While visiting the Devils Thumb trailhead in the Arapaho National Forest, I found this great little stream carrying the meltoff down the hill. The rocks at the bottom of the stream gave the water a great red color.
Tag Archives: Devils Thumb
RMH I — Day Five : Return to Devils Thumb
With a quiet condo, I thought I would sleep late this morning. Obviously, my body had other plans, as I was up before 6am. There’s something wrong with that! 🙂
After a little breakfast, I got my gear together — including my trike! — and headed toward Devils Thumb, thinking I’d spend a couple of hours up there, and maybe get some Thai food for lunch. I hit the “county roads”, and climbed my way up the hill to the trailhead. With the earlier start today, I had much better light than yesterday, and was able to make some great images, especially of the rushing waters.
My mother has told me that you could blindfold me in my own backyard, spin me around, take the blindfold off, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way home. As it ends up, she’s probably right. I kinda proved that on the trail today. I decided to walk a little ways into the forest along the trail. The forest was beautiful, and much less dense than I was expecting. When it was time to return to the trailhead, somehow I took a wrong turn, and I got turned around in the forest. The good thing was that I was next to the raging torrent of water, and knew if I followed it, I’d find myself at the trailhead. What a doof!
After leaving the trailhead, I decided to wander around on the county roads, and climbed all over the place on roads that none of my three GPS devices had in their brains. I never knew where I was, and eventually decided to start for home, and figured that if downhill was good enough for the water, it was probably the way to head for home. It was the right path, and I ended up near Tabernash, and pointed the Big Green Box toward Fraser. As it ends up, I retraced most of the steps that Warren and I had taken on Friday. The dirt roads were no better today, and I walked the Jeep down really wet, rutted roads, with plenty of significant rocks showing. The Jeep did real, real well. The driver wasn’t too bad either. 🙂
The Thai lunch idea morphed to thinking about a Thai dinner. Unfortunately, my target restaurant was closed for the day, which left me thinking about Chinese instead. I found a Chinese restaurant that claimed their food was amazing. One order of cashew chicken later, and I’d have to agree. That was some really good grub!
Tomorrow, I think I’m headed toward the Grand Lakes area, and on up into the west end of Rocky Mountain National Park. From what I’ve been reading on Twitter, they’ve had a tough time keeping the Ridge Road open, so I’m only expecting to get into this end of the park. If I get farther, that’s great, but if not, so be it.
RMH I — Day Four : Devils Thumb
The Colorado Days left for another engagement today, leaving me alone in the condo. There’s a kind of quiet that I’m simply not used to. Even when Becky leaves for an event for a week or so, there’s still three canine companions to make some level of noise. Here, it’s quiet, except for the occasional train rolling down the track.
I decided to make today a resting day, with only a trip up the hill to the Devils Thumb trailhead planned. Warren had taken me up there on Friday, and I liked what I saw, but had no camera with me to capture anything, so I figured that’d be a nice quick trip today.
Driving there brought me through stunning vistas of vast river valleys and tall pine forests. It was wonderful. I walked around at the trailhead — once I finally found it! — and captured images of pinecones and needles, in and around the fresh ice and old snow. And with all the cycles of freezing and thawing, the water was raging down the hill. It was remarkable to see that much water flowing like that, all from the winter’s snow beginning to melt.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take my tripod — why, I have no idea — and didn’t get a lot of usable images. Guess that means a trip back up there tomorrow!