I was going to make a post yesterday, but neither Jan nor I could move after we got back from our hike:) So let me start two days ago. I said we had to get off our duff and get moving, so that's what we did. We decided to put off hiking a day as there was a lot of weather coming in, so we took a nice ride. We started by going up over Wolf Creek Pass, 10,856', east of Pagosa Springs. As you start to go back down the other side there is a viewpoint at over 12,000' we like to go to.
We came back down and headed up another forest road past Big Meadow lake which is a popular fishing spot.
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| Big Meadow Lake |
We went about 20 miles or so trying to see if we could pop out on a main road far to our north, but the terrain is so rugged around here, it was impossible to get there without going straight up and straight down a cliff! We saw some beautiful wildflowers on our way to what started out as a totally private lunch stop. We were the only ones around til about half way through our picnic when 4 pickups from Texas full of parents and teenagers arrived. So much for peace and quiet.
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| Lunch |
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| Picnic |
After our interruption, we finished up and headed out looking for the path north, but nothing but a dead end. So we turned around and started back as there was a lot of lightning and thunder. We wanted to check out another road that went into a campground on the east side of Wolf Creek Ski Resort, and according to our map there was a way we could cut through and come out through the ski area and then go back to Pagosa. The campground was way too small for us, but very private and nice with several small ponds for fishing.
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| Fishing in the rain |
You can't tell in this photo, but it is raining quite hard and the lightning is popping all around us, and this guy is just happily fishing??? Well, for the second time we were stymied by our short-cut, the road through to the ski resort was gated off, so back around we went. Coming back over the pass was a good view down the valley with the weather all around.
We wanted to get back as we were all getting together to have our second meal with the leftover pulled pork and BBQ'd chicken from our 4th of July celebration, and I'll tell you what, it was as delicious the second time as it was the first time!
Yesterday, I wanted to surprise Jan with a hike. She gets a little frustrated with me as I'm not usually as gung ho as she is when it comes to the hikes. So I found a "easy" 3 mile one way hike into a waterfall about 15 miles north of Pagosa Springs, so off we went at about 7am. The scenery on the way to the trailhead was gorgeous, seeing the meadows and ranches along the way makes us think that if we ever settle down, southern Colorado is very high on the list!
Beautiful, huh? We got to the trailhead about 7:50am, and headed out on our hike. A bad sign was we headed sharply downhill for a long ways before we leveled out and then continued up and down through the forest and the meadows. It was wonderful, the fresh air spiked with the aroma of the pines, seeing a deer far below us by the creek, hearing the birds calling, and just the silence of the woods. We were the only people within miles. It was great!
Plus the views from the trail were fantastic. We would break out from between the trees and look down into meadows with bushes that were glistening from the rain the previous evening, listening to the babbling of the water in the creek whenever we meandered close to the water.
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| Looking north along the trail |
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| Across the meadow |
The trail was a bit challenging, for both of us, after all we were at 9400'! The up parts of the trail were getting a bit much, but we could see the falls off in the distance, so we persevered. Made a wrong turn as we got close and lost the trail for a few minutes, backtracked, climbed some more and we were rewarded with a showery, sheet of water cascading from about 250' above us, careening off several shelves of rock on the way down to the creek.
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| Four Mile Creek falls |
Well, we headed back, and Jan and I were discussing whether we'd see anyone else on the trail. I said maybe one or two, I didn't think a lot of people knew about the hike, she thought we'd see a bunch. Mind you it is now 11am, we'd been out about 3 hours and had the forest entirely to ourselves. Well, was I ever wrong, we passed about 30 people coming in the trail, in small groups of two or threes, and a couple huge gaggles of 10 or so. I guess it is more popular than I thought. I was so glad we started early so we could enjoy it all by ourselves! One note though, those down hill sections that I mentioned at the beginning of the hike, well they ate our lunch coming out! By the time we hit the big hills we had hiked about 5 miles, and I'll tell you we, especially me, were moving slower and slower coming up the last several inclines back to the Jeep. But it was worth it! A fantastic hike!
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| Happy to be back! |
Our disappointment? The grout that we went all over creation in Albuquerque to find, questioned Monaco on, compared in tile stores, asked tile people to confirm color before we bought IS THE WRONG COLOR! It looked good dry, looked good going on the wall, looked good as it dried, but now NO! So I guess we are going to dig it back out and try again. To colorblind me, I could probably live with it, but Jan says no, and I really have to agree with her, looks pretty half-ass right now. So I guess we still have a project!
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