We started out as a group of four men and me with Hansel. Oscar is the only one I knew from the April hike up Carr with Helen. Juan is a friend of Oscar. Michael dropped out after only a half mile because his water bladder had leaked and he had no water on him. Owen is not a heylo member but the son of a friend of a member who did not hike so I picked him up from Jo2Go. Owen also asked me not to post his photo on social media.
We met at 7am, rode up Carr Canyon Road in three vehicles, and began at 7:35am. The road up Carr Canyon is horribly rutted now. I had to be careful not to damage my undercarriage.
Owen hails from Colorado and loves hiking the high ridges of the state. As soon as we started on the trail, he took off. We didn't see him again until we were 2.5 miles up the trail. He ended up going back up with us and hiked a total of eight miles.
I had advertised this hike as a wildflower hike and there were many asters all along the hike. The 1/3-mile section going up Carr was covered in goldeneyes. The original seeds were dropped by the Forest Service after our 2011 fires, mixed with straw mulch. They have now taking over from the red autumn sage.
Our heavy and frequent rains have caused many of the post-fire pines to finally grow. Some of the 4-footers are now over six feet tall in this past year. We also walked through thicker and taller grasses all along the way. The upper regions really needed all this moisture to thrive.
We encountered one fallen snag early on, felled from our high winds last month. This was up the Sawmill Springs trail.
We also ended up walking through the yellow aspen grove. The aspens popped yellow earlier this week and the yellow was visible when I drove home from the high school Friday afternoon. I love the smell of yellow aspen leaves. The Columbine flowers, however, were absent.
We could see rain falling over the Mule mountains as we ascended but those clouds stayed to our East. I never took my red EMS raincoat off, though, as it also acts as a windguard.
There was water trickling from the Springs and higher up from the waterfall springs. Hansel had his water breaks and that put a stress off me. He was never overheated and seemed to really like the hike and would whine when we were stopped for two long.
I enjoyed the company but I had trouble keeping my breathing regulated and had to stop often. This slowed us all down. I ended up taking 2:20 hours to make it to the top! I wonder if my shortness of breath is because of the BP medication?
We didn't meet anyone until our descent. We met NicoleM as she was going up. This is the second time we have met on the trail. Another couple with two dogs was also near the peak as we left. Hansel was well-behaved the entire time and didn't even go off the trail.
We stayed on the peak for 20 minutes. Hansel had his can of food, I had my water.
I had no trouble going down. We were back at our cars by noon and all four of us ate at The Bit where Owen and Juan continued to talk about technical climbs in Colorado. They had met as strangers this morning and departed as friends.
This was my second time at the Bit and had another great meal. Hansel stayed in the Honda in the shade because even the patio was crowded. It was 63F so he was fine.
I wanted to walk Gretchen for two miles but turned around at the half-mile mark because a second round of rain was coming off the mountains.
I fell asleep early and missed the second big rain storm within 24 hours.
