May 2022
Books read:
- Wolf Hall by
Hilary Mantel
- Bring up the
Bodies by Hilary Mantel
- The Mirror and
the Light by Hilary Mantel
Trails walked:
- Gregory Canyon/Flagstaff/Crown Rock Loop (May 5th)
- Button
Rock Mountain Loop (May 11th)
- Coulson
Gulch walkabout (May 18th)
- Chapman
Drive Flagstaff Loop (May 26th)
Song of the month – Cheryl Wheeler – If It Were Up To Me
Scientist Spotlight – Kai Kloepfer –
Gun safety technology
May Summary: Nineteen 8-and-9-year-olds were massacred this
month. What are we going to do? Nothing.
Recall that ten years ago 5-year-olds were massacred and nothing was
done. So, thoughts and prayers, that’s
all we’ll get…that’s all we’ll do. My
son says that nothing will be done until the Baby Boomer generation is out of
politics. I hope he’s right. But ideology tends to live beyond the
grave. A good friend said all he could
do was cry after hearing about it. I
think that’s the only reasonable response.
You could get angry, but that just eats away at you and accomplishes
nothing (plus anger is partially responsible for this crime). At least crying helps to relieve some of the emotion
and seems appropriate to the tragedy. There
will be lots of tears shed in Uvalde, Texas as there were in Newton, Connecticut
ten years ago. Our violent, gun-soaked
country will carry on as though that’s just life (and death). Mass shootings are emotional, but they aren’t
statistically significant compared to total gun deaths in this country (less than 2%). But man, that emotion….those
tiny kids with their yearbook smiles, most of them with brand new permanent
teeth….gone…permanently.
A thousand years
from now, assuming the climate hasn’t destroyed humanity, people will look back
on 21st century America and wonder at the barbarism. Sort of like we do now with the Mongols who
rampaged across Europe and Asia just under a thousand years ago.
There are interesting parallels between gun violence and climate change. There is scientific evidence that prove increasing human-produced CO2 in the atmosphere is the cause of climate change, just as there is scientific evidence that an increase in the number of guns correlates with an increase in the number of gun deaths. Just look at these two charts:
I won’t even go
into the stories of England, Australia, and New Zealand gun control measures
following mass shootings because even with those success stories, it cannot
happen here. I’ve said in this blog
before, facts and science no longer drive policy. Sadly, there is now so much C02 in the
atmosphere and so many guns in the US, that significant damage has been done
for years to come. If something were
done 30 years ago in either of these areas, we would be in better shape as a
civilization. That opportunity is gone, we
didn’t do anything then, so the next best time is now, right? No, actually the next best time was 29 years
ago….
Dr. Roxane Gay had this to say in The New York Times: "On Tuesday morning, at least 19 children’s parents woke them up and helped them brush their teeth, fed them breakfast, made sure they had their little backpacks packed. They held their children’s small hands as they walked or drove them to school. Those children were alive when their parents waved to them and handed them their lunches and kissed their cheeks. Their lives were precious, and they mattered. The greatest of American disgraces is knowing that no amount of rage or protest or devastation or loss will change anything about this country’s relationship to guns or life. Nothing will change about a craven political system where policy is sold to the highest bidder. Language is inadequate for expressing this lack of civility."
There are over
300 million guns in the US so they aren’t going to disappear (they actually
increase significantly with every mass shooting and every presidential
election). The overwhelming majority of
gun owners are good people; I know this because I know many of them.
However, it is my belief that every organization and every politician who fights against even the least significant form of gun control is complicit
in all past and future school shootings.
As to the other, non-gun reasons
given for school shootings, see my song of the month for more.
This month I’ve
managed to finish a 2,000 plus page trilogy on King Henry VIII’s right hand
man, Thomas Cromwell. I’ve also enjoyed
hikes in the Boulder and Pinewood Springs areas.
Hopefully next month will take me to the higher mountains as the snow
starts to melt.
When
Kai Kloepfer was a high school student just 8 years ago in Boulder, Colorado, he won first
place in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his
development of a gun that only fires when it recognizes the gun owner’s
fingerprint. Then he won a $50,000 grant from the Smart Tech Challenges
Foundation to refine the technology. He attended MIT, but left early and now owns and operates Biofire Technologies,
a company he established to market his smart gun technology. From the company’s latest press release this
month, before the Uvalde shooting: “I’m
excited to share that Biofire is emerging from three years in stealth mode,
with Axios Pro Rata and TechCrunch helping us announce that we’ve raised over
$17 million in seed funding to bring our Smart Gun to market - the largest
private investment in a firearm technology startup in history.”
Kloepfer
believes that smart gun technology will make a huge dent in accidental deaths
of children who still manage to find their parents’ guns around the home. This all sounds great right? Who would be against this? Well, the NRA for one.
More
than 20 years ago, gun-manufacturer Smith & Wesson said it agreed
with a list of government regulations laid out by the Clinton administration,
including the pursuit of smart-gun technology. It soon faced a National Rifle
Association-led boycott that sent sales plummeting and nearly destroyed the
company. Eight years ago, a Maryland gun retailer that wanted to
sell a German smart gun faced death threats from some gun advocates, forcing it
to drop the plan.
Although
they have softened their stance on smart guns lately, the NRA will fight any law
that mandates the sale of smart gun technology.
This is from their lobbying website (https://www.nraila.org):
“The
NRA doesn’t oppose the development of “smart” guns, nor the ability of
Americans to voluntarily acquire them. However, NRA opposes any law prohibiting
Americans from acquiring or possessing firearms that don’t possess “smart” gun
technology.”
So,
kudos to Kai Kloepfer for actually working towards life changing (life saving) technology. Here’s hoping the political ideology doesn’t
crater his desire to make the world as it is now, a better place.
Cheryl
Wheeler is one of our great American singer/songwriters. She’s been making music for 40 plus years and
is still touring and making music. I’ve yet to see her live, but her shows are
supposed to be great, filled with her fine wit and music. She wrote this song in 1997, before Columbine,
before Sandy Hook, before Uvalde. I
think it’s brilliant. It basically lists
all the reasons people give for mass shootings (and continue to give). At the end of this long list, she says what
she would do, because she obviously has seen the data and knows what the only
real solution is. That real solution is not possible in our country today, so
we’ll continue to pretend to address all the other reasons that Cheryl lists in
this incredible song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op7agdIFOGY
Some new friends we met recently said that Gregory Canyon was their favorite Boulder area hike, so I had to go check it out for myself. Since the trail by itself is only 1.3 miles long, I added a few other trails to make a 5-mile loop on this beautiful spring day.
I
believe that Gregory Canyon was named after John Gregory who discovered gold
near what is today Central City / Blackhawk and built a mining road to access
his claims. There’s not a lot of
information about Gregory other than he came from Georgia, struck it rich, and
then moved on from Colorado to possibly Canada or Alaska. In any event, this is certainly a pretty
little canyon, and thankfully his mining road didn’t get turned into an
automobile road (evidently Flagstaff Road eventually made his mining road
redundant).
I started at Chautauqua Park and walked along the Baseline trail for around a half mile with nice views of the Flatirons before reaching the Gregory Canyon trailhead. There were lots of students and parents wandering around Chautauqua Park as this was graduation weekend for Colorado University. There are a few parking spots at the Gregory Canyon trailhead but there is a fee (where I parked at Chautauqua Park there is no fee on weekdays). Gregory Canyon is beautiful with lots of vegetation, some early flowers starting to bloom, and the sound of Gregory Creek playing in the background. It’s also a 1,000-foot climb in just over a mile, so a nice workout also. The trail ends at Realization Point where there is parking and access to several other trails. I crossed Flagstaff Road and headed north on the Range View trail for just over half a mile. This trail is appropriately named as it offers nice views of the mountain ranges to the west with their snow-capped peaks. The Range View trail ended where the Flagstaff Summit Road ends; there are some stone shelters here built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. I wandered around this area for a while since it was quiet and peaceful (just a few bicycle riders catching their breath). I then walked along the Plains Overlook Trail and headed down the steep Flagstaff trail which crosses Flagstaff Road a few times. At one of the crossings I decided to take the Crown Rock Trail which eventually connected back to the Gregory Canyon trail and then down to my car. The Crown Rock Trail was also steep and had some interesting rock formations, none of which looked like a crown to me. A nice day exploring some new hikes in the Boulder area.
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| Flatirons view from Chautauqua Park |
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| Some wildflowers emerging |
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| A bit of water making rippling sounds along the canyon |
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| Quite a climb in 1.3 miles |
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| This week I took the right turn, later in the month I'll take the left turn |
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| Great views from Range View |
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| Civilian Conservation Corps shelter |
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| Nature Center closed until Memorial Day weekend |
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| Heading down the steep Flagstaff trail |
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| Views of Boulder |
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| Could this be Crown Rock? Nah. |
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| I'm lichen this rock |
Among many other awards, this 2009 novel won the Man Booker Prize (now called the Booker Prize), the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. This 672-page book was a chore to read for the first, oh, 300 pages or so. There were so many times that I wanted to give up and move on to something more readable and understandable. But there were moments of brilliance along with this frustration so I had to keep on going, and I’m glad I did. Part of the problem is that the story of Henry VIII and his reformation of the church was not really part of any history I grew up with. I’m sure if you were born and raised in the UK, this history and all its characters are as well known as Washington, Jefferson, and Adams are to those of us born in the US. So I had to do a lot of Googling to keep up. There is a long list of characters at the beginning of the book, but I didn’t find it as useful as The Google.
The story focusses on Thomas Cromwell, son of an abusive blacksmith, who, due to his brilliance and cunning, works his way up to an advisor to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and then eventually to King Henry VIII. Cromwell occasionally reflects back on his childhood, and one of the more harrowing scenes in the book is the story of his watching a woman burned alive at the stake while he was a child…just an incredible description of this. The political, religious, and social intrigue in this novel is intense and the dialogue is among the best I’ve read, with biting comments and fascinating conversations. The dialogue between Cromwell and Thomas More are priceless (More was violently executed for his refusal to recognize Henry VIII as head of the church). Cromwell experienced much tragedy in his life, but never lost sight of his goal of becoming the most useful person he could to Henry, and therefore advancing the cause of England and of his own household. In addition to the fascinating story of Henry VIII changing the church just so he could get divorced and remarried, there is the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther, the prophetess Elizabeth Barton who was executed for her prophesies against the marriage of Henry and Anne, the printing press and the bible being illegally printed in English; all the relatives ruling Spain, France, Italy, and England; the coming of Jane Seymour, and of course the future great Queen Elizabeth who was born to Henry and Anne Boleyn, a disappointment that she was not a boy. It was so good that I decided to read the entire trilogy, which I can hopefully finish this month….
Here
are some lines:
…he cannot quite accept that real property cannot be changed into money with the same speed and ease with which he changes a wafer into the body of Christ.
Show
me where it says, in the Bible, “Purgatory.” Show me where it says “relics,
monks, nuns.” Show me where it says “Pope.”
“It is a piece of the true Cross!” “We’ll get him another. I know a man in Pisa makes them ten for five florins and a round dozen for cash up front. And you get a certificate with St. Peter’s thumbprint, to say they’re genuine.”
The
English will never be forgiven for the talent for destruction they have always
displayed when they get off their own island.
“What kind of husband would you like?” She considers. “One who will take care of my children. One who can stand up to my family. One who doesn’t die.”
Childhood was like that; you are punished, then punished again for protesting. So, one learns not to complain; it is a hard lesson, but one never lost.
The day he was burned it was windy, and the wind kept blowing the flames away from him, so it was a long time before he died.
“I shall never see your house. And one hears so much of it.” “What do you hear?” “Oh … of chests bursting with gold pieces.” “We would never allow that. We would get bigger chests.”
“Do you know what the king will do to you when he finds you out? The master executioner of Paris has devised a machine, with a counterweighted beam—shall I draw it for you?—which when a heretic is burned it dips him into the fire and lifts him out again, so that the people can see the stages of his agony. Now Henry will be wanting one. Or he will get some device to tease your head off your shoulders, over a period of forty days.”
In the place where martyrs had bled, ghost-white boulders stood: marble, waiting for Michelangelo.
“my
husband used to say, lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning, and when
you come back that night he’ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks’
tongues, and all the jailers will owe him money.”
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| Hike starts out on an old jeep road |
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| Nice views of Longs Peak most of the way up |
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| Views |
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| Some bizarre human created art |
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| Much better natural trail art |
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| Impressive hand-cut bench near unnamed viewpoint |
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| Great views from this unnamed viewpoint |
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| Really great views |
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| Same spot, different direction. Ralph Price Reservoir below, looking at next week's hike |
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| Tinaja view of Longs Peak |
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| Loved the way the clouds look in this shot |
The 2nd in the Wolf Hall (aka Thomas Cromwell) trilogy. Book one, Wolf Hall, ended with Thomas More’s death and this one ends with Anne Boleyn’s death. I suppose the 3rd novel also ends with someone’s death...stay tuned. As with Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies also won the Man Booker Prize for fiction, so Mantel is one only two women authors (and four overall) to win the prize twice. She shares that honor with the great Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments). As with Wolf Hall (2009), this book was on many “best of” lists for the year (2012 in this case).
It's
terrific. As I mentioned in the Wolf Hall review, it’s the dialogue that just
blows you away. Newsday wrote, “Mantel’s
characters are so palpable, their dialogue so natural, that the narrative seems
more transcribed than imagined.” And the
Seattle Times said ” Mantel
can turn the oldest of stories into a spellbinding tale. . . . You
won’t be able to
tear your eyes away.” All of
that is true. And the best part is that
I didn’t have to spend so much time trying to figure out the characters this
time, since most of them were already introduced in Wolf Hall (which, I
suppose, is why it ran 672 pages vs the 432 pages in this 2nd volume).
In one line of the book someone states, “It is no
small enterprise, to bring down a queen of England.” Cromwell continues his ceaseless efforts to
make sure Henry VIII gets what he wants, with this book focused on unwinding
all he did to annul his marriage to Katherine in order to marry Anne Boleyn.
Now he was to annul Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn so that he can marry Jane
Seymour (mainly because Anne couldn't provide him with a male heir). Many heads had to roll. In 1998 we took our kids to England and one
of the highlights was visiting The Tower of London. I vaguely remember the tour
guide there describing the various executions at the tower, and especially that
of Anne Boleyn. I wish I had read this
book before that tour as it would have really come to life for me. Looking forward to finishing up the trilogy
this month and moving on from the 16th century in my reading.
Here are some lines:
When he saw the portrait finished he had said,
‘Christ, I look like a murderer’; and his son Gregory said, didn’t you know?
She (Jane Seymour) is a plain young woman with a silvery pallor, a habit of silence, and a trick of looking at men as if they represent an unpleasant surprise.
What becomes of England if Henry dies? He was
twenty years married to Katherine, this autumn it will be three with Anne,
nothing to show but a daughter with each and a churchyard’s worth of dead
babies...
She has her spites, she has her little rages; she
is volatile and Henry knows it. It was what fascinated the king, to find
someone so different from those soft, kind blondes who drift through men’s
lives and leave not a mark behind.
But life is harsher to women, particularly women who, like Katherine, have been blessed with many children and seen them die.
Ireland is quiet this Christmas, in greater peace
than she has seen for forty years. Mainly he has brought this about by hanging
people. Not many: just the right ones.
'Ah, do you see, I am an Englishwoman now! I know how to say the opposite of what I mean.’
Women age, men like variety: it’s an old story, and even an anointed queen cannot escape it to write her own ending.
He once thought it himself, that he might die of
grief: for his wife, his daughters, his sisters, his father.... But the pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep
breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting
sighs. You must thrive in spite of yourself; and so that you may do it, God
takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.
She (Anne Boleyn) steps back, puts her hands around her throat: like a strangler she closes them around her own flesh. ‘I have only a little neck,’ she says. ‘It will be the work of a moment.’
The order goes to the Tower, ‘Bring up the bodies.’ Deliver, that is, the accused men… There is only one penalty for high treason: for a man, to be hanged, cut down alive and eviscerated, or for a woman, to be burned. The king may vary the sentence to decapitation; only poisoners are boiled alive.
‘I see you do not rate friendship highly.’
When I was on the previous week’s hike I took note of this hike as a future possibility. The future was now as I drove past the previous week’s trailhead off of CO47 for another half mile or so. The gate for Johnny Park road is still locked, so I parked just outside the gate and walked a few yards to the official trailhead for Coulson Gulch. I was not able to find out for whom the gulch was named. If anyone knows, let me know. I had heard about a loop hike that once existed but the 2013 flood took out the footbridges that crossed the North St Vrain, making the loop an off-trail adventure that I wouldn’t try on my own. So I figured I would head down to the North St Vrain to see how it looks during spring runoff (or spate, as Nan Shepherd would call it). Then I would backtrack a bit and head east towards Ralph Price Reservoir. My trip totaled nearly 11 miles and would resemble a stick figure giraffe on a GPS map.
As
I started down the trail I ran into a fairly fresh deer leg in the middle of
the trail. From here the views were beautiful and I couldn’t help but envision
a mountain lion sitting here with his leg of deer and admiring the view from
this open air restaurant. The start of this hike is a nice walk in the woods
with occasional views of North (or maybe South?) Sheep Mountain and Higgins Park. At 1.5 miles you reach the remnants of an old
cabin where Coulson and Bear Gulches join.
From here I entered a beautiful meadow called Higgins Park (couldn’t
find references to its namesake either).
At the end of Higgins Park you can turn right to stay on the Coulson
Gulch trail to the North St Vrain Creek, or turn left to head down some old roads
that were used to construct the Ralph Price Reservoir and dam.
I
first headed right towards the creek.
The trail along Coulson Gulch towards the creek was partially destroyed
by the 2013 flood, but in general it’s an easy walk.
I started hearing the roar of the creek around a quarter mile away. It was raging today with spring runoff
(spate)! I had read about a family that
had to be rescued here in spring of 2020 because some tried to swim across the creek. Based on what I saw, that was not
a great decision. It would be
interesting to see what it looks like in the fall. I hung out here a bit to watch the rapids
descend towards Ralph Price Reservoir, and then backtracked to the junction and headed towards the
reservoir. I followed some old
construction and/or jeep trails downhill and got some nice water photos, then I
decided to try and find where North St. Vrain Creek entered the reservoir. It is a fascinating area where it enters.
Just rocks, sand, and washed-up trees.
More reminiscent of Arizona than Colorado. It even looked a bit like the braided rivers
in Alaska. I was looking for a way to go
further upstream but was blocked by fallen trees, so decided to head back the
way I came and on to the trailhead.
It was an interesting day exploring North St. Vrain Creek and the inlet
to Ralph Price Reservoir. I saw only 3
other hikers. One guy was backpacking to
fly fish the North St. Vrain, the other two were forest service workers heading
out to clear the trail of fallen trees.
The temperature was in the 60s with a slight breeze and some clouds, so
pretty perfect.
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| Trailhead sign with Native American commentary |
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| Here's where the mountain lion dined on leg of deer |
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| Artsy tree shot |
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| Higgins Park view from the trail |
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| Abandoned cabin, stove and bedspring |
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| Water in Coulson Gulch |
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| Higgins Park and North (or South?) Sheep Mountain |
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| There were so many butterflies on this hike |
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| North St. Vrain Creek in "spate" |
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| Here's where the foot bridge used to be before the flood |
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| Old roads headed to Ralph Price Reservoir |
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| Things we lost in the flood: Refrigerator |
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| Ralph Price Reservoir from the west end |
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| North St. Vrain Creek as it enters the reservoir |
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| Damage from the 2013 flood |
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| A happy, winking tree stump |
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| A stick giraffe hike (as opposed to a loop hike) |
As a reviewer in The Guardian said: “The trilogy is complete, and it is magnificent.” I somehow managed to finish the Wolf Hall trilogy in a month, but this last of the trilogy was 880 pages, making my task a challenge. This last book in the trilogy is the only one that didn't win the Booker Prize, but it was on the 2020 list of finalists. I'm guessing that the judges just couldn't get around to reading the 880 pages because it's every bit as good as the other two in the series. Recall that the first novel ended with the death of Thomas More for not agreeing to King Henry VIII’s desire for divorce (from his wife Katherine and from the Pope in Rome); the second novel ended in the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s wife for whom he left Katherine and killed Thomas More. This last novel ends with the death of Thomas Cromwell who was the protagonist for the trilogy (did you get the death part? There's lots of it). Some call it the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Henry finally tired of Cromwell and had him beheaded, but not before he, Cromwell, helped him marry two other wives after the execution of Anne Boleyn – Jane Seymour who died after finally giving him a male heir, and then Anne of Cleves from Germany who Cromwell had recommended for an alliance as a hedge against the French and Spanish emperors.
Once
again the political intrigue and the dialogue was outstanding. And we learn more
about Cromwell’s fascinating past as he reminisces throughout the novel. The
final pages as Cromwell was in The Tower being interrogated by some of the council
members who betrayed him was riveting. I
kept hoping, beyond historical fact, for him to be reprieved by the king, but
unfortunately, the author kept to the facts in this area. I will miss reading about the life and times
of Thomas Cromwell on a daily basis.
Mantel created this greater than life character who picked himself up
from near death at the hands of his drunk father, to become, arguably the second
most powerful man in England during a time of great world change (Martin Luther
and the Reformation, Suleiman the Magnificent invasions, Pizarro and the Incas,
First bible translation into English…). So,
if you have a few days (weeks) and want to read a great story, give it a
shot. Stay with it though, the first 300
pages of the first book was a chore and as I said above I nearly put it down,
but I’m very glad I didn’t. I've heard that the BBC Masterpiece Theater six part series on Wolf Hall is excellent, so you could do that instead of reading 2,000 plus pages. A reviewer
in The Telegraph summarized it this way: “Hilary Mantel has written an epic of
English history that does what the Aeneid did for the Romans and War and Peace
for the Russians … As Cromwell approaches his end, cast off by an
ungrateful master, Mantel pulls together the strands of his life into a sublime
tapestry.”
Here
are some lines for this last of the trilogy:
‘It is a novelty for him,’ Wyatt says. ‘A queen of England to behead, and five of her lovers. A man does not do it every week.’
Old Bishop Fisher refused the oath, and last year Henry executed him. Thomas More refused it, and he too is shorter by a head.
Those who think a heart cannot break have led blessed and sheltered lives.
Do not turn your back on the king. This is not just a matter of protocol.
‘Hans,’
he says, ‘don’t ask questions unless you know what to do with the answers.’
The
bedchamber is her (jousting) ground, where she shows her colours, and her
theatre of war is the sealed room where she gives birth. She knows she may not
come alive out of that bloody chamber. Before her lying-in, if she is prudent,
she settles her affairs. If she dies, she will be lamented and forgotten. If
the child dies, she will be blamed.
Has
your Majesty considered that it might be difficult to find any lady to marry
you at all?’ ‘Why?’ the king asks. ‘Because you kill your wives.’
Your Majesty is the only prince. The mirror and the light of other kings.’ Henry repeats the phrase, as if cherishing it: the mirror and the light.
‘If God glanced down now, what would he see? Two ageing men in failing light, talking about their past because they have so much of it.’
It
seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay
for crimes, but not necessarily their own.
'I
have read the books. We are all dying, just at different speeds.’
If a man should live as if every day is his last, he should also die as if there is a day to come, and another after that.
The
pain is acute, a raw stinging, a ripping, a throb. He can taste his death:
slow, metallic, not come yet.
A nice hiking day with my daughter-in-law (DIL). My first hike this month wound its way up Flagstaff Mountain from the east starting at Gregory Canyon near Chautauqua Park; this hike also winds up Flagstaff Mountain, but from the northwest via Chapman Drive. Chapman Drive is an old dirt road that rises 2.6 miles from Boulder Canyon to Realization Point. It was constructed in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal and named for Oscar Chapman, who was assistant Secretary of the Interior at the time. Interesting side note on Chapman; he was one of the first casualties of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1939 because he donated $2 to the American League for Peace and Democracy, which was raising money for the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War. Today he would probably be called a Socialist since he supported the Civilian Conservation Corps.
There
were several mountain bikers huffing and puffing their way up the 2.6-mile, 1,000-foot
elevation gain. It looks like a great
workout for bikers. For us hikers
though, it was a nice easy to moderate workout, depending on how fast you walked
(I’m sure DIL could have walked up a lot faster if she didn’t have me with her). There were a few wildflowers starting to make their way along the side of the road and I'm sure it will get even more colorful in the next few weeks. At Realization Point we headed up the Ute
trail to the summit area which is accessible by car for families wanting to
visit. There are lots of picnic sites
with great views of the snow-capped Rockies to the west. We wandered over to Artist Point which has a
nice view, and we were able to sneak a peak into the Nature Center which was
opening officially the following day. We
made the hike a lollipop loop by heading down the Range View (great views to the west) and Tenderfoot
trails to around the halfway point on Chapman Drive and then back to our
car. The trailhead is next to the
roaring Boulder Creek with lots of water from the melting snows. A nice day with DIL, with temps in the 70s and a cool breeze.
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| Nice views |
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| Views |
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| DIL taking in the views and wishing she were in those BIG mountains |
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| Me taking in the views and glad he's not in that snow |
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| Women only to the right, men only to the left and straight |
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| View from Artist Point...or maybe this was the Divide View, I can't remember |
Until next month, happy reading and rambling!