Cornet Falls
Colorado Travelog #16
Telluride, CO - Monday, 4 Jul 2022, 7pm
By some rights it was a crummy day in Telluride. The weather was gloomy and threatening to rain at any moment. And there was the bait-and-switch with our AirBnB we still hadn't resolved. But there were still hikes we wanted to do regardless of which side of 14,000'+ Mt. Snuffles our condo was on, and besides, gloomy weather can be a good time to visit a waterfall. Browse through my waterfalls tag to see the beauty that hides in the gloom and drizzle.
The trail to Cornet Falls starts at the end of a residential street in Telluride. It enters a side canyon that closes in quickly as we hike upstream.
Within 100 yards it becomes hard to tell we started in a town. The only indicator there's a ski resort town behind us is... well, the runs cleared on the far slope of the main canyon.
Within minutes of puffing uphill, the elevation already at over 9,000', we came up a waterfall streaming across the trail from a side canyon.
The trail seemed to end here. Although the main canyon continued further up, the route seemed blocked by the debris from this falls. A pair of hikers sharing the trail with us were like, "Woohoo! We made it!"
It didn't seem right to me, though. A written description I'd found described a falls that was more grand than this. As I looked up in the gathering gloom I saw that the source of the falls was a pipe. Possibly even a busted pipe that created this debris flow across the trail. I could see the trail continuing on the far side of it. We picked our way across the wet rocks and gravel, Hawk patiently showing the other hikers how to do it, and continued higher up the trail.
Indeed, Busted Pipe Falls was not Cornet Falls. We found the latter at the back of the canyon, a natural stream pouring 100' over a rock lip.
Telluride, CO - Monday, 4 Jul 2022, 7pm
By some rights it was a crummy day in Telluride. The weather was gloomy and threatening to rain at any moment. And there was the bait-and-switch with our AirBnB we still hadn't resolved. But there were still hikes we wanted to do regardless of which side of 14,000'+ Mt. Snuffles our condo was on, and besides, gloomy weather can be a good time to visit a waterfall. Browse through my waterfalls tag to see the beauty that hides in the gloom and drizzle.
The trail to Cornet Falls starts at the end of a residential street in Telluride. It enters a side canyon that closes in quickly as we hike upstream.
Within 100 yards it becomes hard to tell we started in a town. The only indicator there's a ski resort town behind us is... well, the runs cleared on the far slope of the main canyon.
Within minutes of puffing uphill, the elevation already at over 9,000', we came up a waterfall streaming across the trail from a side canyon.
The trail seemed to end here. Although the main canyon continued further up, the route seemed blocked by the debris from this falls. A pair of hikers sharing the trail with us were like, "Woohoo! We made it!"
It didn't seem right to me, though. A written description I'd found described a falls that was more grand than this. As I looked up in the gathering gloom I saw that the source of the falls was a pipe. Possibly even a busted pipe that created this debris flow across the trail. I could see the trail continuing on the far side of it. We picked our way across the wet rocks and gravel, Hawk patiently showing the other hikers how to do it, and continued higher up the trail.
Indeed, Busted Pipe Falls was not Cornet Falls. We found the latter at the back of the canyon, a natural stream pouring 100' over a rock lip.