We have a favorite waterfall nearby, just up a county road from Angel of Shavano Campground. I've probably visited it a hundred times, with many different groups of people, but was still quite excited to introduce it to our Adorable Granddaughter...

The water was a little chilly for wading, so she changed out of her cute swimsuit early on and actually had more fun clambering around the rocks with Dad than she would have had swimming...

She loves to climb!

More rocks and more water are even closer to our home base in Garfield. The little stream behind our cabin (whose noise makes it so easy to drift off to sleep at night or naptime) is crossed by a bridge just down Main Street. And around the bridge is a great place to toss rocks and sticks in the water, and do more rock clambering...

the shallow water here is a little more conducive to wading

I can remember when her Dad loved to come down to this very spot and play in the stream...so great to see that his daughter loves it, too!

It's the water!

Our last outing in Washington before heading our separate ways was a delightful one. We met the whole fam for dinner at the Falls Terrace in Tumwater, near Olympia.

Seeing everybody one last time before departure was treat enough, but as a bonus my group arrived early and had time to explore this lovely park adjacent to the restaurant.

The picture above is of the Deschutes River flowing under its very handsome bridges downstream from the falls.

The restaurant has a great view of the river and falls, as you can see here, in this shot taken from the other side of the stream...

...but it was nothing compared to what we were able to see on our little walk around the area...

the whole upper falls

another look at that bridge, this time with rhododendrons as a bonus

both falls

In this part of the country, you've got to take spawning salmon into account, and they did that here via the salmon ladders under these metal walkways—hearing the roaring water under your feet as you walked along them was rather exciting!

salmon walkways from across the river

Being in this somewhat quirky corner of the country, it wasn't too surprising to find some quirky decorations around here, too. 

"love locks" on a fence next to the upper falls

And, there was also historical significance. This site was where the first Americans settled on Puget Sound (the Brits were here before) in 1845... as we learned from this plaque (click to enlarge so you can read it):

There's even more history here. The buildings on the other side of the river from the restaurant are the site of the original Olympia Brewing Company, famous for its water (and the slogan that I appropriated for my post title)...

it does look like water that would make great beer, doesn't it?

I remember in my youth being told that Olympia (along with Coors, which you could only buy in Colorado in those days) was a really first class brew. And we were  right where the picture for the original label was set, as this informational sign told us:

The brewery's somewhere else now, but the water, and the falls, are still here and still first class in the scenery department...

A beautiful spot to use as a farewell to this fantastic part of our country. But we'll be back!

Winter water[falls]

We had a great Sunday paddle on the upper Guadalupe a couple of weeks ago. The company was great, and the water was clear and flowing at just about a perfect level.

There was even enough water to allow a couple of waterfalls to actually sport falling water! The first one we saw was on the paddle itself—the Travertine falls shown above. We have been past it before when it was dry as a bone, but not this time.

a closer look

The few little rapids along this stretch were fun at this level, too.

our visitor from the Great Northwest in mid-maneuver

And the water itself was gloriously clear. Which unfortunately you can't really tell from my pictures, since the bright sun bounces around on the surface too much...

...but you can take my word for it...

And of course the usual fabulous winter scenery of rocks and bare tree bones were very much in evidence...

did we have great weather, or what?!

Of course, you always have to be aware that the river's not always this congenial. Take a look at the picnic table (in the red box) here in a less-than-ideal position for fun picnicing...

We took out at Edge Falls Road, where we've started many a trip. Here's the little rapid just downstream from this bridge:

And since we had a little extra time before we needed to get home and ready for Downton Abbey, we thought we'd see if we could find the eponymous Edge Falls.

This is what we came upon...isn't it a gorgeous little spot?!

The main creek is Curry Creek, but there was so much moisture that water was feeding into the falls from several different little streams. 

It was enough water to fill the pool at its base to what looked like almost swimming-hole depth...

We spent some time here just enjoying this super-scenic falls, knowing that we were lucky to see it running so well.

Cool as this spot is, however, some research on Google Earth later (how did we know where anything was before this marvelous invention?!) showed us that it's not really Edge Falls. That is further downstream, away from the road and on private property, but a much larger falls with a much larger pool.

It's probably just out of sight around that last bend in the downstream shot above. 

Well, maybe someday we'll get to see the real thing!

Roaring rivers, Part 2b: Glacier's Pacific drainage

It's hard to say what we enjoyed second-most about our visit to Glacier National Park (second, of course, to our magical hours at Many Glacier). But one of the activities that would be right up near the top was our hike to Avalanche Lake.

Avalanche Lake, with accompanying waterfalls

The trail follows Avalanche Creek up to the lake and, stupendous as the Lake scenery is, the Creek's is just as good...

(Don't worry, I'll show you some more views of the Lake in its fabulous setting later, in a special post highlighting all the lovely lakes we saw on the trip.) I'm sure the stream and the woods through which it winds would be lovely in any season, but I was so glad to get to see it this swollen with runoff...what gorgeous water!

In the few patches where the water slows down enough, even the rocks on the bottom are beautiful...

On the way up the trail, I didn't take the time to explore the Creek overlooks sufficiently, but on the way back down I did. There's this really amazing gorge about half-way down that defies words, and even pictures, to describe how wonderful it is. A video might help, and I uploaded this one to YouTube.

Still, being there is the best option! Here are some more photos of this great stretch of water...

heading into the gorge

is it water...or whipped cream?

end of the gorge

along the Creek

No surprise that the trail along this creek was really crowded. In addition to the scenery, it was as far as you could go on Going-to-the-Sun Highway from the west entrance.

Speaking of crowds, I have to share the results of a little non-scientific experiment I undertook on the trip. I thought I'd make notes of all the states' license plates that I saw at Yellowstone and at Glacier, and see

which had more. Rather surprisingly, Glacier won by a comfortable margin! In addition to 36 states, there were 3 Canadian provinces represented, while Yellowstone only had 26 states. (Although, in the interests of full disclosure, we didn't visit two of Yellowstone's most famous attractions, Old Faithful and Norris Geyser Basin; it's quite possible I'd have picked up a few more states there.)

The Vermont vehicle on the right was the only New England plate we saw at either location. This—I'll take a wild guess and say—hippie was parked at the bakery in Polebridge.

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Back to roaring rivers, the other roaring stream we saw at the start of its journey to the Pacific was McDonald Creek, which flows into Lake McDonald, just inside the west entrance to the Park.

Here's the way its falls looks from the road, which is how we first glimpsed it...

Certainly impressive, but we thought it would be neat to see it closer up. And a rather serendipitous trail discovery allowed us to do just that.

Here's the top, middle, and bottom of the falls from about as close as you'd want to get...

more whipped cream water!

I uploaded a video of the falls here, if you want to see (and hear) it in action.

Looking upstream from the bridge at the trailhead (perhaps a half mile away?) it doesn't look like that much, does it?

But you wouldn't want to be swept over these falls at this water level. Just upstream from the falls, here are the rapids you'd encounter, which don't look like (to me anyway) that much fun, either...

However, it settles down considerably, in a relatively short distance, before it finds the placid lake...

This shot was taken looking downstream from the same bridge as the look back up at the falls.

There are plenty of other fine rivers on the west side of the Park, but I didn't get pictures of the North Fork of the Flathead (where we were driving when we had our wildlife encounter), or any of the other forks, either. But I think these two incredibly scenic streams were enough!