(no subject)
I went on a hike today in the Rocky Mountains! Hopefully i will be able to find a disposable camera soon so I can take pictures, but in the meantime I will try to describe some things.
Estes Park is a little town in a little valley in the middle of a mountain range. In the West on a clear day you can see the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE which is represented by some very tall mountains that are still covered in snow. The rest are regular old mountains covered in trees. The Thompson River has been dammed up to form a little lake in the middle of the town where people can fish, and in the actual river, they fly-fish. Unlike the Sacramento River which flows through a "rut" because of the levees, the river's edge is flush with the shoreline and it snakes wildly for no apparent reason. I guess eventually the curves the river cuts out will eventually erode into a wider, straighter river?
Everywhere there are trails strapped across the mountains. Today Aaron and I set out through the neighborhood with no particular destination in mind and found a trail head called "LUMPY RIDGE" with five or six different trails splaying out from it. We took one to "GEM LAKE" that was only 1.7 miles, but as you know those shorter trails are often shorter to make up for their incline. It is strange to be in the Rocky Mountains and to not only see them from vista points but to be crawling around on them at the same time. They still look like a photograph. But sometimes, from the right perspective, it stops looking like a two-dimensional photograph and becomes three dimensional - for example, behind a dead tree is a bush, then some smaller trees, and then a cliff drops off and you see the valley and beyond that the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE and some purple mountains lurking behind those.
The aspens are beginning to show their leaves. We ended UP (emphasis on the UP) at Gem Lake, which is a large puddle in a well of tall boulders. While we were sitting there, a ground squirrel (which is smaller than a gray/red squirrel and has chipmunk-like markings but is NOT a chipmunk) came up to us and put a wammy on our snack. It actually crawled on Aaron's lap and on my backpack as well.. people need to stop feeding these squirrels. They need to eat their natural food. They are addicted to salt and fat.
Also, we saw a herd of about 20 she-elk hanging out in someone's backyard. Yesterday, we saw a he-elk grazing on someone's hedges, while another stood next to a minivan in the driveway and another walked into an alley. An elk standing next to a minivan is surreal.
I also found a nice piece of quartz.
Estes Park is a little town in a little valley in the middle of a mountain range. In the West on a clear day you can see the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE which is represented by some very tall mountains that are still covered in snow. The rest are regular old mountains covered in trees. The Thompson River has been dammed up to form a little lake in the middle of the town where people can fish, and in the actual river, they fly-fish. Unlike the Sacramento River which flows through a "rut" because of the levees, the river's edge is flush with the shoreline and it snakes wildly for no apparent reason. I guess eventually the curves the river cuts out will eventually erode into a wider, straighter river?
Everywhere there are trails strapped across the mountains. Today Aaron and I set out through the neighborhood with no particular destination in mind and found a trail head called "LUMPY RIDGE" with five or six different trails splaying out from it. We took one to "GEM LAKE" that was only 1.7 miles, but as you know those shorter trails are often shorter to make up for their incline. It is strange to be in the Rocky Mountains and to not only see them from vista points but to be crawling around on them at the same time. They still look like a photograph. But sometimes, from the right perspective, it stops looking like a two-dimensional photograph and becomes three dimensional - for example, behind a dead tree is a bush, then some smaller trees, and then a cliff drops off and you see the valley and beyond that the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE and some purple mountains lurking behind those.
The aspens are beginning to show their leaves. We ended UP (emphasis on the UP) at Gem Lake, which is a large puddle in a well of tall boulders. While we were sitting there, a ground squirrel (which is smaller than a gray/red squirrel and has chipmunk-like markings but is NOT a chipmunk) came up to us and put a wammy on our snack. It actually crawled on Aaron's lap and on my backpack as well.. people need to stop feeding these squirrels. They need to eat their natural food. They are addicted to salt and fat.
Also, we saw a herd of about 20 she-elk hanging out in someone's backyard. Yesterday, we saw a he-elk grazing on someone's hedges, while another stood next to a minivan in the driveway and another walked into an alley. An elk standing next to a minivan is surreal.
I also found a nice piece of quartz.