Loving the Aspens

From the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, I traveled east over Monarch Pass to Salida, then north to Leadville, and east to Denver for a visit with friends.  Today I drove to my destination at Grand Lake on the south edge of Rocky Mountain National Park.

My timing was perfect for the long drive through Colorado.  Aspen trees, in their few days of brilliant glory before they close down for the winter, dotted the hillsides, punctuating the green conifers.  Sometimes an entire grove of flaming yellow nearly sent me off into a canyon.  I kept stopping, pulling over to take pictures and occasionally watching trees at the expense of safety.  But I arrived without mishap at Grand Lake, and am settled into a small cabin for ten days. 

I came here, as most of you know, because the east side of the Rockies was badly flooded a week before I left home.  Otherwise I would be in Estes Park on the other side of the mountains.  I diverted to the west side intending to hike the backcountry from trailheads along Trail Ridge Road, which connects Estes Park and Grand Lake. 

Estes Park, having lost its eastern access roads, relies on Trail Ridge Road.  But that makes no difference to congress, and tonight the road will be closed indefinitely due to shutdown of the federal government.  It seems I was shut out of the eastern approach to the high country, and am now shut out from the western side also, thanks to the utter failure of our elected lawmakers to do anything.  Others will suffer from this incompetence much more that I will.

Tomorrow I will hike one of the many trails that do not require driving on Trail Ridge Road.  Please do not send flowers, I will be fine.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Snow fell last night on the Black Canyon, defying its name.  Cold air moved in like winter, defying my hope that winter will come late this year.  Unheeding practicality, I walked into the visitors center of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and asked for a permit to descend steep and untrailed rock to the river.  The ranger explained the risks and asked if I was really up to it.  Sensing no equivocation in my answer, he had me sign that I would hold the US government harmless in case of mishap.  Of course, the US government is scheduled to shut down in three days, so it hardly matters how I hold it. 

I walked along the canyon rim to the trailhead, considering my decision in light and dark of the gorge before me and the barely visible river far below.

Then I trotted off on an easy trail for a couple of miles until the scramble began.  This place is called black because for many years it was unknown, a dark place where the Gunnison River disappeared and then emerged many miles downstream.  Now we know that this canyon is the greatest combination of depth, steepness and narrowness of any place in North America. And I, like a child, would plunge into its depths. 

The scramble began with an inviting chain to hold onto, as if there could be worse. 

The rim grew higher above me and the river’s torrent grew louder as I descended the rocky slope.  

At about half way down, the river still looked a long way below and the climb was getting to me.  Elevation was higher than my home, and weeks of only mild exercise showed up in weak knees and hurting thighs.  I decided to turn around and climb back out.  This ten-year-old mind might as well accept a mature world and be sadder for it, I thought.  Or maybe not, with conditioning. 

The Crookedest Road in the World

Rim Rock Drive in Colorado
National Monument

Back when unemployment was twenty-five percent and money seemed all gone—we’re talking Depression here—FDR established the CCC to spend money the nation didn’t have on things people didn’t need for the most part, and to put men back to work.  So it was that a minor road from Grand Junction, known as the Crookedest Road in the World, was replaced with a tourist highway called Rim Rock Drive in Colorado National Monument.

CCC workers in the
Depression

The same place today

And I, a beneficiary, drove its curves and tunnels today without incident, and walked in otherwise inaccessible beauty.  Of course, the whole idea seemed ludicrous to conservatives back in the thirties—no relationship to today’s monetary issue.

Serpent's Trail in the 1920's

Serpent's Trail today

Serpent’s Trail, as the road was called before the Depression, is still there in remnants, as I walked part of it today.  Construction began in1912, completed in 1921.

How does a rock weighing many tons stand upright on its point without a Ventura artisan placing it there, perfectly balanced?

Here we have an ancient sculpture in sandstone, about three hundred feet high and adorned with a backdrop of variegated stripes.  The subject is clearly some ceremony where people gather before a dignitary on a higher seat.  Some say the dark brown stripes are streaks of desert varnish—iron, manganese or clay deposited by water, but the ancient artist did not know those words.  The white stripes, they say, are calcite coating which precipitated from seeping water.  

I see waves lapping on a beach in this sixty-million-year-old sandstone.  But since nobody believes that waves solidified into rock, geologists say it was windblown sand.

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Beginnings

For months I have schemed, anticipated and lived for Rocky Mountain National Park and the high peaks I have never seen, except that I climbed Mt. Sneffels many years younger.  To solve a deficiency, I made a reservation in Estes Park, a small town on the eastern edge of the national park, from which I would explore the back country.

But then came a great flood, which I have to thank for revamping that planned and anticipated venture.  A storm greater than would be expected in a thousand years hit the eastern Rockies, destroying roads, trails, lodging, and lives.  I cannot visit there, even two weeks after the tragedy.

Roaring River in Rocky Mountain
National Park
during the flood on September 17, 2013

After sighs of resignation, I fell back to a new plan on the west side of the Rockies, where flooding did not happen.  I will stay in the village of Grand Lake and visit that portion of the back country which lies west of the Continental Divide. 

I will leave Pasadena on Wednesday, September 25.