POSTCARDS FROM COLORADO JUNE 20, 2005

Note: Click Here for a Photo Gallery of Eileen's Photos in Colorado.

Today was a gusher of a day symbolically and literally. I popped up at 5 a.m. (my pineal gland is super sensitive to light so I'm more like a chicken in that respect, haha--roosters crow a dawn and I hop out of bed....). By 5:30 a.m., Dave and I were on the road. We went to a breakfast/lunch restaurant in Steamboat Springs. Good hot coffee and a good waitress. At 6:00 a.m., there were a few locals in there having breakfast, too. I knew we were going on a long hike into unknown mountain territory, so I tanked up on a breakfast of corned beef hash, eggs and toast. I never eat breakfast, but I had a feeling this was going to be a tough climb. I'm glad I did!

We arrived at Fish Creek Falls parking lot. As we emerged from our car, surrounded by evergreen clad mountains and a pale blue, sunless sky, we could hear the distinct roar to the Fish Creek lower falls. It was only a quarter mile walk up a nice concrete path to the 270 foot long falls. WOW! It was awe inspiring. And no one around except us at 6:40 in the morning. Nothing but the sounds of Nature surrounding us and this roaring, tumbling water fall that can easily compete with any other well known waterfalls in the USA.

I got photos of Serviceberry, Chokecherry and other bushes that have berries that bears love to eat. They were all white flowers which was interesting to me. We went back down after taking some great shots of the falls and found trail #1102. This drops dow to the base of the falls and crosses a footbridge and then steeply (and I mean steep) switch backs up the canyon. This trail climbs to the Upper Fish Creek Falls and continues onto long adventures to Long Lake at 9800 feet. We wanted to get to at least the Upper Falls. The path was wide but granite rocks sticking up all over the place. I'm so glad I bought my Swiss knapsack and Swiss hiking sticks with titanium points. I needed both! The path moved back and forth among the pines and brush like a sidewinder. The earth smelled sweet, moist and alive. A Blue jay hackled at us and a chipmunk scurried in front of us. I was in no hurry up this ever escalating trail because I was looking for wildflowers that I hadn't shot yet. I found a lot of what I term UNID (unidentified flower) which means I will have to go home to my one-thousand book library and try to identify them. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes I don't.

Now, from the lower falls to long lake is 5.5 miles. Doesn't sound like much until you realize it's a 2,500 foot climb always upward. Some parts of the trail are wide and hard dirt. But many other parts are rocky, partly rock or you are literally, at 8,000 feet, traversing over striped white, brown and black granite. There was a twelve inch ledge we had to negotiate as well, to get to the upper falls.

Morning around here is the time to hike from a temperature perspective as well as NO PEOPLE are on them at 7:00 a.m. They're still sleeping. We had the world to ourselves. As we continued ever upward, Fish Creek, which is as wide as a river and roaring nonstop just like Mad Creek had yesterday, was our dawn symphony. I was hoping against hope I would find an orchid today. Orchids only grow in seeps (water moving down beneath a hill or on top of it--very muddy, moist area), around river banks, ditches, or lakes. I knew we were going high enough: 8,800 feet, to potentially find some. And there were lots of little ditches and streams of water. At every one, we stopped and looked--with no success.

I also noticed a lot of spent Glacier Lilies. They resemble a tiger lily in that they have reflex petals, but they are a bright, sunny yellow in color. And they are very hard to find. I found lots of stems full of seeds on wilting thick leaves, but they were all past flower. I hoped as we climbed higher, I might get lucky.

With all the berry plants around I thought that this area must have a very big bear population. We found out later from a local hiker that if you go in around 5 a.m. in the morning, you might meet one on the trail! No thank you; I've had my bear confrontations in the Sequoia National Forest years ago and did not wish to repeat them here. So, by 7:00 a.m., bears are sleeping and nowhere to be found, thank goodness. I didn't mind seeing a moose; that was exciting. But a bear? Forget it!

On my pedometer that I wear, we had already walked 2.23 miles to the top of the lower Fish Creek waterfall. There, the sun came up and at the top before the water plunges downward, there's a lot of spray. As the sun peeked over the mountain behind us, it hit that spray and created a rainbow of colors! Wow! I snapped about 40 shots, hoping to catch ONE photo that would show it. I haven't seen them yet, so I don't know, but I've got my fingers crossed. To be standing there beside that roaring cataract and to have the sun silently send her fingers through that spray and watch the creation of rainbow colors was simply breathtaking. What a way to start our hike up to the Upper Falls!

We climbed steadily. We went through a wondrous grove of white barked aspen, their heart shaped leaves dancing silently around us. It looked like a forrest of white soldiers standing at attention. It was beautiful and the bark on the trees had all kinds of black designs in them. You could look at some and see a diamond shape, or a snake, or a flower blooming. As we started up and out of the Aspens, we pulled over in the shade and ate a sandwich and drank a lot of water.

It took forty-five minutes for us to make a mile up this trail. Some of the time was due to me stopping to photograph. But the rest of it was just plain steep climbing at high altitude. You take your time. Michele Burdet, my friend in Chessiers, Switzerland, taught me the value of walking at a certain rate of speed. She also taught me how to use my priceless hiking sticks which I couldn't have done without on this hike. So, I thought a lot about her and the hours and days we spent in the Alps climbing and hiking in those beautiful, magical mountains. I wished she was here with me this morning because she would have enjoyed it immensely.

Fish Creek was always roaring on our left. We were traversing ridges above the canyon that contained the raging greenish water. This water came off the snow melt and was ice cold. Finally, we reached the bridge that crossed the creek. And then, it was another thirty minute steep climb with much more granite on the trail than before. We kept huffing and climbing. We'd rest about every ten minutes and enjoy the view from the top of the world. It was hot now at 10:00 a.m., and there were a few more people and a lot of dogs on the trail.

When we finally found the Upper Fish Creek Falls, it gobsmacked us. Imagine climbing over a smooth, striated loaf-like granite rock and looking down to see this behemoth greenish-white water cascading in a roar and with spray that you could feel three hundred feet away. Not only that, as we carefully made our way down the trail, I saw Glacier Lilies in bloom! All over the place! They were huge, healthy and beautiful because the spray from the waterfall kept them well supplied with fluid. Their yellow reflex petals danced with tiny pearls of water that held miniature rainbows within them. This place was Eden.

As we got closer to the water fall, which was very short in comparison to the other one, it more than made up with power of moving millions of gallons of water along it's sleek black granite banks. Rivulets of water ran down the gleaming ebony rocks and the spray lifted so high in the air that you instantly got body sprayed by it. Let me tell you, the cooling water droplets felt like heaven after sweating and hiking 2500 feet in a blistering sun overhead. It was manna from heaven. We just stood there, opened our arms to the waterfall's might and glory and let it soak us, cools us down and revive and refresh us all in the same moment.

And best of all, at this altitude, we had sub-alpine flowers--and there's no where else you can find them. I found purple mint plant but don't know the name of it. Mountain Pussytoes with their small white heads looking like Q-tips sticking out of green leaves. There was teeny, tiny Alpine Sandwort, a wonderful little five petal, white flower that raises its head from a matt of short tufted leaves in a colony across the granite escarpment. Short, conspicuous Oregon Grape with it's bright, beaded-like yellow flowers were here and there. And best of all, plenty of nodding Glacier Lilies to satisfy any connoisseur.

After we took dozens of photos of this incredibly powerful waterfall, we wanted to climb up above it to take some other shots. There was a seep that seemed good to look for new flowers, so we went up it instead of on the trail. Dave found Shooting Stars! Oh, my! That was the second flower of the day that had knocked my socks off. Shooting Stars are a pretty fuschia/pink color with reflex petals, too. They were very small and best of all, they were in colonies. I was down on my hands and knees in the mud and water trying to take good photos of these shy beauties. I also found some Pinedrops, which are bright red stems coming out of the dried, brown pine needles, a parasite plant, in the woods at the head of the lower falls, as well. So, for me, I found three great 'finds' in the flower world this day.

After taking photos and getting drenched one more time by that spray, we started back. Just before the bridge, I told Dave my feet hurt and I wanted to take boots/socks off and soak them in a stream to cool them down. We pulled up in the shade at a lovely little trickling stream and I did just that. This water is icy cold. I couldn't leave my grateful feet in that icy chill for more than 20 seconds. After doing that four times, my feet and me were smiling once again. I'm breaking in that new pair of hiking books, and to ask ten miles of them in a two-day period is a lot.

Dave had a can of Dr. Pepper he'd carried along in his pack and I told him to give it to me and I'd put it in this water for ten minutes and it would be chilled to perfection. Yep, that's what it did. How lovely to have a gulp of Dr. Pepper, stream cold, on a hot, sunny day.

When I looked at my pedometer, we'd put in 5.07 miles from beginning of hike up to the Upper Falls. That's a lot for amateur/oldies but goodies, like us. These trails are for young people with robust lungs, stout knees and endless, unlimited energy! But, we did it and we grinned at each other, gave a thumb's up, put on our socks and boots and we were off--only downhill this time.

I would rather hike up than down. My knees take a beating on steep, endless downhill rocks and twisted, narrow trails. I really used my hiking sticks to a great advantage to slow me, but also, to keep my rhythm reasonable. We were tired by now and I knew that the danger of injury comes going back down a steep trail like this, not up it. The noonday sun had heated up the Aspen grove and the sweet fragrance of Mother Earth wafted around us like perfume. It took us 3.5 miles to return back to where we had the car parked. All toll, we put in 8.5 miles of hiking for the day by 12:30 p.m. Not bad for a 59 and 62 year old...

At 5 p.m., we had our reservation at Harwig's for their Thai dinners and boy oh boy, was I famished. I tried not to eat a lot when we got back to the resort. I wanted to save my tummy for all that good food I knew was coming our way...

Mike, "The Wine Doctor" met us at Harwig's right at 5:00 pm. He's very excited and doing a lot of thinking about doing a book on wine for us plain folk. Because we had Thai food, he suggested a Riesling. In fact, the one he suggested was from California, which is unusual. He also said there was a good German Riesling. I said I didn't know which to try, so he came with a tray and two glasses and let me sample them! That was very nice of him. I loved the Ventana Vineyards 2003 Monterey Arroyo Seco Riesling. It has a flowery bouquet (see? Mike has me talking wine language, haha) with some 'weight' (not body as I described it) and semisweet but not too sweet. In fact, it was very similar to the Pinot Gris from Pondi's, but different. Just as delicious. So, I bought a bottle. I'll finish it off before the end of the week. I don't normally care for German Rieslings precisely because they are too sweet. And this Ventana Riesling was semidry. And I tend toward semidry, anyway. We had a wonderful meal. I ordered Profiteroles--and three of them showed up on the plate filled with three different types of ice cream: vanilla, chocolate and coffee. I ate one and we boxed the others up, rushed home and put it in the freezer. Dave and I will eat it tomorrow.

We hate to leave Harwig's. The food is sooooo good! And of course, the staff there is just five star quality. As we walked in today, the bartender greeted us, gave his name and ask for ours. These people know how to make you feel warmly welcome and it is sincere. It's a joy to eat at this place. I just wish we could transplant it to Sedona, haha. But I am going to send Mike a bottle of Echo Canyon Vineyards which is owned by John, our neighbor. I'm insisting that Mike get down to Sedona and try some of John's fine wines. And maybe, if I send him a bottle, he'll be inspired to do just that.

I splurged on some jewelry I sat at a store yesterday. But I wanted to wait 24 hours before doing anything. It was sterling silver necklace and earrings of dragonflies. Their body was set in pink, flashing crystal and they were delicate, dainty and beautiful. We had about fifteen minutes before our reservation at Harwigs, so I rushed in and bought them. They are truly gorgeous and I found out from the clerk that a 65 year old woman in the area made it. I like powerful, creative women in Menopause!

And, it is Summer Solstice, one of Mom Earth's four birthdays a year (solstices and equinoxes). I can't think of a better way to have celebrated her and given her thanks than that 8.5 mile hike into the heart of her Rocky Mountain country. I'm sure we'll sleep like logs tonight!

Warmly,
Eileen

Back To Top

Postcard: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10