Trying to Squeeze In a Few More Hikes! September 19, 2008

It’s hard to get motivated to go hiking now that most of my friends have left the Y, but I did manage to make myself get out twice more. I’m glad I did because both hikes were really worth the effort.

On August 8, I went on a hike to Black Lake in the glacier gorge area of the national park. I had been on half of this trail already to get to Loch Vail, but I chose it because I knew it would be heavily populated. To my surprise, there weren’t nearly as many people as I thought there would be. Sure, I did pass my fair share of people, but you could see that visitation in the National Park had already dropped off significantly from August to September.

The trail at 7:30 in the morning was completely fogged over, which was a first for me. It was very peaceful though, walking through the clouds early in the morning, listening to the sounds of the forest and the nearby river. Once I got to the junction to turn to Mills Lake, I realized that I had hiked above the clouds and was now basking in the morning sunshine. Only about a mile further was Mills Lake, one of the larger lakes in the park. There were a few hikers sitting on the bank relaxing, so I continued on after snapping this picture. After all, this lake was not the reason I went out hiking this morning!

After Mills Lake, the trail got tricky. Lots of stairs, lots of elevation gain. Needless to say, I was pretty tired once I reached the top. Once I ate lunch, drank some water and recovered my energy, I shot this video for you guys.

Just yesterday, September 17, I was fortunate enough to get to go hiking with MK on a Y hike! MK is the hike master I did Timber Lake with on the west side of the national park. Because there are so few guests at the YMCA now, it’s hard to get the hikes to actually “go” because you need at least 2 or 3 people to sign up. MK hadn’t lead a hike in 2 weeks, and the day before, she had one guest signed up for her Wednesday hike and needed one more. The destination: Little Yellowstone Canyon. I thought this hike would be perfect, since Jason and I decided to drive to The Grand Canyon instead of Yellowstone on the trip home from Colorado.

MK is so much fun to hike with and really knows a lot about the plants, animals and history of the area. She also has a keen eye–I almost missed my chance to take a picture of a moose, but MK caught it! Moose are definitely a benefit to hiking on the west side of the park because it’s the only place where you’ll see them.

The trail was pretty moderate and the pace very casual. When we made it to Little Yellowstone Canyon, we were a little underwhelmed. We didn’t think this could be it, so we continued on until we ran out of trail and hit the Grand Ditch. Realizing that we were at the Canyon before, we turned around, hiked back to it and had lunch. Above is a picture of me at the Canyon.

On the way back we hiked past the site of Lulu City, which was a large mining town in the 1870’s. The only remains of the town (which used to be more than 100 block in size) were two old cabins. The city sat on a beautiful river bed though and would be a nice destination hike for beginner hikers.

After Lulu City, we stopped by “marmot city”, which isn’t an actual location on the map, but that’s what MK calls it because there are always marmots on these rocks. Sure enough, we saw plenty of them! They’re so cute!! We had a lot of fun watching them play with each other and roll around in the grass.

About an hour before reaching the trailhead, the storm clouds rolled in. We were hearing thunder about every 5 minutes, and it was getting closer. MK always hikes with poles, and she noticed that I had started lagging behind her a little. She said to me, “Karin, are you getting tired? Is the pace to fast?” I replied, “No I’m just giving you and your lighting rods a head start in front of me.” We laughed, both knowing there was an element of truth to that statement. We ended the hike just at the right time because as we reached the car, it started hailing.

I only have two more days off before I leave, so I’m still going to try and squeeze in a few more hikes before I leave. I have my eye set on Lawn Lake which is a beautiful lake that flooded about 20 years ago, and Chasm Lake which sits below Longs Peak, the tallest mountain in the park.

Heeeeeere fishy fishy fishy!!!! September 18, 2008

I don’t know if anyone here remembers that Sesame Street sketch with Bert and Ernie.  The two friends are sitting out on a boat, Bert has a fishing pole and is trying to catch fish.  He turns to Ernie and says something like, “Ernie! How do you expect to catch any fish without a fishing pole?!”  And Ernie says, “I just use my special fish call.  Heeeeeeeere fishy fishy fishy!”  Whenever he does the call, a fish just jumps up into the boat.

Well, I learned on Monday that there’s a LOT more to fishing than just saying “Heeeeeeere fishy fishy fishy!”  The Sasquatch Fishing desk inside Sweet Memorial closed about three weeks ago, but this great new guy named Dan came in to provide fly fishing trips.  All the kids at the fly fishing desk before were college students and had to go back to school, but Dan is a retired helicopter pilot from Texas and loves to come to Colorado in September to fish. One day while we were chatting in Sweet Memorial, he asked me if I would like to learn how to fly fish.  Always up for trying new things, I said sure!

On Sunday evening, I went out to a private lake with him and watched him fish.  He was talking to me the entire time about technique, how to find the fish, and how to lurer them in. Monday was my day off, so we met up again and he taught me how to cast.  It’s a lot harder than it looks!  Your timing has to be perfect.  Dan was amazingly accurate with his fly rod, and after about an hour of practice on land, he took me back to the private lake to test out my new skills.

I had to put on a pair of waders, which are like waterproof overalls with waterproof sock attached to them. I asked Dan, “Do I look like a fisherman?”  “Fisher PERSON!” he corrected me.  I put on some boots and we waded out into the lake onto the sandbar.  Dan put a dry fly on my line, which means the fly floats on top of the water, rather than sinking.  I did my first few casts, and my line got tangled a few times, but Dan was patient and always helped me out.  I was having a hard time casting the line out far enough, so Dan cast a good one for me and handed me the pole.  Then, I felt a tug on the pole so I lifted it to a 45 degree angle like I had been instructed.  I reeled in my first fish, which was a rainbow trout!  I’m pictured with the fish down below.  After we got the picture, Dan took the fish off the hook and put it back in the water.  The trout didn’t move, and kinda resembled a dead gold fish floating in an aquarium.  “Uh oh!” said Dan, “I may have to revive him!”  I started to feel really bad.  I didn’t mean to KILL the fish, just catch him.  “How are you gonna do that? Mouth to mouth?”  “No, you just gotta give them a little nudge.”  He poked the fish a bit and sure enough, it swam away to the darkest part of the lake.

I wasn’t completely satisfied  with this catch because I didn’t cast the line.  I stood out in the water for another two hours, seeing fish all around me, but I couldn’t catch them!  Meanwhile, Dan had caught three really good sided brown trout.  I decided to change locations, and moved to a different sandbar a little closer to Dan.  The sun had set behind the mountains, and it was starting to get cold.  I wasn’t going to budge though until I caught a fish on my own.  I saw a ripple come up from the water–the sign that a fish is near.  I cast my line out to the ripple and VIOLA!  A perfect cast!  A moment later, I felt a tug on my line.  “Dan!! I got one!”  Dan ran over to me as I easily reeled in the fish.  I could tell as I was reeling that this wasn’t going to be an impressive catch… I had caught a 7-8 inch brook trout!   Oh well… I told Dan to hold it and I took a picture of him with my first REAL catch.

We had stayed out at the lake for so long, that we had missed dinner at the YMCA.  Dan said, “How does Pizza sound?”  He took me out to dinner, he said, to celebrate my first catch.  We went to Poppy’s Pizza, the same place I went with Mom and Dad for my birthday.  At dinner, he told me about his days as a helicopter pilot, his travels around the world, his world records in fishing, and some fishing shows he shot for TNN.  He also told me a lot about his 4 daughters, who are all doing very different things, but are all very happy and successful.  He said he was never disappointed that he didn’t have any sons, but his own father was.

I really enjoyed his company, and it came at the right time, since most of my peers have gone home already.  Dan gave me a pair of polarized sun glasses (because you need to have them to see the fish under the water) a box of flies (including the one I caught my first fish with) and then the following day gave me a book about all the fly fishing lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I told him that I appreciated his kindness more than he would know, and will always remember my first fishing experience and the pro who taught me how.

I’ve never seen so many bagpipes… September 13, 2008

Last Saturday I went to downtown Estes Park with my friend Jessie to see the annual “Scottish Irish Highlands Festival Parade”.  I had been told by many of my friends that this event was a treat to see and I was lucky I was staying through September so I could see it.  Jessie and I drove to downtown Estes Park (which is really just one main street) and staked out a spot on the curb to watch the parade.  We chatted and people watched as the crowd gathered to see the parade.  We were also cracking up at the cop dressed in a kilt and riding a segway–he looked kinda ridiculous.

I ended up taking a lot of video of this parade, so I’ll just let the video speak for itself.  There were many high points though out the parade, but I think my favorite part was the different dog breeds from the British isles.  So cute!  It’s true, that I have never seen so many bagpipes in one place before!  And now I know the name of that one song in particular that they always play: “Scotland the Brave”.  Ug, that song was stuck in my head all day…

3 New Hikes to Report On September 2, 2008

I’ve decided that because I only have a month left here in Colorado, that I need to utilize every free opportunity I have to hike. On my last three days off, I have done just that. Last Sunday, I went on a lovely hike that was recommended to me by Keith, one of the volunteers in Sweet. This trail is called the Fern-Odessa loop, the trail that my residence was named after. I got to do this hike with one of my good friends from Minnesota, Caroline.

We started around 7 because Caroline had to work that afternoon. The trail was 9 miles total, but only the first three were uphill. This was a very engaging hike because there were just so many points of interest along the trail. We hit on this hike Lake Helene, Odessa Lake, Fern Lake, Marguerite Falls, Fern Falls, and The Pool, all in just 9 miles. This hike was also fun because we didn’t have to backtrack at all. We started at Bear Lake Trailhead–the same place I started the 18 mile traverse hike–and ended at the Fern Lake Trailhead. The reason we were able to do this is because the National Park has a hiker shuttle. Once we finished at the Fern Lake Trailhead, we just hopped onto the shuttle and rode back to our car at the Bear Lake Trailhead. This was by far one of the prettiest hikes I have been on thus far.

Because it was Caroline’s last week in the Rockies, she too had caught the hiking bug. The very next day, we decided to hike the oldest trail in the park, appropriately named the Ute trail after the Native American tribe of the same name. The plaque at the start of the trail on top of Trail Ridge Road reads as follows:

Several cultures have passed this way. Prehistoric people hunted elk, deer, and bighorn sheep in this area. Thousands of years later, Ute and Arapaho Indians walked this ridge in moccasins while journeying between their summer and winter hunting grounds. Trail Ridge is named for the narrow footpaths they left. Indian trails like this led trappers and prospectors across the Rockies in the 1800’s. In 1933, motorists driving along newly completed Trail Ridge Road crossed over this path. Today hikers can still walk along this historic Ute Trail. Take a few minutes to follow the footsteps of those who came before you.

We figured this trail would be cake–all downhill, and only 6.5 miles. The first 2 miles of the trail were the best. We were above tree line, and had spectacular views of the park from all directions. The alpine tundra is a very delicate and marvelous ecosystem, so we made sure to stay on the trail in order to protect it. After the first two miles however, the trail got rough. Besides being the oldest trail in the park, I’d have to say it is also the least maintained trail in the park. It was a very steep decent on loose rocks and gravel. Both Caroline and I wiped out a couple times. This part of the hike slowed us down significantly, and we were even worried we may not get back to the YMCA in time for Caroline to go to work. We were both in pretty bad moods, and the unusually hot sun wasn’t helping matters. The final 1.5 miles of the trail flattened out as we entered Beaver Meadows. We picked up the pace and made it back to the car, exhausted and happy it was over.

Reflecting back on this hike, I guess it was a good thing that Caroline and I did it, because then we could share our experiences with other hikers. My next day in at work, coincidentally, I had two different guests ask about the trail and I was able to give them my honest opinion: “You’re better off walking the two miles out on the alpine tundra, then backtracking to your car. That’s the best part of the hike, and the rest isn’t worth it.” Keith, who had recommended the Fern-Odessa loop, had also been considering doing the Ute Trail. Our experience however encouraged him to pursue another hike.

Just today I did a solo hike to Estes Cone in the Long’s Peak area. I wanted to do this hike for two reasons. First, I hadn’t hiked in the Long’s Peak area yet, and secondly, I also wanted to see the Eugenia Mine which was on the way up Estes Cone. Well, the mine was a disappointment. Not just to me, but to the miners who dug it centuries ago. It was pretty much just a bunch of boards over an old hole with a sign next to it that said Eugenia Mine, at the turn of the century, produced more dreams than gold.

I had heard from others who had done this trail that the last part is extremely steep, and boy were they right! You can see in the video below just how steep it actually was. How did the hike go? Watch the video to find out.

So, didn’t make it all the way, but I think it was the right decision to turn back. In fact, right after I shot that video, a group of 6 hikers were coming down the mountain. I asked them how it looked up there and they said “The clouds are coming in from the west, and they don’t look good. That’s why we’re coming down.” I guess hiking with hikemasters has really paid off! For a frame of reference, here’s a picture of my car in the parking lot, and Estes Cone in the distance. Also, note the ugly clouds looming above the mountain.