‘Come and See’

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I watched a very powerful movie last night. ‘Come and See’ is about a 14 year old boy who joins the partisans to fight the Nazis in Byelorussia in 1943. I’d never heard of it. Genae found it in a magazine article listing eight great movies you can only stand to see once.

It was made in the Soviet Union in 1985. About two and a half hours long, in Russian with English subtitles.

You can only stand to see it once because it is ruthless in its depiction of brutality. Nothing good happened in that part of the world in 1943, and nothing good happens in this movie. The centerpiece of the film is the burning of a village and everyone who lived there. Not exactly a happy movie.

I really liked the way it was put together. It seemed like the vast majority of the film was made of very long shots with interesting camera movement. Shot after shot, thirty seconds long, forty five seconds long. In one scene, the camera sneaks up on a man, sprinting through open spaces then stopping to peer around a corner, then sprinting to peer around another corner. In a shot near the end of the movie, the camera moves with a column of marching men, then diverts through thick trees and regains the road and the men. Alongside the road we see snow on the ground but at the beginning of the shot it was still summer. A creative way to indicate the passing of time.

Reading subtitles wasn’t an ordeal. Long sections of the movie have no dialog. At one point our protagonist is shelled, deafened by the near miss. We hear his ears ring, all sounds muffled. A hollywood movie would have the ringing stop witin a minute. Here it goes on for quite a while, gradually lessening. Another recurring sound was the drone of aircraft engines. Sometimes we heard it long before seeing the plane.

I forget most of the movies on the list Genae found. One was ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Straw Dogs’ was on it too. ‘Schindler’s List’ was pretty dark, but it tells the story of how people were saved. At the end of ‘Straw Dogs’ the ordeal is over. But in ‘Come and See’ nobody is saved. When the movie is over, it’s still 1943 and the ordeal still has years to play out.

Quite the powerful movie. I’m glad I watched it, but it’s hard to recommend.

PPIR

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I spent Saturday at the track, my first visit to Pikes Peak International Raceway.

The track was built in 1997. Before that, it was horse race track. They ran IRL and Busch series races there before it was shut down a while back. It was closed for three years before it was sold. Some NASCAR testing is done here, along with club racing. There’s a deed restriction that prohibits them from hosting any major racing series. CECA has a day there every year.

When it was built, it was one of the fastest 1 mile ovals in the world. Seems counter intuitive to me, as the elevation (5,360′) means lower horsepower. It’s a D-shaped oval, with a short road course in the infield. The road course is 1.3 miles long, which includes about three quarters of the speedway.

I wanted to do this one last year, but things didn’t work out. In the mean time, I’ve talked to a few people who’ve run there to get their impressions. Reviews were mixed – one guy said it was his favorite track while another wasn’t very impressed. I was looking forward to forming my own opinion.

I left the house promptly at six and collected Judd at his place forty minutes later. He didn’t sign up to run but wanted to come out to watch and get a ride or two. Turns out, he didn’t bring his helmet or much to eat, either.

The forecast for Denver was 60 degrees and mostly sunny. I didn’t think to check the forecast for Colorado Springs, but expected it to be much the same. We were past Castle Rock before sunrise. Not far south of there it was foggy, which cleared up before Monument Hill. We stopped in Fountain where I gassed up (car and can) and Judd got coffee. Here he told me my left turn signal wasn’t working.

We were at the track in plenty of time to get the inspection signed off and head to the drivers meeting. We used the south garage. I forget what the car count was, but the garage accommodates 36 cars and we didn’t quite fill it up. When we got there, a very pretty yellow Ferrari 458 cabrio was in the garage, but he moved it outside before the meeting. It wasn’t running today, sadly. After the inspector stickered my car, they asked Judd if he was ready. He told them he was just spectating, but it didn’t take much convincing to get him to fork over the entry fee and join the fun.

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In the garage

I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but we had four Elises, a bunch (herd? stable?) of Mustangs, three Miatas, a Mini or two, two BMWs (an M Coupe and 5M), a ZR1, a Viper, a few Porsches, a Pantera, an Acura NSX, a BRZ and an FR-S. The M Coupe owner keeps a set of slicks at the track and Alan runs his Viper on R6’s to and from the track but other than those two I don’t recall anybody else running slicks. Judd and I were on the same tires, his not much older than my rears. But my fronts are pretty much shot, with something like 15,000 miles on them.

Eric, Judd, and I were all parked together, near the south end of the garage. Eric ran in the red group, I was in the blue, and Judd started blue and switched to red. I had both my helmets with me. As I said earlier, Judd wasn’t planning on driving and although he intended to get a ride, forgot his hat. I said he could borrow mine. Then Kenny showed up with a friend, so we had Judd switch groups so I could take a passenger.

As there weren’t that many cars, the stewards decided that after the first session for each group, they’d combine green and blue. Blue was first out while green had their ground school. We were on track shortly after nine. It was mostly cloudy with temperatures in the mid thirty’s and fairly breezy.

From the paddock, we turn left onto pit lane. Pit out stays on the infield all the way around turns 1 and 2 and joins the track on the back straight. Before speedway turn 3, the road course makes a left onto the infield. At turn 9, the infield course ends and you go onto the 10 degree banking of the speedway, through turns 1 and 2 and onto the back straight again.

Frankly, the speedway frightened me a little. At HPR if you make a mistake and go off, or have a mechanical failure and go off, you really have to mess up to do anything more than get your car dirty. At Pueblo there’s only one place where there’s a wall anywhere close to the track. At the CSP facility you don’t want to go off because if you hit a big rock you’ll damage your car.

But on the speedway, there’s no run-off – the track goes right up to the wall. There are a number of lurid skid marks, each terminating with a nasty mark on the wall. Low in turn 2 there are some bumps. Here, if you mess up, or have something break, you hit the wall and the car’s not damaged: it’s destroyed.

So I took it pretty gingerly on the speedway. Particularly with my front tires being not so great right now. I did try a few different lines through there. We were only allowed to pass on the front and back straights of the speedway, so if I caught somebody on the infield, they’d go high and wave me past on the inside. And if I didn’t pass somebody there, I’d get set up so that if they were paying attention I’d be ready to pass before getting back to the infield. People seemed reluctant to wave me by on the back straight, and when I was working a corner I didn’t see any passing there at all. So I guess I was fortunate to be able to pass there the two or three times I did.

In the first session, I logged ten timed laps and managed a 1:13.8. On the speedway section, I was hitting the low 90s on the front and back straights, and high 70s in the turn. I ran four sessions with the other three being 24, 19, and 23 laps. By the end of the day, I managed to hit 100 on the back straight. I was only a mile or two an hour faster on the front straight and the turn but was braking a bit later. I bettered my time each session, getting a 1:12.5 in the last.

We ate our lunches in the room we held the drivers meeting. I chatted with Kenny and his friend (Josh?). Then they announced the parade laps so we headed back out. I had Josh ride for the parade laps and Kenny would get to ride the next session. The parade laps were led by the 458. Behind him was a black Porsche, and Josh and I were third. We never went more than 60, and I’m pretty sure I did every lap without hitting the brakes. Josh seemed to enjoy it, though, so it’s all good.

Kenny was a passenger for the third session. Not on purpose, we were first in line. I normally go to these thinking I’ll be the slowest car in my session. I don’t think this has ever been true, but in the first session I don’t think I passed anybody and only remember passing a few cars in the second session. So I was thinking I’d be getting passed before long.

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View from corner position in turn 9

We ran the out lap, then four timed laps in “clean air”. Then we started catching people. We passed Miatas, Porsches, and Mustangs. We passed the Pantera. It was great fun. Kenny noticed how much later I could brake than just about everybody we caught up to. Part of that, surely, is that many of the drivers had never driven on a race track before and had no real idea how late they could brake. We were only passed by the M5 and the BRZ (or was it the FR-S?).

The video is from my fourth session. It’s not my fastest lap, that happened two laps later. This lap was 1.1 seconds slower due to traffic, but at least you get to see something other than my boot lid. By this time, the faster cars had either left for the day or moved to the red session, leaving me the fastest car on the track.

It was a fun day. I enjoyed running on a new track. The facility was nice. But I’m not sure how often I’ll come back here. Of the four tracks I’ve driven on, this one is my least favorite.

“Rush”

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Saturday afternoon, after we returned from Estes Park, we headed down to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to see Ron Howard’s new movie “Rush”.

Scan10027sThis particular screening was put on as a fund raiser for Auto-Archives. The original plan was that this screening would be the first showing after the premieres in London and LA. That didn’t work out, but so it goes. The event was sponsored by Ferrari of Denver and about a dozen other firms and was attended mostly by car club members. The theater seats 200 people and fully a quarter of those in attendance were Lotus Colorado members.

A side note here. I’m on the mailing list for Circuit of the Americas, the track in Austin, TX where F1 now holds events. I received an email about a week ago from COTA inviting me to a “Rush” premiere event which they are sponsoring at the Alamo Drafthouse. I had to look closely – this was for an event at the theater in Austin.

The evening started off with a little car show. Most of the close in parking was roped off for the car clubs. I didn’t count, but my impression was that we had more Lotus Elises than Ferraris of all models. We also had the usual assortment of Elans, Esprits, Evoras, and Caterhams. There were several models of Ferrari and a smattering of other notable cars including a Mercedes McLaren and an Excalibur. Also, in the lobby, a club member brought his Formula B Lotus 69 for display along with a bunch of other memorabilia from Auto-Archives.

We hadn’t been to the Alamo Drafthouse before. This is a chain of movie theaters that serve dinners during the movies. I was expecting a single screen facility for this but it turns out it’s a multiplex. We were in auditorium 7. For this event, we all got our choice of entree from a somewhat restricted menu and one alcoholic beverage each. We were told that this was the first time this auditorium had been sold out for a movie.

The theater is much like any other multiplex except that the rows are a bit farther apart and there are small tables attached to each pair of seats. Wait staff came through before the film started and took our orders. It took quite a while for everybody to get served; many of those around us got food before we did, but we all got served in the dark.

Rather than the usual pre-film viewing – ads and coming attractions – we were treated with a number of old car-related shorts. One was the trailer for Howard’s first movie, “Grand Theft Auto”. I’ve been saying for a while that I don’t think he’s made a bad movie. But I don’t remember seeing “Grand Theft Auto”, which looks pretty cheesy.

The food was nothing special. I had a spicy bleu cheese burger and Genae had the “Royale with Cheese”. Turns out it wasn’t so Royale and not so cheesy, either. She had asked for no mayo, no onions. She got that, but it also came with no tomato and no cheese. So it was a burger with a leaf of lettuce. Mine was better – it was constructed to specification. I always figure a burger is a risk-free item. It’s hard to serve a bad burger, but it’s also hard to serve a really good one. This was smack-dab in the middle: a mediocre burger.

Before the movie, the Alamo Drafthouse shows some rules. They’re pretty strict about talking during the film. But this was a special event, so it was announced that “this is our theater. Feel free to cheer for the good guy and boo the bad guy.” My neighbors took this to heart. They not only cheered and booed appropriately, they also talked through the entire movie. Very annoying. But I’m generally non-confrontational and didn’t tell them to STFU.

We enjoyed the movie nonetheless. I stand by my comment that Howard hasn’t made a bad movie yet. This was a fairly true retelling of the 1976 F1 season fight between Lauda and Hunt. Both actors did fine jobs with their portrayals. The action was very well done. We intend to see it again soon, in a theater with a bigger screen and better sound. (Not that the screen and sound at the Alamo were lacking, just that if we’re going to see it again so soon, we should get an “upgrade”.)

Another side note here. A number of times during the film, characters are watching TV or listening to the radio. At one point, we hear a report of the Big Thompson flood. Having just spent the day visiting Estes Park after another flood that destroyed the road through the Big Thompson canyon, it was a bit jarring.

If you’re an F1 fan, I think you’ll enjoy the movie.

Estes Park

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Today we drove to Estes Park for lunch. Yesterday I called a couple places up there and asked if they were open and if we’d be in the way if we went up there. “Please come.” So off we went. We drove Genae’s car, not knowing what sort of road damage we’d encounter.

We gassed up and reset the trip odometer and headed west on 88th. This turns into Colorado 72 and goes up Coal Creek Canyon. This road, though, is closed at least until November. We head six miles south to Golden Gate Canyon and up to Colorado 119 north of Blackhawk. Here the traffic started getting heavy. Not many RVs, but lots of side dump trucks running in both directions.

North of Nederland we started seeing evidence of rock slides almost everywhere the road makes a rocky cut. A crew was filling a dumptruck with fallen rocks where the road makes a long cut just before Allenspark. When we passed the turn for Wild Basin, I noted that we’d been driving for two and a quarter hours. In the morning, before traffic, I could probably get to the trailhead in two hours. So a hike here has as long a drive as about any west side hike.

The most dramatic flood damage we saw was at Camp St. Malo. There’s a huge pile of debris on the west side of the road. It looked like the road had been closed here at some point.

Flood debris at Camp St. Malo

Flood debris at Camp St. Malo

The road along here must have looked more like a river. Most of this section of road is narrow because it has no shoulders. The white line marking the lane really marks the edge of the asphalt. Water ran along the edge of the road, washing away big channels of earth.

Landslide on Twin Sisters

Landslide on Twin Sisters

It’s clear that an incredible amount of water fell here. There’s a large landslide on Twin Sisters. The bathtub ring in the debris at Camp St. Malo was about eight feet above the top of the rubble. And standing there, you can see a fresh scar on Meeker as well.

After Lily lake the road descends steeply. Here the water undermined the edge of the southbound lane, causing chunks of asphalt to break off, even in the stretch that was recently repaved.

I thought we’d see if we could go far enough down Fish Creek road to go by the house on Rams Horn but it was closed above Carriage Dr. In any event, it had taken over two and a half hours to get here, and we had to be back home by four at the latest so we didn’t have much time. The plan was to grab pizza over by the Safeway then see if I could get some cheese corn at the Carmel Crisp and finally grab some beer at the brewery. So we headed straight to the restaurant – Village Pizza.

I can’t recall ever seeing fewer cars in that parking lot. The place looked closed, but the sign said open so in we went. We were the only people there. Three or four other tables were seated within minutes of us. After enjoying our pizza we headed downtown. I was pleasantly surprised. You could hardly tell the place had been flooded. Plenty of available parking near the post office.

We popped into Carmel Crisp and got some white cheddar jalapeno popcorn. They’ve been there for 38 years and I’ve probably been buying cheese corn there that long. The place really hasn’t changed in my memory, except that they sometimes put another little snapshot on their wall. They have one showing damage from the Lawn Lake flood in ’82.

I asked how long they were out of commission. They said just a short while. They had to wait for their inspection sticker but had the place cleaned up in a couple of hours. They had very little water in their shop. Some time ago their neighbors remodeled and put a wall very close to their front door. Their door is angled, and this wall sort of impedes traffic flow. They went to court over it at great expense but lost. In the end, it diverted the water enough to save them some grief.

Next, pick up some beer. We head up West Riverside Drive, not seeing much damage. Different story at Fun City, though. A fair amount of debris there. After grabbing some Stinger wild honey wheat and Estes Park Gold, we continue up Riverside. I’m happy to see that things aren’t as bad as I’d feared. We didn’t driver through Manor RV but considered it. We did drive slowly to get a good look and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Up Marys Lake Road and back to 7. Traffic was pretty bad all day. We often saw strings of twenty and thirty cars in the other direction. On the way back was saw more sports cars, sometimes two or three together but nobody was even moving the speed limit. Side traffic often had long waits to cross or enter the highway.

It was more than 180 miles round trip, total elapsed time a tad over six hours but not much time spent in Estes. The roads were in good enough shape to take the Lotus but traffic sucked. But we did make it back in time. We had a date to see a movie, but that’s another post.

Colorado Good 5

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Sorry this post is a bit late, I’ve been otherwise occupied.

Saturday, September 21

LoCo’s three day fall drive included a night in Gunnison and a night in Crested Butte. The route looked interesting, but we just have too much to do to join them. Day one, though, featured Independence Pass. I haven’t been over it in the last thirty years or so and Genae has never been over it. So we figured we’d join the group for the drive to lunch in Carbondale.

We met at a gas station near Golden and headed west on I-70. The trip up I-70 to Frisco is pretty scenic as far as interstate highways go, but not exactly a “Lotus road”. We weren’t a big group yet, missing a couple of Denver folks and not yet met with the Springs group. Even so, I was second to last in the string and lost sight of the Henrys behind me. I last saw them before Georgetown and they didn’t catch up until we exited the interstate at the junction with Colorado 91. By now we had two additional cars, both orange Elises.

Fremont Pass isn’t much twistier than I-70. On the northwest side of the highway there are a couple of large tailing ponds where there once was a mountain. And near the summit you can see another mountain being erased. At its peak, the Climax mine was the largest molybdenum mine in the world, producing three-quarters of the world’s output. It was idled in 1995 but put back into production last year, yielding over twenty million pounds per year.

We made a quick stop in Leadville before continuing on to Twin Lakes to meet the Colorado Springs contingent. There we found a patrol car parked on the side of the road with a mannequin in the drivers seat. After a short break we headed up the pass.

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Rinker Peak (13,783′)

One of the objects of the drive is to see the turning of the aspen. We were a bit early, but still quite scenic.

Independence Pass tops out at 12,095′ above sea level. Twin Lakes, on the eastern end, is at 9,200′ and Aspen on the west is more like 8,000. It has a reputation for being hair-raising, and I’d say that would have been how I’d described it the first time I crossed it when I was maybe ten. At the foot of the pass, Genae said she’d compare it to Red Mountain Pass. My feeling, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I didn’t find it particularly thrilling. For Genae, Red Mountain is still the standard setter.

Summit Pano

I did enjoy the narrow parts on the western side. I’d forgotten all about those. There are three or four sections where the road isn’t wide enough for two way traffic. Cars on one side or the other have to wait for oncoming cars. I bet it’s loads of fun in a motor home.

We blasted through Aspen pretty much without stopping. Hit one red light, perhaps. The road snakes through town, right, left, right, left. At one turn, three or four kids had their phones out, getting us on video. Once through town, onto the superslab – not interstate, but damn close, down to Carbondale for lunch.

I didn’t plan the day very well. I considered making a side trip to Maroon Bells. It would mean going back to Aspen, which meant back over Independence to go home. Quite a long afternoon. Instead, we decided to come back to the area and spend a night or two, have a nice dinner in Aspen, take a short hike at Maroon Bells. Perhaps next spring.

So we headed up to Glenwood Springs and I-70 for the return to Denver. A lot more interstate driving than is ideal, but a pleasant day nonetheless. Glenwood Canyon is always interesting. It was recently repaired and all lanes are open both directions.

The Colorado Grand was finishing up in Vale. When we got there, we saw some transporters along the frontage road being loaded up with some of the cars. After Vail is the quick run up Vail Pass. I don’t remember what this one was like before the interstate went through. In any event, most cars make it up at 70 mph. Not exactly a Lotus road.

We stopped to fuel up in Silverthorne for the final blast back through the tunnel, and the run down to Denver. I’m curious what sort of fuel economy we were getting. It’s about 70 miles, which would normally be about two gallons. But the gauge still indicated nearly full. If I burned a gallon and a half, I’d be surprised. Which would mean something like 45 or 50 mpg. (And also means I probably only got 20 or 25 going the other way.)

I had the camera running from Twin Lakes to Aspen, but it’s bad. Within a few minutes of heading out, the lens fogged up. I’ve never had that happen before. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

The Passes

Fremont Pass (11,318′) CD

Named for 1856 Republican presidential nominee John Charles Fremont although he never crossed it. Two narrow gauge railroads were built over the pass in the 1880’s, the Denver and Rio Grande and the Denver and South Park. The most dramatic scenery here is the mine. Entire mountains have been erased, with one undergoing the process.

Independence Pass (12,095′) CD

The town of Independence was named for the ghost town of Independence, founded July 4, 1879. Before that, it was known as Hunters Pass. It’s the highest paved crossing of the Divide but it’s only open in summers.

Vail Pass (10.663′) CD

This pass had no particular use prior to US 6 being put there in the 1940’s. Appropriately, it’s named for Charles D. Vail, chief engineer of the Colorado Department of Highways. Now it’s I-70, pretty much just another stretch of interstate highway.

Eisenhower Tunnel (11,158′) CD

Okay, this is cheating. The tunnel is not a pass. When the project was started it was called the Straight Creek Tunnel. This is two bores, one named for Eisenhower and the other for Edwin C. Johnson, a governor and senator who advocated for the interstate to cross Colorado.

I had a plane ride seated next to the guy who built much of the tunnel’s duct work. He was about ninety and missing a couple of fingertips. Quite an interesting character.

Arrowhead Lake

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Sunday, September 8

Until now, whenever I fell short of a hiking goal the destination would get placed on next year’s list of hikes. After making a premature turn on my last hike I decided I didn’t really want to wait the better part of a year to make another stab at it. So off I headed to the south eastern corner of the Fall River Pass quadrangle, on the Mount Ida trail towards Gorge Lakes.

Again Trail Ridge Road was traffic-free and fun to drive. I stopped at Rock Cut for a quick look at my destination then headed to the trailhead. I’ve taken photos here several times and was never happy with the result. This time I got a fairly good shot, and include it here. The red line is more or less the route I took, visiting first ‘Amore Lake’, then Love Lake, and finally Arrowhead Lake.

My route, more or less

Poudre Lake was shrouded in mist and a small cadre of photographers was there snapping away. I put boots on the trail twenty minutes earlier than last time and before long passed the point of my errant turn. When the trail got near the edge overlooking what I’ll now refer to as ‘Misplaced Valley’, I wandered over for a closer look.

Not far from there I left the trail and cut across the next ridge to a point where I’d get my first real look on the gorge.

Seven lakes are visible in this photo

A more intrepid hiker than myself might descend here. I’m not a big fan of steep descents, so I continue along the ridge line. My next landmark is cleverly named Point 11819. That is, it’s an unnamed point at 11,819′ above sea level. From here, that’s about a 600′ descent. At this point I considered abandoning the ridgeline and descending straight to Love Lake. It’s not too steep for me, but I figured I didn’t want to miss visiting ‘Amore Lake’ so I continued with the original plan.

Before leaving my vantage point, however, I should have used the telephoto lens to scope out the terrain surrounding the lakes below. Perhaps I’d have seen something to aid in my progress later. I guess I was just too wowed by the scenery to do anything like planning ahead.

Continuing down the ridgeline, I came to a ramp that led to ‘Amore Lake’. This is a pretty little officially unnamed pond. I skirted around the west side of it and went up and over the slight ridge separating it from Love Lake. I quickly found myself in difficult terrain. Trees on a steep rocky slope. I made my way easily enough through these and right into a patch of willow. I started flashing back to my hike to Keplinger Lake. But no worries, I was soon through this patch and descending another ramp to Love Lake.

From here, it looks like Love Lake and Arrowhead Lake are only a few yards apart. It’s more like a couple tenths of a mile and a hundred and fifty feet or so of elevation. Here’s where a bit of forethought would have come in handy. I continued along the west side of the lake, then up and over the slight rise. In retrospect, I think it would have been better to go on the east side of the lake and descend through the trees there. Why? Because I found myself in another giant patch of willow.

Before long, I gave up. You might say I technically didn’t reach Arrowhead Lake because I didn’t get close enough to put my toes in it. I’m going to count it anyway. I perched myself on a rock with a nice view of the lake and the surrounding mountains, set up the camera, and enjoyed my lunch. While relaxing, I surveyed the area in search of a way out that didn’t take me through the willow again. I thought I spied a wildlife trail and when I packed up to go, I headed that way.

This route was an illusion. Short of heading straight up the ridge there was no easy way out. So I forged through this patch of willow without too many new scratches on my legs. A few minutes after muscling my way through I was back on the shores of Love Lake where I refilled my water bottle.

Here I heard voices. I hadn’t seen anybody since early morning when I passed a couple on their way up Mount Ida. I met them at about treeline, more than five hours earlier. Scanning the slope above the lake I saw the first hiker coming through the willow in about the same place I went. He was talking to a companion, suggesting a route. After several minutes I saw four hikers total. Only the fourth found the route I intended to take out, missing the willow entirely.

I chatted with these guys for a few minutes. It was about 1:30 now. They asked if I went along the ridge above us and when I confirmed, they mentioned they’d seen me. This must have been nearly two hours earlier, as I’d spent an hour at Arrowhead. They came via Forest Canyon Pass. If I ever return here, I’ll give that route a shot for reasons that will become clear soon enough. I asked if they were spending the night, but they said that wasn’t in their plans. I wonder how long it took them to return to their car.

Gathering Storm

As we separated, it began to rain. It didn’t look to last too long so I didn’t bother with the poncho yet. The next mile or so from here would be grueling, gaining about a thousand feet. I considered cutting across ‘Misplaced Valley’ and returning to the trail using the same route I explored three weeks ago. The idea was, I’d need to gain about 400′ less elevation. But when I saw where I was, I decided to stay on my route in. To cut across here, I’d have to go down a few hundred feet so there’d be no real savings.

Arrowhead Lake and Mount Julian

So I continued my climb. A few minutes later it started raining again. I had to often pause to take in the scenery. And to take in oxygen. I stopped and faced nearly due east. The wind was at my back, rain coming down at enough of an angle to keep my front dry. Judging by the clouds above me and the prevailing winds, I figured the rain would stop shortly. I continued my slog up the ridge.

Feathered friends

Subtly, the wind shifted. I was under the edge of the rain cloud, but it was now moving south to north. I’d be right under this edge for a while unless the wind shifted back. The rain turned to hail for a short while and I donned the poncho. Looking to the north, things were getting ugly. I saw lightning strike on the other side of Trail Ridge Road. In the grand scheme of things, this is not very far – three or four miles as the ptarmigan flies.

This was not a happy development. I reckoned I was still two and a half hours away from the trailhead, and nearly the entire way is above treeline. I intended to stay well below the top of the ridge in order to gain as little elevation as necessary. This now seemed like a doubly good idea considering the weather. I couldn’t really increase my pace as I was climbing steadily. And I had to cross the occasional pile of rocks, which were now slippery with rain.

I took fairly regular breathers. I’d pick a point ahead, tell myself not to pause again until I reached it, pause for a few seconds and repeat. During one of these many pauses, I heard elk bugling below me in ‘Misplaced Valley’. ‘Tis the season! I wasn’t seeing any lightning ahead of me, but my vision was somewhat limited by the hood of the poncho. Thunder did occasionally boom, reassuringly distant. During my pauses I’d scan the slopes north of TRR – that’s where all the excitement was.

On the way up the Mount Ida trail, both this time and three weeks ago, I was thinking I’d have preferred the trail to be closer to the top of the ridge. Now, though, I was somewhat chagrined that it wasn’t a bit lower. When I regained the trail, I still wasn’t seeing any lightning but the thunder was noticeably more numerous but thankfully still some distance away.

I now increased my pace. The rain was coming down fairly steadily, and my poncho had developed a tear. If I let go of it, the poncho would slip backwards and the tear would get bigger, so I had to keep a hand on it. The pleasant morning walk and the hour lazing in the sun at Arrowhead now seemed like distant memories. I was no longer having any fun.

By the time I reached treeline, the peals of thunder were almost continuous and the lightning strikes were around me in all directions. Thankfully, none appeared to be within a mile, but still too close for comfort. I was happy now to be in the trees. Again I heard the bugle of an elk, much closer now than when I was atop the ridge. Normally, elk are seen and not heard. Today it was the opposite.

When I finally reached the car, it was raining quite heavily. To add to the fun, I had just had the car detailed. It was as clean as it had ever been since I bought it. When getting off the trail, I’ve always been able to sit in the open car door and change from boots to driving shoes but not today – muddy boots in the nice clean car. Oh, well.

It rained nearly all the way to Lyons. Between the three hours or so of rain while hiking and another hour and a half on the drive it was a pretty good downpour. But that was only a hint of what was to come. As I write this, both Estes Park and Lyons are cut off from the world; roads covered by debris or washed away. Nearly a whole year’s rain has fallen in the last couple days. I’ve seen video of downtown Estes Park and the water is perhaps as high as it was when the Lawn Lake damn burst back in 1982.

Timetable

 UpDown
Trailhead (10,758′)07:40 AM04:50 PM
Milner Pass trail jct07:55 AM04:35 PM
Unknown trail jct08:25 AM04:10 PM
Overlook @ 12,440′10:25 AM 
Arrowhead Lake (11,120′)11:30 AM12:30 PM

Colorado State Patrol

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Saturday, August 24

After a string of hiking posts, we switch gears and head to the track.

Although I’ll call it a track, the Colorado State Patrol facility on South Table Mountain in Golden isn’t really a race track. It’s a training facility for the CSP. The track is really more like a road. It is slightly crowned and even as a center strip painted on it. Drivers should be careful not to go off here. Not only is the pavement often three or four inches above the surrounding ground, there are boulders hidden in the weeds. Hitting one of these will ruin your day as well as your car.

Because the track is only about fifteen miles from home, Genae kindly volunteered to take my slicks for me. She would drop them off in the morning and when I was done at the end of the day, I’d call her and have her pick them up. I keep telling myself I only have about one more track day on these tires.

I’d really rather use them up at HPR. I’ve run at HPR many times but this was only my second trip here. At HPR, if I go too hot into a turn and go off, I’m not worried about damaging the car. Here, there are those nasty boulders. The street tires give me plenty of notice when I’m about to lose traction whereas with the slicks you’re fine until you’re not. But if this is the only place I can have somebody bring the wheels and jack and tools, so be it.

I stopped to top off the fuel tank at the Shell station a few blocks from the track. Once on South Golden Road Genae caught up to me. I also found myself only a couple of cars behind an orange Elise. It was Eric from Colorado Springs. He passed the bus we were behind and went past our turn. I thought he missed the turn, but he was headed to a different gas station.

The access road to the track is dirt. It was in pretty bad shape last year. But today it was even worse. In spots, it featured a gully that meandered down the middle of it and from my seat looked somewhat like the Grand Canyon. Half way up the road I came across another Elise. He had decided this couldn’t be the correct way and was trying to turn around. Once alongside him, I reassured him we were going in the right direction.

Chris had recently bought his red Elise. It used to be Joe’s car. Joe, sadly, has ALS and had to sell the car. This was Chris’s first track event. Chris, Eric, and I all parked together. I mounted the slicks and had the car inspected. Then the drivers meeting was convened and I checked in to get my bracelet – I’m in the red group today.

At all the CECA events except HPR, drivers must also volunteer to work a corner. I was a bit late signing up and had only a few choices. I asked Eric if he wanted to work a corner with me and signed us up for the last session. The last session was open lapping, so Eric decided he would rather work corners in an earlier session and switched.

As Chris hadn’t been on the track before, I gave him a ride in the first session. Red group was first out. There weren’t very many cars in attendance. I didn’t get the official count, but there weren’t more than a dozen in the red group. Much to my surprise, I didn’t get passed in the first session. I used to go to these expecting to be the slowest car in my group but experience has told me I’m somewhere in the middle. Certainly, it must be that the faster cars got out ahead of me and we weren’t out long enough to lap me.

I was a bit tentative that first session. I had forgotten the finer points of getting around the track – my braking points, the quickest line. And it’s been a while since I ran on slicks. I was supposed to be showing Chris how to get around the track but I was missing the apexes by a mile, too early on the brakes except when I was way too late. But he seemed pretty happy when he got out of the car. The first session was 11 laps, best lap was 1:16.03. Four laps were slower than 1:20.

After the first session, Doug showed up in his silver Elise. He wasn’t there to participate; just to hang out. He didn’t even bring a helmet. I mentioned that I will soon need to replace my brake pads and he offered to show me how it’s done. I asked him how many beers it would cost. He doesn’t drink beer, so he said he’d do it if I’d give him a ride at the next track day. I suggested he borrow a helmet and I’d give him a ride right then.

So Doug was my passenger for session two. I was a bit more consistent. This was 14 laps, but included a trip through the paddock to get away from an inattentive driver. Being in the red group (experienced drivers who have been on this track before), I didn’t expect to find somebody not paying attention. I was catching a Mustang and we both caught a Sunbeam Tiger. He was probably six seconds a lap slower than us. We were behind him for two laps and he never waved us by. The rules today allowed passing only in two places, and only with a wave by. Frustrated, I got off the track and told the stewards that driver wasn’t paying attention.

IMG_0826s

Photo courtesy Doug

My best time in session two was 1:16.21, with one other lap in the 1:16’s and only the laps behind the Tiger over 1:20. Again, I wasn’t passed. By now I had noticed that some of the usual fast cars weren’t in attendance. Alan was there, but in his Corvette (automatic transmission and street tires) instead of his Viper. There was a Viper there, but he was in the Green group. Also in the red group was a Dodge Magnum (a station wagon), an Audi, the aforementioned Sunbeam Tiger, an Alfa Romeo, a couple of Mustangs, and a couple of cars from the 60’s: a GT 350 and an AMX. Oh, and a big Chrysler 300. He was here last year and I recall him being the fastest car on the track. Not today.

I didn’t have a passenger for session three and managed to turn my best times. It was the longest session, good for 19 timed laps. I turned a 1:13.32, three more laps in the 1:13’s, eight in the 1:14’s, and nothing as slow as a 1:20, even when catching traffic. The highlight of the session was running nose to tail with a blue Mustang Boss 302. I may have been the last one on the track that session and waved him by right away as my tires weren’t warm yet.

I ran three or four laps behind him. He could pull away on the straights but I’d catch right back up in the turns. Although he wasn’t holding me up, he waved me by. Then we ran three or four laps with him following me. Eventually, I put him some distance behind me, but that was probably due to traffic more than any speed differential. He had more than double the horsepower of the Elise, but said he sometimes had a bit of trouble putting the power down if he tried to get on it too early when exiting a corner. He also told me he tried once or twice to brake as late as me. No can do. As expected, I was able to brake later than any other car in the red group.

The fourth session was open to all groups. As such, there was more traffic. There were also, finally, faster cars. Eric’s Elise is supercharged. He’s made a number of performance mods in addition – exhaust, aerodynamics, weight reduction. I waved him by in this session and had no chance of keeping with him. At one point, under braking going in to turn 1, he had flames coming out his tailpipes. He was running about 3 seconds a lap faster than me.

For this session, I had the AMX driver as a passenger. He was quite impressed with the car’s handling. Of course, the two cars are radically different. His muscle car (390 CID engine) is nearly 40 years older and twice as heavy. Next time we’re at the track together, he’ll give me a ride.

Session four was 14 timed laps. Fastest lap 1:15.04, fully half the laps in the 1:15’s and again nothing as slow as 1:20. I didn’t get any of session four on video. I spaced out after session two and failed to power down the camera. It ran out of battery half way through session three.

By the end of session four, it was apparent we were going to get some rain so the stewards called it a day. That meant I didn’t end up working a corner. I didn’t plan it that way, but I’ll take it. I called Genae to have her come fetch my wheels and tools. It seems I’m always playing the game “What Did I Forget?” Today was no exception. Early on I realized I forgot sunscreen, so I got a mild sunburn on my face. When I went to swap wheels I discovered I’d also managed to forget gloves. In the morning it wasn’t a big deal. I thought about the gloves when I was half way done with the swap. Gloves would have kept my hands clean.

Now, however, gloves were a bit more important. Brakes get quite hot at the track. Hot brakes tend to heat up the wheels. Proceeding with changing wheels now would result in burnt fingers. Luckily, Eric was still there and lent me his gloves. By now the rain started up, so he sat dry in his car while I got fairly wet. Just as I finished, so did the rain. Perfect timing!

By now I was nearly the last one there. I chatted with the stewards a bit waiting for Genae. There’s a gate at the entrance, which was now unmanned and closed. I’d have to go open it for her to get in. When she finally got there, only one other group was still there. They had four cars and a giant transporter. That’s quite an operation for running club days.

I had a fantastic time. I don’t have a breakdown of my lap times from last year, but selecting a random lap from last year’s video tells me I was a good five or six seconds a lap faster on the slicks than on street tires.

I still don’t have the slicks figured out. I took my pyrometer with me and got temps after each session. The hottest I got them was less than 140 degrees. That’s after a cool down lap, and I have no idea how much the tires cool off in that time. Subsequent research tells me these tires should run between 110 and 140 degrees, so I was at the high end and possibly over.

In any event, I wasn’t willing to push the envelope at this track. With a better understanding of the tires I’m sure I could have gotten another few seconds a lap. But I really didn’t want to go off here. Again, I had a lot of fun.

There are a couple of club dates coming up in September at HPR but I’ll probably skip these. I want to do the day at Pike’s Peak International Raceway in October and I’ll need to get new brake pads before then.

Navigational Error

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I’m still in catch-up mode. I used my business trip last week as the excuse for the late report on my Haynach Lake hike. No such excuse this week. It was just a busy week.

August 17, 2013

I won’t exaggerate and say I’ve been over Trail Ridge Road hundreds of times – it’s only in the dozens. And I don’t always stop along the way to enjoy the view. But I have spent a fair amount of time at the Rock Cut looking across the valley at Gorge Lakes, thinking how marvelous it would be to visit them. It has only been the last few years that I’ve even considered actually trying to hike there.

Lisa Foster gives us four possible routes. One way would be to park at the Rock Cut, make the steep descent to the Big Thompson river, find a potentially precarious crossing on a downed tree, then make the climb up the other side. Her description of this route is such that I’m unlikely ever to make the attempt. Another option is up Forest Canyon, which also sounds much too difficult for me. The other two are variations on a theme involving the trail to the summit of Mount Ida, one of which involves a steep descent. I’m not a fan of steep descents.

So I decided to attempt to reach Arrowhead Lake by going up the Mount Ida trail then contouring along the ridge a few hundred feet below ‘Jagor Point’ to ‘Lake Amour’, Love Lake, and up to my destination. I have not been on the Mount Ida trail before. I felt there was a fairly decent chance of spotting some bighorn sheep (which I haven’t seen since childhood) and was looking forward to it since deciding on this hike shortly after returning from Haynach Lake.

The trail starts at Milner Pass, so the most direct route is a drive over Trail Ridge east to west. So far this summer I’ve only driven the road west to east after my west side hikes, always in late afternoon weekend traffic. That means I’ve crawled along in something like a tundra version of rush hour – a nice view, but a frustrating drive in a sports car.

On a Saturday morning before eight it’s another story. I had an almost unimpeded drive; from below Rainbow Curve on the east side to Milner Pass on the west side I only encountered one other car going my direction and was able to pass him as soon as I caught him. Not that I wanted to go particularly fast, but it was a comfortable speed not grossly illegal.

I hit the parking lot in plenty of time to get geared up and on the trail by eight. I again scored the end spot closest to the trail and chatted with another hiker while I changed shoes and strapped on the pack, camera, and tripod. It was then I realized I left my map on the kitchen counter. It’s not the first time I’ve managed to do this, so I wasn’t particularly bothered. It was yet another beautiful morning in the park and I felt I’d studied the map well enough to do without.

Not far up the trail I found this notice:

ATTENTION!!!

 

MOUNT IDA HIKERS

 

The hike from here to the summit of Mount Ida is 3.5 miles of exposed tundra without a maintained trail and few reference points. You will need to pay strict attention to weather and terrain. A map and compass along with a strong sense of direction are paramount to a safe return.

 

Several hikers have been lost in an attempt to return from Mount Ida to their starting point. Don’t be one of them.

I am not deterred. I really did intend to have a map, but I never carry a compass. And I feel I have a strong sense of direction, in spite of making silly mistakes like wandering off in the wrong direction along Grand Ditch on my way to Lake of the Clouds. Ahem.

Not long after this sign I ran into a couple guys loaded down with camping and fishing gear. They were also on their way to Arrowhead Lake. We chatted a bit before I continued on. They had gone less than a mile before taking a break; I would clearly make much better time than them.

Before long I was above treeline and able to take in the view of the Never Summer range and the verdant valley immediately below me. Contrary to the warning sign, the trail looked quite well maintained and easy to follow. In addition, there were several obvious game trails criss-crossing the slope below me. Although saw a deer very near the trailhead, no big game was in evidence. I did see a mother marmot with her adolescent child scurry off the trail in front of me, too quick to get a picture.

Not far above treeline there’s a fork in the trail. I paused here to slather on some SPF and consider my route. Even had I had my map, it wouldn’t have been much help. Though the trail on the ground appears well maintained, it appears not at all on my map. But I must bear to the right, for that leads to the higher ground. So I continue on my way.

The trail isn’t particularly steep, but I paused many times to catch my breath and study the nice views. I wondered how long before I’d see the fishermen on the trail below me. Instead of them, I saw a lone hiker in a white shirt. Every few minutes I’d pause and notice that although this hiker seemed to be standing still, he was closer each time. About the fourth or fifth pause I finally caught him not standing still. He was running.

It was about this time I realized I could use the speedometer app on my phone to determine my elevation. I was at about 11,800′ when he caught me and we chatted. I asked if he’d done this hike before. He hadn’t. He also confessed that he didn’t have a map either and was a bit disconcerted by the warning sign from earlier. He had never been in the park before and was visiting from D.C. I congratulated him on his ability to run up this trail, the better part of twelve thousand feet above sea level.

He continued up the trail ahead of me and there was still no sign of the fishermen. According to my phone, I was now a bit above 12,000′. I looked to the northeast and decided it was time to leave the trail and head toward ‘Jagor Point’, which I decided was ‘right over there’.

I am now forced to decide how to continue this tale. The title of this entry is a bit of foreshadowing. Shall I keep my readers with me in my ignorance of my actual location, or cut to the chase and reveal my error now? Of course, even asking the question here provides its own answer.

Had I had my map, I’d have known I really needed to gain another few hundred feet of elevation before leaving the trail. In fact, I was one valley short of Gorge Lakes. When I reached what I thought was the saddle between ‘Jagor Point’ and Mount Ida, I was perhaps a mile short of there.

Recall that my plan was to contour around this ridge. From my map study, I decided the descent from the saddle was probably too steep for my comfort. But standing where I was I decided it really wasn’t that steep after all. I saw several lakes below me and headed more or less directly toward them, heading to the body of water at the top of the valley.

It was an easy descent, not too much loose talus. I quickly made it to the grassy meadows below. There I saw a few places where the grass was matted down where four or five elk or other large animals had lain down. A bit farther along, I saw an elk lying in a meadow and got the camera ready for a picture. Taking off the lens cap, I inadvertently clicked it against the barrel of the lens. The elk snapped his head in my direction and upon seeing me, he got up and cantered off to the trees toward my right. Dang.

By now it should have been obvious to me I wasn’t where I intended to be. I expected to make about a thousand foot descent from the ridge to the gorge. I probably only went half that distance. The lakes I was going to were substantial, all easily visible from Trail Ridge Road. The ponds I was heading to were much smaller. But I was blissfully unaware. It was a pleasant day and I was in beautiful surroundings. And I have a strong sense of direction.

IMG_9843sI had veered left when the elk ran to the right. A few minutes later, the elk dashed from right to left not far in front of me, followed by another one I hadn’t seen a few moments ago. I snapped a couple photos as they ran by, then continued to the pond in front of me. After a few minutes at this pond I headed down the valley to visit the other “lakes” I had spied from above. The walking was easy. There were a few marshy spots but the few clusters of willow were easily avoided.

I hiked from one lake to another, thinking that if I managed to stay high enough along the base of the ridge I’d soon come to Arrowhead Lake. I made it to the end of the ridge without coming to anything remotely like Arrowhead Lake and still hadn’t realized I wasn’t in the right place.

IMG_9856sOn many of these off-trail hikes I’ve come across piles of bones, bleached white. Some ribs or vertebrae, perhaps a pelvis. Always more than a single bone, always less than a full skeleton. Sometimes I can’t decide what sort of animal it was, and it’s never clear to me how long these bones have been there. This time I found a single leg bone, with skin still attached. Where’s the rest of the beast? Did some carnivore or scavenger make off with just this one?

By noon I had been through this valley without finding a pleasant shore for my picnic, so I found a nice outcropping of rocks with a view of Trail Ridge Road opposite. It was quite hazy due to forest fires in distant Idaho and the clouds didn’t look very entertaining so I didn’t bother setting up the cameras.

IMG_9870sAfter lunch, I worked my way along the ridge in the direction of the Mount Ida trail and an easy hike back to the car. Here well off the trail I found a bit of a puzzle. What is the purpose of these funnels? They don’t look like rain gauges to me, and they’re not hooked up to anything.

I quickly regained the trail and made a mental note of where the hiker should leave the trail to contour below ‘Jagor Point’. Ha ha. I made quick time back to tree line where I ran into a group of hikers led by a ranger. A bit farther down the trail I heard a commotion ahead of me and spotted an elk trotting down the trail. I followed him, snapping pictures. He caught up to a friend where the trail switches back. The two elk continued south, I followed the trail north.

I was back to the trailhead by 1:20, the earliest return to the car all summer. I figured I’d be home pretty early, easily by 4:00. After all, it only took me two hours to make the trip in the morning. It couldn’t take an extra forty minutes due to traffic, could it? Silly question. Of course it could. About a half mile before reaching the Rock Cut I found myself in an impromptu parking lot. This was clearly more than a half dozen cars ignoring the signs instructing drivers not to stop on the road, taking pictures of elk in the far distance. I got the camera out and spied flashing lights at the Rock Cut parking lot. Somebody was having a bad afternoon. We were stopped here for more than a half hour.

When I got home, I consulted the map and compared it to my notes. I visited a lake at 11,500′. There is no lake in Gorge Lakes at 11,500. Nor at 11,350′. So I finally accepted that I’d made a major navigational blunder. But no matter. As I always say when I fail to reach my desired destination, “There’s always another day.” I had a very enjoyable walk in the park, saw some wildlife in its natural habitat, got some exercise, and had a picnic above treeline. What’s not good about such a day?

Maybe next time I won’t forget my map.

Haynach Lakes

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I had a business trip last week, so this report from last week’s hike is a bit delayed. Sometimes I can crank these things out pretty quickly, sometimes it takes forever. I thought this one was particularly interesting, so it has taken a bit longer.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

This hike has is the longest (most miles) I’ve hiked in a day, but in the end it turned out fairly easy. I knocked it off in less than nine hours, including nearly an hour at the lake and a couple short breaks on the way back to the car. I wanted to put boots on the trail by 7:30 and to be at Haynach by noon. And I wanted to see a moose.

As it’s been on my list for a while; I spent quite a bit of time looking at the maps. I broke it down into four parts. From the trailhead to the junction with the Tonahutu trail. Something like 1.8 miles and a 600′ climb. This puts you over the “divide” between Tonahutu Creek and the Kawuneeche Valley, the source of the Colorado river. Then 3.5 miles to Granite Falls, edging around Big Meadows for quite a ways and only gaining about 400′. Section three is Granite Falls to the junction with the Haynach Spur trail: 2 miles and 600′. Finally, the last mile and a half and another 600′ gain. The Foster guide has the total distance 8.7 miles and 2,260′ of elevation gain. It’s long, but not much of a climb.

I didn’t quite put boots on the trail on my target time, but did reach the Green Mountain trailhead parking lot at almost exactly 7:30. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, all covered with dew. I backed into the end spot closest to the trail. It’s a two hour drive from home, up I-70 then over Berthoud pass. Very little traffic, as usual. Around Fraser there was ground fog but cloudless skies. By Grand Lake it was soup – I never saw the lake even though it’s within yards of the road in many places. But it was clear again by the park entrance and at the trailhead.

Based on the weather forecast, I thought there was a real chance it might be cool enough to wear jeans but I stuck with the shorts. It was pretty chilly; I had turned the heater on in the car in Winter Park. When I got out of the car I was thinking maybe I should have worn jeans after all. But the trail starts off fairly steep and I was warmed up before long. This part of the trail was very wet, both in the morning and afternoon.

After a steep start you reach the first meadow. There are three or four meadows near the trail with short climbs in between. Then the trail descends slightly to Big Meadows and meets the lower Tonahutu trail. At just after eight, all these meadows were misty. Near the trail junction, two people were out in Big Meadows talking loudly enough, I’m guessing, to be heard a mile away. Big Meadows is something like a half mile wide and three miles long, wider at the north end than the south.

Then I met a couple on their way back to the trailhead. They had intended to camp at Haynach Lake but had difficulty with the altitude so they stayed at the Sunset camp site instead. They were from Kissimmee, FL. He said he bought a new tent for the trip, but neglected to open the package before reaching the camp site. No stakes. I asked if they’d seen any wildlife. Just squirrels.

Big Meadows

The trail goes north here. At first the trail is adjacent to the meadow, providing a nice view of Big Meadows. Somewhere in here I was hoping to see moose. I stopped and looked whenever there was a nice view but no luck. Soon you pass two derelict log structures; I’m sure that even when they were new they were not much more than basic structure. Next the trail climbs a bit to a junction with the Onahu Creek trail. On the first tree past the sign was stapled a notice.

Trail Condition Warning:

Due to a recent wildfire in the upper Tonahutu drainage various travel hazards exist in the next several miles. Use caution and good judgment when crossing the affected area.

POTENTIAL HAZARDS INCLUDE:

  • FALLING TREES
  • SLOPE INSTABILITY AND MUD SLIDES
  • COLLAPSING TRAIL TREAD
  • FLOWING DEBRIS ACROSS TRAILS
  • DIFFICULTY FOLLOWING DESIGNATED TRAILS DUE TO FIRE DAMAGE
  • DAMAGE TO BRIDGES
  • POSSIBLE RE-IGNITION OF FIRE

I had forgotten all about the Big Meadows fire. The fire started in early June. By the 20th it was declared 95% contained. This meant they had established secure fire lines around it. They expected that the fire might still occasionally be seen throughout the summer, until a significant weather event put it out. In the mean time, the upper Tonahutu Trail would remain closed. I later heard from a hiker that this was the first weekend the trail was open.

Big Meadows fire

At the end of Big Meadows the trail takes a right turn. The valley narrows and you can finally hear Tonahutu Creek. Here is where the fire damage starts. It’s a lot different than the kind of damage the Fern Lake trail passes through. On that trail, it’s the opposite side of the valley that’s burned. Here, the trail passes right through the most devastated areas. Only a few blades of grass are growing. Everything is black – the still standing tree trunks, ground roots, the ground, the rocks. Some of the rocks got so hot a burned layer has broken off.

Granite Falls was not burned. It is an aptly named falls, tumbling down large slabs of granite. Easy access to both the top and bottom of the falls. Above the falls is another meadow. After that is the largest and most devastated burn area on the hike. Pretty much the entire forest below Tonahutu Meadow campsite. Today, not a blade of grass grows there. All the burn areas still smell strongly of smoke, but it is strongest here. This is probably the last spot to go out, just a week or two ago.

East of Tonahutu Meadows at first looks to be undamaged. From here all the way to the creek that drains Haynach Lake, fire dripped down the mountain like wax down a burning candle. Untouched forest for twenty or thirty yards, then a narrow strip that is burned. Many trees are burned only on one side. A few may even still be alive. There are a lot of downed trees here, blocking or partially blocking the trail. I doubt any livestock could pass.

Finally I arrive at the spur trail to Haynach. It starts very steeply, climbing almost straight up the slope, now out of earshot of any flowing water. This section is the steepest part of the hike. The climb moderates, and the trail skirts a meadow giving the first real mountain view of the hike. There are some wildflowers, but nothing like last week. The meadows are stair-stepped here like on the first section of the trail, but with bigger climbs in between. And the meadows are larger and provide nice views of the southern buttress of Nakai Peak.

The trail goes through a couple of these meadows, becoming less a trail and more a faint suggestion of where to walk. Just below my destination, I hear a noise like distant thunder but not very loud. And there are no visible clouds. Then I see an elk. She sees me and is gone before I can get a picture, her hooves hitting rock. Perhaps the thunder was her sister or cousin scrambling over some rocks.

The final meadow before the lake is really a series of large puddles, almost like rice paddies. Shallow enough to grow grass, but quite large. They’re even on three levels, terraced. Long blades of grass float in the deeper sections.

Haynach_fragment_crop

At last I arrive at Haynach Lake. On the map, it looks to me like a hammer-head shark from above, head to the right and in a furious turn, tail fin nearly touching head, with a small dorsal fin between. The trail ends in the grass a few yards from the lake, where the mouth of the shark would be. There is a tumble of large rocks right there, so I set up the camera and dive into my picnic.

While passing through those open meadows I was worried I wouldn’t have many clouds to capture in time lapse, but that wasn’t a problem by the time I arrived at the lake. In fact, the clouds were looking distinctly unfriendly. By the time I took the second bite of my sandwich, graupel started to fall. I could see they were widely dispersed by watching the surface of the lake. Ripples about six feet apart. That didn’t last long, though, and the graupel turned to pea-sized hail and it was coming down fast.

I scrambled to get the SLR out of harm’s way but left the GoPro running. I found refuge among a couple scrawny trees. That, too, didn’t last long. By the time I was done eating it had quit hailing (and never did rain), and some patches of blue sky were visible. I wandered towards the tail fin to get a different view. I thought it was worth the price of admission.

IMG_9818
Scorched earth; rebirth

On the hike back to the car, I had a fruit break at Granite Falls and studied the burned parts in a bit more detail. It looks like there hasn’t been much rain since the fire went out. In a few places, burned material has been washed down the slope like little lava flows. A couple of spots there was enough water flowing to expose unburned ground, badly eroding a few feet of trail. Any sort of moderate rain fall will certainly leave visible scars. And almost all the tree trunks are still standing. I expect 90% of them to fall in the next few years. With dead roots, a fairly stiff breeze will be all it takes. Fire is an integral element of the forest ecology. Lodgepole pine cones often need exposure to extreme heat to release their seeds. But seeing the forest like this, it’s hard to think of it as part of a process of renewal.

There were quite a few more hikers on the lower section of the trail. I didn’t meet anybody for the better part of four hours – between Granite Falls on the way up and a bit below the Haynach spur on the way down – but from Granite Falls to the car I came across dozens.

Approaching the car, I evaluated the day. I’d missed my target starting time but still made it to the lake before noon. Even spending nearly an hour at the lake, I’d be back to the car before 4:30. And I had the unexpected experience of walking through a freshly burned forest. I saw an elk but I didn’t see any moose.

Spot the Moose

Then, not more than twenty feet from my car there’s a moose. The guy hiking in front of me had stopped and was signaling me to be quiet. It took me a few seconds to spot the moose. At first I thought it was a cow but it was a young bull with small antlers. I hike 17.4 miles hoping to see a moose and when I see him, a family piles out of a minivan and takes pictures of him.

Over Trail Ridge Road, traffic not as bad as last time, but still lots of people who disregard all signage. Do not stop on roadway. Use pullouts. Ooh! There’s an elk! Stop the car right in the middle of the road and get a picture! Pullout, shmullout.

I’d have gone home the way I came, but I’m out of beer so I decided to pick up a case at the Estes Park Brewery. Six o’clock by the time I get there, so I call Genae and tell her I’ll eat here. Fish and chips. Traffic not so bad to Lyons, but they had to stop cars to clear a motorcycle from the road. The flatbed arrived just a few cars ahead of me so we got waved by while they were positioning the truck.

A long day, but well worth it.

Timetable

 UpDown
Trailhead (8,800′)07:40 AM04:20 PM
Tonahutu trail jct08:20 AM03:45 PM
Granite Falls (9,800′)09:40 AM02:20 PM
Haynach spur trail10:45 AM01:20 PM
Haynach Lake (11,060′)11:45 AM12:35 PM

Pipit Lake

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Sunday, August 4

Within days of my failure to reach Lake of the Clouds, I decided that Pipit Lake would the be the next destination. I was all set to go on July 28 but the weather was bad so I delayed the hike for a week. Then on Saturday night I consulted the maps again and thought perhaps I’d hike to Junco Lake instead. Both Junco and Pipit require reaching Bluebird Lake first, both are the same distance, and Junco is at a slightly higher elevation. At one point I thought I’d make my decision only when I reached Bluebird, but as I’m hiking alone I thought it was better if I had a definite route planned before leaving the house. Always let people know where you’re going.

Before going to bed I decided to stick with the original plan – Pipit it was. I’ll save Junco Lake for next summer.

On my last hike, I walked alongside the Grand Ditch, a water diversion project started a century ago and still in operation. Bluebird Lake features in the history of water projects in Wild Basin, too. Back in 1915 the Arbuckle Reservoir Company received approval from the state engineer to build a dam at Bluebird Lake (Arbuckle Reservoir #2). I’m having a hard time imagining the effort required to get tools and materials to the lake. Bars of steel reinforcement were chained in bundles to an axle beam connecting two wagon wheels, with the end dragging along the ground behind a team of four horses. Sacks of cement were carried by donkeys, as were the parts of the disassembled rock crusher and the car engine used to run it.

Today, the trail between Ouzel Lake and Bluebird Lake hardly looks like a pack trail. While most pack trails in the park are quite wide and much improved, this section of trail is narrow and rocky with relatively few obvious improvements. In places, it’s packed dirt a few inches wide running through waist high grasses. The last section of trail is quite steep, switching back and forth. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

I hit the trail a bit before eight on another brilliant, nearly cloudless morning. Based on the cool temps when I left the house, I was expecting it to be a bit brisk at first but was pleasantly surprised it was quite nice – warm and calm. The first few miles of this trail can be quite crowded; the sandals and no water crowd visiting Copeland Falls, those with a bottle of water making it to Calypso Cascades or Ouzel Falls.

Not long after Ouzel Falls, the Thunder Lake trail meets the Bluebird Lake trail. I stopped here for a few minutes to apply sunscreen. After the junction, the trail climbs to the top of a ridge that was burned back in 1978. Lower on the trail, before Ouzel Falls, the forest almost seems back to its pre-fire condition when you’re hiking through it, but from above the fire’s path is still clear. Here on top of the ridge, the forest has made little progress and the views of the surrounding mountains are still clear and dramatic. While the views are fantastic, it means the hiker is left exposed to the sun and wind for an extended time. It was too early to be hot yet, but I was expecting it to be a bit on the warm side on my way down.

Here I chatted with a couple who had spent the night at Ouzel Lake. He said he’d heard moose were in the area but he didn’t see any. “If there were moose here, they’d have been around the lake where there’s lots of vegetation for them. There are no moose here.”

Spot the Hikers

I was dreading, a bit, the section of trail between the Ouzel junction and Bluebird Lake. The trail climbs quite steeply, gaining about a thousand feet in less than two miles. As soon as the trail reenters the forest, there’s a large field of debris left by an avalanche that roared through the trees a few years ago. I stopped here to snack on some fruit but was hounded by mosquitoes so I didn’t dally long.

After a short forest section the trail passes through a series of meadows and rock piles. The meadows are a riot of wildflowers – red and yellow, blue and purple, white. When I say I hiked through mile after mile of wildflowers I’m not being hyperbolic. The last mile or so of the trail to Bluebird, plus the mile from there to Pipit were through these fantastic fields of flowers.

I reached Bluebird in good time. There were six or eight other hikers here, perched on rocks here and there near where the trail ends at the outlet stream. I made my way down into the little chasm the outlet stream passes through; crossed it on some rocks and made my way up the other side. This is where the dam was. There’s no sign of it; a testament to the skill of the rangers who cleared it out. Lisa Foster notes the obvious “bathtub ring” around the lake as indication it used to be dammed up, but I think nature has done a good job of erasing it.

Bluebird Lake and Mt. Copeland

Now on the north side of the lake, I gained elevation slowly as I worked my way west. I wanted to be above a large rock outcropping on the west side of the lake. There is no trail here. I occasionally found a faint path, but the route traverses a lot of talus and I saw few cairns. I made my way up a gully above the rock outcropping and ran into a wall of willow. I immediately flashed back to my hike to Keplinger. But here I was back in the clear after only a few feet and a few minutes later found myself at the edge of Lark Pond.

It occurs to me how many lakes in the area are named after birds: Finch Lake, Bluebird Lake, Lark Pond, Chickadee Pond, Falcon Lake. Those are the obvious ones. Pipit, Junco, and Ouzel are also birds. A few miles away, as the ptarmigan flies, is Ptarmigan Lake. How many more lakes here are named for birds?

Lark Pond

From Lark Pond it’s only a few more minutes and a few more feet of elevation to reach Pipit Lake. I was going to say “walk across the tundra and rocks”, but it’s not really tundra here, is it? I don’t generally think of wildflowers when I think tundra. Although the flowers aren’t as dense here as lower on the trail, they’re still quite abundant. I made a point to walk on rocks where I could. Not just to avoid stepping on the flowers, but the ground is marshy in places as well. It looked to me like water was flowing in braids through this area only a few days ago.

Reaching Pipit Lake, I set up the cameras and tucked into my lunch. There’s no shade here, and no shelter from the wind. But it was fairly calm, so not a problem. After only a few bites I was wishing there was a bit more of a breeze, to keep the rich insect life out of my face. I found it better to pace back and forth a bit.

Pipit Lake pano

I’ve been taking a can of soda with me on these hikes for as long as I can remember. I’ve never had a problem with the carbonation before. But today when I opened the can, it fizzed right out of the can. I kept sucking it up but it kept boiling over. By the time it calmed down, I was left with only about two thirds of a can and a sticky hand. I was nearly out of water now, so it was a great time to refill.

I’ve been using a SteriPEN for about a year now and am quite pleased with it. I used to carry two one liter bottles of water. On the longer hikes, I found myself husbanding my water supply somewhat so that I didn’t run out of water before making it back to the trailhead. Now I don’t worry about it at all. I carry one bottle and the device and can drink as much as I want. On this hike, I refilled twice – once at Pipit Lake and again at Ouzel Falls on my way out.

So after getting more water at the outlet of Pipit Lake, I head back past Lark Pond and down to Bluebird Lake. Before long I see another hiker thirty or forty yards ahead of me. How can this be? I hadn’t seen anybody for quite a while, certainly not at Lark Pond or Pipit Lake. I caught up to her a few minutes later and we hiked together until just below Bluebird. She hit the trail at 5:45 and hiked to Isolation Lake. This lake is nestled at about 12,000′ in a cranny between Isolation Peak and Mahana Peak. Looking at the map, I had decided it was beyond my ability, but she told me the hardest part of the hike was crossing the area where we met. Just angle up the slope a little higher than I went to get to Lark Pond and it would be easy to get to.

Wildflowers abound

Further down the trail, still above Ouzel, I met a couple of hikers who told me they’d seen two bull moose farther down the trail. They were below Chickadee Pond and heading west. The next hikers repeated the story. I kept my eyes peeled and occasionally used the camera’s telephoto lens to aid in the search but no luck. The next hikers I caught up to also failed to see the moose. So, contrary to the hikers I met in the morning, moose are in the Ouzel Lake area if you’re lucky enough to see them.

On the hike out, it clouded up a bit (as is not unusual). This made the section through the burn area more pleasant than I was expecting; instead of dealing with bright sunshine on a warm afternoon it was slightly overcast and quite comfortable.

I took a final break at Ouzel Falls for more fruit and a refill of water. Fatigue was finally setting in and my pace slowed a bit. From Ouzel Falls on down the trail is quite crowded. I could see or hear other hikers the rest of the way.

Back at the car I was approached by a couple of park rangers. “We saw your car and wanted to chat with you.” They told me they’d seen me parked at the Sandbeach trailhead last month and were happy to see I didn’t have any hail damage. Evidently it hailed hard enough to set off the car’s alarm. I had no idea. We talked about how often people take pictures of my car. They were amused that with such natural beauty around people would take pictures of a car in the parking lot. We also talked about the sorry state of the dirt road to the trailhead. It’s in serious need of grading. I had to crawl along quite slowly not to fall into the holes. It’s noticeably worse now than it was when I hiked from the Finch Lake trailhead.

And here’s the obligatory time lapse:

Timetable

Up Down
Trailhead 07:40 AM 04:00 PM
Campground shortcut 08:05 AM 03:35 PM
Calypso Cascades 08:15 AM 03:20 PM
Ouzel Falls 08:35 AM 02:50 PM
Bluebird trail jct 08:45 AM 02:40 PM
Ouzel trail jct 09:35 AM 02:05 PM
Bluebird Lake 11:00 AM 01:05 PM
Pipit Lake 11:50 AM 12:30 PM