Alpine adventures

Continuing with stories from our camping trip to the high mountains southwest of us in Colorado...

The start of our trip was delayed by K's kidney infection. After waiting for her to "get out of the woods", we devised a plan so that we could take our trip without stressing K. We did a "tag team" approach, where the Runner and R would go for a trail run each morning while I took K for a stroll near camp.

 

When the runners returned to camp, they'd hang out with K in the shade while I went for a mountain bike ride.

I kept running into walls of snow blocking the trails on my alpine mountain biking adventures.

The photo above shows a very small wall of snow that I managed to clamber across. Some of the walls were 50' tall with cornices overhanging their edges. This trail is almost always open, free of snow, by late June or early July. Not this year...

I didn't even try to climb the wall shown the photo above, even though my favorite section of mountain bike trail on Earth was on the other side of it. I saw a mountain biker approach the snowbank from the other direction. He tried to carry his bike down it, slipped, and slid at high speed down into the rocks below the snow. He was very lucky that he was okay.

I knew that my fragile spine would not survive a fall like that one so I contented myself with enjoying the flowers sprouting at the edge of the melting snow.

Old Men of the Mountain...

Alpine Avens...

At one snowfield, a marmot played a funny trick on me. A family of these highly social rodents had been playing on the snowfield when I barged onto the scene. Four of them clambered up a rocky hillside and disappeared into their den. One marmot stayed behind, lying stationary in the snow.

I cautiously inched closer to him, hoping that he'd stir and show me that he was alive and well. He didn't. However, I noticed that he was blinking his eyes, and then I saw the rise and fall of his chest.

I sadly thought that he was probably very sick and dying. So, I turned my back and walked away so I wouldn't stress him out. A good distance away, I took some photos of wildflowers. Then, I heard the shrill whistle of a marmot. I looked back at the snowfield, and the "dying" marmot was gone. Then, I spotted him standing on his hind legs on a boulder whistling at me. After catching my attention, he sprinted up the hill and into his den. I imagined the whole marmot family laughing at the naive human whom he'd tricked!

After my bike ride, I returned to laze around camp with the pack.

The sun shined so brightly that the Duo needed caps! R donned his "Black Dog Tavern" cap and K donned her "Chocolate" cap.

Yellow flowers painted the meadow surrounding our campsite golden. The bumblebees buzzed from one blossom to the next, sipping sweet nectar.

And, we finished our day with a short hike as a foursome in the cool evening air. Ah, I'll never tire of this view.

Several of you have kindly inquired about whether my internet connection has been fixed. It's been sort of fixed. It works sporadically for downloading but not at all for uploading. So, I'm still imposing on friends, libraries, and coffee shops whenever I need to upload anything substantial. I sure hope that it gets solved soon but I'm getting pessimistic that we may be forced to go for satellite internet.