Vacation-within-a-vacation teasers

Back "home" in Colorado following a wonderful week...somewhere else! Want to guess where?

I'll come back and add the tags next time I have internet to post. Considering I took over 900 pictures (!) on this little vacation-within-a-vacation, I'll be posting about it for some time to come!

A happenin' town

Yes, Salida, Colorado, is a great little town, as readers of this blog are well aware. No matter what time of year we visit, there always seems to be something interesting going on.

Of course, one of those things is the Arkansas River, which runs right through town and isn't just a stream that we like. People come from all over the country, and likely the world, to experience its whitewater.

During our last visit, it being springtime in the mountains, a good bit of the snow that we ran into on our high country hike had found its way into the Arkansas and it was flowing at a nice clip. Plenty of water for our cataraft, that needed its Chama mud washed away...

doesn't this boat look a little familiar?

So we joined some local paddling friends for a quick jaunt from just upstream of town to just downstream of it.

No Chama winds for Henry this time, which made him quite happy at his oars...

love those mountains in the background!!

Our route took us through a chute that's been made around a little dam. We've gone over it before, in another raft and in kayaks. But this was the maiden chute voyage for the cataraft. Here's a look back upstream at the dam and the chute, on the right:

We were in the Amen Battlestar, but our friends chose considerably smaller and more maneuverable craft. Guiding these tippy little things down the river apparently has great appeal for many paddlers. (Me, I'm happy to be on our solid, stodgy cataraft.) Here's one of our friends demonstrating what the playboats can do, in expert hands:

Even more expert hands guide competitive boats down this course a bit further downstream, right in the middle of bustling downtown Salida:

see the hanging poles marking the gates? just like in the Olympics!

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But Salida has more to offer than just world-class whitewater. It has its own pro sports team! Pretty impressive for a town of just over 5000 people.

Yes, these are the ArkValley (for the aforementioned river) High Rollers! And what a show they put on! In the photo above they're the gals in white shirts, battling a team from Utah. The sport is flat track roller derby and it is amazingly entertaining and fun to watch. Pretty physical, too, as you might gather from the number of officials required to police the match (guys and girls in the familiar striped shirts).

We were treated to a particularly exciting match. In fact, there had to be an official confab after time ran out to verify the score, it was that close...but the good girls in white shirts were given the victory, to the delight of their many fans in attendance.

Can't wait to go to another game!

Which provides me with a great segue. As you read this I'm back in Colorado. But my next post might surprise you. It won't happen for a week or two, but hopefully will be worth the wait. Stay tuned!

Free on the big screen

Yes, I mean the really big screen!

Although we do have a TV at our place in Colorado, sometimes I wonder why....when there's free entertainment like this on offer everywhere you look.

This trip—at yet another new time of the year for us—I was particularly enchanted by the variety of greens carpeting the mountainsides. The new leaves on the aspens are an unbelievably bright emerald, while the deeper colors of the conifers seem to take on a new glow in comparison. (And we're lucky that—knock wood (so to speak)—the pine beetle scourge hasn't made big inroads into our valley yet.)

I know that photos can't really capture the magic of these colors (at least not my photos with my camera). But I couldn't stop taking them, all the same. This is just a sample:

Such scenes make the inconvenience of the "mud season" definitely easier to bear, and more of a draw than I'd anticipated.

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And if the trees aren't enough, we were treated to some really great cloud/mountain composites. Like the shot of Mt. Shavano and Mt. Taylor at the top of the post.

One evening on the way home from town, the clouds and mountains decided to completely outdo themselves for us...

the highest peak you see is Shavano (14,229'), that Henry and Sally have climbed

Isn't that breathtaking? We pulled over and took a couple of dozen photos, and even when the low clouds had somewhat dispersed, it was still an amazing sight:

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Gee, I sure wish I could be back there again. Oh, wait, I'm going to be! By the time you're reading this I'll be back in the mountains, for a longer stay this time.

However, I still have some activities from our earlier jam-packed week to tell you about. So since this upcoming visit promises to be more relaxing, I will hopefully have time to catch up.

Wordless Wednesday: we support the ArkValley High Rollers!

High country views

Here are the promised scenic photos, taken during our strenuous, and memorable, hike through the snow on the Boss/Hunt Lake Trail.

Mt. Clover, an almost-13-er that I actually climbed once (when much younger)

distinctively-shaped and easy to spot Mt. Aetna, 13,743', which I have never climbed

clouds starting to give way...thanks! we don't need any more snow!

my only shot looking out toward the valley and Salida

so many fabulous trees!

Continental Divide above Hunt Lake...obviously a zoom shot

photogenic ridge above Boss lake

Boss Lake

As I confessed before, I did not make it all the way to Hunt Lake, which, lovely as Boss Lake is, really outdoes it in the scenic department.

But, fortunately for my readers, Henry did get up there, and took this picture (among a few others, that he may someday put in his blog).

At over 11,000 feet, it's not surprising how much snow is still in evidence. The lake itself was even still part frozen! Henry's boots were soaked by the time he got back to my relatively dry spot in the woods, since he did a good bit of tromping around the lake. But I'm glad he did, so I could show you what a beautiful high country spring scene this is.

Spring hiking conditions

After our Rio Chama float trip, we weren't quite ready to head back to the heat of San Antonio. So we decided to drive up to Monarch, do some chores around the Mountain Deck, and stay cool for a few more days.

We did do some work, but we also had fun. One excursion involved an extremely exciting drive up what could laughingly be called a road, followed by a nice summery hike in the woods.

Which turned out to be not quite as summery as we expected, although it certainly was nice.

In my next post I'll show you some of the scenery on offer during the hike, but today let me just tell you about the adventurous part.

This picture of our road was taken soon after we began our drive, on the section we later called the "freeway." The narrowness you see here persisted as the road climbed, augmented by hellacious boulders and ruts. Our conveyance was the magnificent Beast, which I've written about before. We sincerely don't think we'd have made it as far up the road as we did in any other vehicle.

Our goal was to drive [or lumber] to Boss Lake, and then hike from there up to the next lake. The higher lake is Hunt Lake, a lovely area where we've backpacked/camped often in years past.

However, the road was just too much. (Probably not too much for the Beast, but too much for Henry!) So we stopped at one of the very few turnout spots and got ready to hike.

Just in time for a rather impressive snow/sleet/hail event. There was even thunder! Perhaps at that point we should have reconsidered our plan...as it looks like Henry is doing here:

note snow/hail starting to pile up on the wiper blades...it got higher!

But instead we just waited out the squall, bundled up as best we could, and headed out.

It wasn't really too cold, although we had to keep looking up at the cloudy skies rather apprehensively, wondering if another storm might be in our future. 

When we got close to Boss Lake, the trail occasionally started looking like this:

Our first thoughts about this: Alright! Snow! People back home would be so jealous!

Past the lake, not surprisingly, there was more and more and more snow! When you gain elevation, this is what happens. Which we knew, but we really wanted to get to Hunt Lake...

this was a particularly bad section

Needless to say, our initial glee at seeing so much snow ebbed pretty quickly. So how do you hike in these conditions? How do you even follow the trail?

Well, fortunately, another intrepid adventurer had blazed a trail for us. We met him on his way down while we were parking the Beast. So there were footprints...not only useful as trail markers but also as places to step. Very precisely. To avoid, as much as possible, snow entering the boots.

We trusted these footprints, since we figured that only a local would be up here by himself in the morning, hiking. So he probably knew where he was going.

However, unfortunately the prints eventually gave out. Our intrepid benefactor must not have been as keen to get to Hunt Lake as we were.

Or, should I say, as Henry was. Because finally I decided, after seeing the snow getting deeper and deeper, and not seeing any more of our friend's prints, to let discretion be the better part of valor and call my hike to a halt.

here's where I stopped

It was a pretty little glade and I amused myself while there taking snaps of photogenic rocks and trees in the snow...

...as well as also spending some time finding the best living tree to shelter under when we had yet another snow/sleet event. Fortunately, not as lengthy as the one while we were in the car. 

Eventually the sun even came out, which was quite welcome. I had almost come to the point of taking my last layer out of my pack to put on. But it's always best to leave that last layer until the bitter end of an outdoor excursion in the Rockies, just in case it gets really cold. And I was happy that I didn't ever get to that point.

Not too long before I was going to give up on him and start back on my own, Henry made his appearance:

notice the sunlight!

In the picture above, he was lucky enough to be able to walk on top of the drift, at least for a while. Believe me, this is much preferable to the sinking-to-your-[bare]-knees-and-pulling-them-back-out method.

Whew! What a workout! But it was really fun, we weren't ever really in any danger of getting lost or frostbitten, and the scenery was wonderful.

Here's a preview of the scenic shots I'll show you next time:

A side trip

Our second day on the Chama was punctuated by an off-river adventure. (You might have gotten a clue as to the nature of this side trip from Wednesday's post.)

Henry had always, on his previous Chama excursions, wanted to climb this handsome mountain, tantalizingly close to the river:

It's called Navajo Peak, even though there's not much peak-ish-ness about its appearance—mesa or butte would seem more appropriate, and you'll see how appropriate in a minute. (BTW, Wikipedia let me down, uncharacteristically, and I couldn't find much internet info (like elevation, etc.) about this feature, other than a couple of mentions in trail guides. So, sorry for the lack of informative links here.)

We scheduled a break in the paddling for the hike on this trip. Although, not surprisingly, the amount of time scheduled was woefully inadequate!

It was relatively easy to find the trail from our beaching location, on a shoal where Cebollo Creek enters the Chama. You can see this confluence in the picture above.

And though it involved a bit of climbing, we soon were making real progress in our ascent above the river. Here's a picture looking back to where we'd left our boats (the red line points to the boats, which you probably can't see even if you click to view a larger version of the photo):

For the most part the trail itself wasn't particularly scenic, winding through scrubby vegetation as it looped around the butte-like object, gradually taking us higher and higher. But as we got toward the top there were more photo-opps close at hand (the scenic vistas being constantly on offer!). Here's a glance up toward the summit...

...here are Scott and Tom, kindly providing scale for a shot of this impressive cliff that the trail skirted...

...and here's a look back at this handsome cliff, from further up the trail...

Since I had, all along the trail, reserved my right to turn back if the going got too tough, hot, or exciting, I was very pleased to make it all the way to the top. And without getting completely exhausted (that was saved for the journey down!).

And, boy, were the views worth the work!

looking toward our eventual destination downstream

can't take too many rock-and-tree pictures!

more rocks

the view back the way we came

It was obvious as soon as we got to the top that we weren't on any peak. A large flat area like this, resembling nothing so much as a fine park, is the top of a butte or mesa, imho.

but what a great backpacking destination and campsite!

What we didn't think about right away while enjoying this lovely area, was that the absence of a peak meant it might be rather difficult to find our way down from it. Especially when some of us (no names named, although it shouldn't be hard to guess) thought it would be much nicer to hike back to the boats in a loop

instead of just re-tracing our steps. (Although, in all fairness, it's often harder to descend a mountain than to ascend it...just ask Mallory and Irvine.)

Also, to be fair, the trail up had been very well marked, with plenty of easily identifiable cairns. (I took a picture of one on the right to showcase its lovely rocks.) So we had no reason to believe that the way down wouldn't be just as easy to find. However, the cairn-makers apparently didn't believe in the loop theory.

Long story short is that it was not easy to find the way down, especially after a good bit of wandering around and trying to follow dry watercourses that led to cliffs. After quite a bit of animated debate/friendly discussion, we were fortunate enough to find the original trail and just gave up on our loop.

So we eventually made it back to our boats, which, we were happy to see, hadn't exploded due to the air in the tubes over-expanding in the heat (this concern, which applied to our cataraft and Gary's canoe only, had been an occasional topic of conversation during the hike).

All hikes with Henry are adventures, and this one proved no different on that score. But we all agreed it was worth the time and effort. Plus we were planning on a rest day the next day, so it helped to be able to tell sore muscles that was coming.

This finishes up my Rio Chama tales for this year. But we had more adventures in store before returning to home and hearth. I'll tell you about an even more adventuresome hike in my next post.