Take a Hike

One of our goals when traveling/house sitting is to try and fit in or experience where we are as a “local”.  Being somewhere for a week or more allows us to not feel rushed, so we don’t have to cram in all the sights before packing up and rushing off to the next destination.  My priorities, while here visiting my mountain playground, are hiking, biking, fishing, and participating in local events, and it’s all done with relatively easy access here.

For example, Beth and I want to use this time away from our recent remodeling at home to try and become more active, without tearing a wall down, hammering, or painting.  In other words, make a more conscience effort to exercise vs. random household projects that work you out randomly.  So here we are, back in Colorado.  What should we do?  Let’s take a hike.

Experience reminds us to take it easy, so our lungs won’t fail us.  Something short and not too much elevation gain.  I scoured a number of trails sites on the web and decided on Mayflower Gulch.  With the trailhead located not too far from Copper Mountain, the trail leads to a picturesque setting of an old mining area, where there are a few cabin remnants left from back in the day.  There were as many as 2000 folks living in this area when the mining was good.  It’s hard to imagine how that many people filled this valley with their cabins, equipment, livestock, brothels…, but the day we hiked, we were the only ones parked at the trailhead.  With 2 miles ahead of us, we grabbed our gear and set out.

The sign comes with the jacket and daypack.

The trail is also a “road” used by 4 wheel drive vehicles, so it’s wide and easy to follow.  As we began our ascent, we could still see patches of snow near the ridgeline of the surrounding mountains.  And around the first bend in the road, we realized that there was still plenty of snow to maneuver at our elevation as well.  There was enough to make us wonder if we should consider this hike, another day.  There had been enough melting that exposed the edges of the road that we decided to press on and take our chances. 

If that's the speed limit, it's not rough enough for 4-wheelin'.

The sound of the cars humming by on 91, were soon replaced by the wind in the trees and the babbling of small impromptu streams of snowmelt crossing the trail.  There was evidence that we were not the only ones that had the urge to get out and get our mountain legs under us, as we followed melting footprints through the snow.  Where the snow was compressed by nature or previous trailblazers, it was relatively easy going, but stray too far one side or the other and it was easy to find your leg knee deep in a cold wet hole. 

What difference does a little snow make?

The incline persisted all the way to where the trail opened up to the amphitheater-like valley, where the cabin remnants remained standing, with one more winter under their belts.  The “road” continued upwards and off to our right, as we proceeded left across a stream and toward the structures of the past.  Once again, placing each step carefully made the difference of easy progress or a shoe full of snow.  We did both.

Not there yet, but this view reinvigorated us to trudge on.

Made it!

The setting is picturesque if not breathtaking, but you have to wonder if the miners of the day even noticed the beauty that surrounded them, once they started swinging their pick axes for hours on end, hoping to find what they had come for.  For some reason, I don’t picture myself being very successful in this environment over 100 years ago, freezing at night, probably eating very little, and beating on rocks.  I’m good where I am!

Even though there was action in the valley as late as the 1980’s, it is now a destination for hikers to view the past, soak up summer wildflower displays, and appreciate its return to it’s wild status. 

We paid our respects to the valley’s past by entering the cabins (with and without roofs) and tried to imagine all those that had entered through the same doorway or looked out the same window.  The wildflowers seemed weeks away, as the snow gives way to the bare ground below, so we click some pictures and head back.  Now, where was that packed snow to walk on?

Maybe with a view like that, I could have been a miner...
nah!

My ceilings would have needed to have been a bit taller.

Making our way back down the trail, we didn’t seem to mind too much that even though our hiking shoes were waterproof, they were not impervious to the snow simply coming in around our ankles over the tops of our shoes.  We made good time heading down hill, until I noticed an unusual print in the snow that caught my attention.  It was the size of my hand, minus the last couple of knuckles.  And at the end were spaces that large claws would have filled.  The print didn’t seem to look to “melted” at the time and that gave us motivation to make even better time downhill.  There were no berries on the bushes as of yet for the bears, but Beth had on a berry-colored jacket (purplish) and the saying…”You don’t have to be the fastest, just not the slowest.”, came to mind.

So assimilating into being a “local” is not as easy as it may sound.  I’m pretty sure the locals new that there was still snow on that trail, thus the empty parking lot at the trailhead.  And the tracks we followed in the snow probably belonged to tourists rushing to get in a hike, so they could move on to their next destination.  In a nutshell, locals are smarter about their home turf than those of us that are temporary, but we are getting smarter with every decision we make.  The talks we share and beauty we take in are always worth the extra effort on the trail.

My Zen from the Trail:  It’s easy to think of all the “bad” what-ifs when you are out in nature, miles (in some cases) from real help.  With every step, there could be a misstep.  With every bear track, there is a bear that left it behind.  But it seems to be worth the adrenaline spikes.  The “good” what-ifs, like wild animal sightings, always lead the way on every trail I hike.  We visited with a couple on a trail that literally walked beside mountain goats on a previous hike.  As their paths crossed, a sense of respect was observed, and now they (the people and the goats) have that memory.  Don’t ignore the what-ifs, but don’t let them prohibit your experiences.