Stormy last days on the Divide

As the end of our vacation crept up on us, the storms became more frequent and furious. K and I ventured out on exposed ridges for brief parts of our rides. However, warnings of 'golf ball sized hail' and 'cloud-to-ground' lightning prevented carefree roaming. The clouds gathered early each day.As they began to organize into storm cells, the clouds became dominated by dark gray smudges that sent us scurrying for cover.
On our alpine rides, we spotted a tiny new flower, a magenta beauty (Pygmy Bitterroot, Oreobroma pygmaea), glowing among the other plants.
On two evenings, sun rays shined from low in the sky, illuminating one of the smaller mountains on the horizon. It shined from the dark sky.Rain swept through the rays, creating a rainbow arcing over our meadow and ending in front of Mount Antora.
On our final full day of camping in the meadow, clouds already obscured a nearby mountain within an hour of sunrise.
It was a good day to explore a protected gulch, thereby avoiding exposed ridges and that ominous-sounding 'cloud-to-ground lightning'. The gulch descended precipitously from our meadow paralleling a gushing stream. Traveling in a wet gulch felt completely different from my recent forays on exposed alpine ridges.The stream ran fast and high, creating a waterfall next to Tall Chiming Bell flowers.
Water-loving Red Columbines lined the stream, glowing in the brief flashes of sunshine that punctuated the day.
After rolling down more than 2000' of rocky trail next to the flowing creek, I turned to climb back to camp. I felt tiny compared to the mammoth white aspen trunks and their towering green canopy.Although I usually love climbing, this ascent seemed endless and exhausting. It wasn't until I arrived back in camp that I realized that I was parched. It's easy to forget that high altitude dehydrates me even on cool days. I spent the rest of the day with my feet up, drinking prodigious volumes of fluids. The dogs relaxed with me, except when they vociferously protected me against an animal lurking at the forest edge. You'd never guess that our sweet labs could look so ferocious.By the time the sun was falling below the mountains, my equilibrium had returned and I soaked up the last sunset and moonrise of the vacation.

Top of the world

After a stormy but relaxing few days near Georgia Pass, we made the cardinal mistake of trying to move to a new campsite on a Saturday. We ended up wandering around, searching for someplace to camp near Mount Princeton. We searched out every legal option and found 'campground full' or 'no camping' signs everywhere. Finally, after dark and so tired that we were delirious, we lay our heads down for a short night's sleep directly in front of a 'no camping' sign. We were prepared to pay the fine meted out by the officer that we felt certain would jolt us awake in the middle of the night. But, to our surprise, by waking up very early, we escaped the scene of the crime undetected.

We took a short ride and run on the Colorado Trail through towering aspen groves.The narrow and buttery smooth trail wound around the base of the chalky gray Mount Princeton.Later in the day, we returned to a campsite that we used two years ago, when K and S were our canine family. It was a scary feeling knowing that S's death and R's birth separated our two visits to the site. No doubt, we all have finite horizons so it's best to seize the moment.

'Our' campsite borders a high altitude meadow that vibrates with life.Craggy peaks tower nearby.
Myriad birds nest in the pine trees bordering the meadow, subalpine flowers bloom, and deer and elk meander around the borders.
More ominously, we found a huge and fairly fresh lion scat on our first day. It makes sense - a mountain wonderland for ungulates will draw their predators. However, we took more precautions than usual to make sure that neither human nor canine was ever alone on the meadow's edge at dawn or dusk.

Two mountains towered over us, Mount Antora and Mount Ouray, and the sun played magically off their slopes at sunset.At dusk, the pink sky painted the peaks rosy.
It was amazing to live, however briefly, in such a peaceful yet awesome spot.

Early in our stay, K and I headed out onto the Monarch Crest Trail, a mostly alpine tundra singletrack path that follows the Continental Divide. To reach the tundra, I pedaled and K trotted through a spruce and fir forest littered with boulders. Just below treeline, a marmot, a huge rodent who spends most of his life in a subterranean den, posed for a photo. These rodents typically live in subalpine and alpine areas and build elaborate dens under boulder piles.Eventually, we burst above treeline at a snowbank and the seasonal pond of its melted water. K's joy was palpable - both snow and swimming at the same time. Wow!
When we first emerged above the trees, the mountains on the horizon still looked higher than us.
K eagerly led the way toward the sky. It was a perfect day to have a canine companion on this trail because we didn't see another soul.
A few snowbanks blocked our path to the high plateau, which we clambered over, slip-sliding our way upward. In the photo below, the narrow trail sinuously wends its through the scattered conifer trees and then makes a beeline to the edge of the snowbank guarding a ridge.As we crossed the snow, I noticed that Snow Buttercups poked through the crusty snow and bloomed. This feat astounded me. How do they grow in the freezing environment below the snow?After climbing to the ridge, it felt like we looked down upon all the peaks around us.For me, this 'top-of-the-world' feeling is unbeatable. I could have relaxed in the sun, enjoying the thin cool air and the silence, broken only by the wind's whisper, forever. Alas, the usual afternoon storm clouds amassed around us, pushing me to move along.
We headed back down toward camp, feeling grateful for another sweet day in the mountains.

Clouds gathering above an alpine ridge

Our first morning above 11,000 feet dawned with an azure sky behind our towering sentinel, Mount Guyot.Before we wriggled out of our sleeping bags, we noticed white woolly quadrupeds nearby, a band of four mountain goats. They grazed in the clearing and gradually moved closer to us. The snoozing dogs failed to notice them, giving us precious minutes watching the small herd.Huge mats of fur hung from their coats as they rapidly thinned their coats to adapt to the alpine summer. Later, we saw long strands of white wool adorning the low hanging pine branches around our campsite. All four had handsome beards and horns. The group even began to play fight, bashing their horns, while we watched. At this time of year, the females with young wander solo. Billie goats (males) always go it alone. Thus, this band likely included yearlings and females who didn't have offspring this year.Mountain goats didn't originally inhabit the mountains of Colorado but ranged in the northern Rocky Mountains. In 1960-1971, humans systematically introduced mountain goats in the Colorado Rockies. They've became ensconced, enjoying the high talus slopes intermixed with alpine meadows that prevail in our mountains. Although introducing a novel species into an ecosystem seems like a recipe for disaster, I'm not aware of any ecological pitfalls from the introduced mountain goat population.

Later, when K and I headed out for a mountain bike ride, we spotted four mountain goats galloping across the distant tundra.Despite K's high energy exploration mood, she ignored the fleeing goats to stay with me. We climbed up Glacier Ridge, a high and exposed ridge. A more miraculous view rewarded each laborious pedal stroke. Here, about halfway up, K posed under the gathering clouds. A stiff wind left K's ears akimbo. Just a short time later, the clouds seemed to be homing in on our ridge.
Finally, wet misty clouds enveloped us. K galloped through the clouds.
And, she sprinted to me when I called her. I always practice recalls when we visit new places because dogs don't naturally generalize and have trouble listening in an exciting new environment.
Behind K, the clouds hid all the surrounding mountains, causing us to turn back toward camp. An exposed ridge didn't strike me as the best place to be in a storm.

Before the weather looked so threatening, I'd taken photos of the alpine flowers that protrude above the 'cushion plants' that I wrote about yesterday. These 'tall' flowers of the tundra rarely exceed 6" in height. Being too tall would be a disaster because the mountain gales would continually buffet the plants, either damaging or desiccating them. Below, Dwarf Clover, Moss Campion, and Alpine Forget-Me-Nots provided the cushion and soil for the yellow taller flowers.As I rode, the array of colors on the ridge was striking. Alpine Avens provided the yellow in the ridge's mosaic.Sky Pilots smattered the ridge with blue. These members of the Phlox family love high, dry, and rocky terrain.Finally, the Alpine Lily contributed white splotches to the ridge.After K and I fled down the ridge in the shroud of thick clouds, a parade of storms hit us and then lifted occasionally for the rest of our time at Georgia Pass. Just after one of the storms, our sentinel mountain peeked through the clouds.
After a couple of days, we decided to resume our wandering, circuitously heading toward the Continental Divide Trail above Salida. In that gorgeous area, I found indescribably awesome mountain biking, much of it on exposed ridges in the alpine tundra. More about that tomorrow.

Alpine tundra

The mountains of Colorado blow my mind. Standing above treeline with alpine flowers at my feet, I wonder how I lived a third of my life not knowing that this high altitude heaven existed.

We're back from a camping trip where we spent almost every night over 11,000 feet, high in the sky, in the Rocky Mountains. The trip was good for our souls, after all we've been through in the past couple of months. It felt very odd to be a foursome rather than a fivesome but it's a transition that we must make. Indeed, the oddest part was that we revisited a campsite that we'd inhabited previously when K and S were our canine companions and R wasn't even a twinkle in his mother's eye yet. Visiting that same beautiful spot again reminded us that life and our family is always changing.

We spent our first night in an unimpressive campground, that felt more removed from nature than our home. However, early the next morning, K and I biked, while R and my husband ran, on a completely empty trail up to Georgia Pass, a nearly 12,000 foot pass in the Rockies. The trail wound through towering aspen groves and then pine forests, before reaching the forest-tundra transition zone above 10,000 ft. Near treeline, huge snowbanks blocked the trail, some towering over my head.
While K delighted in rolling in the snow, I hoisted my bike onto the small snow mountains and then walked gingerly across them, trying not to slide down the slopes.
Above tree-line, the dry and narrow path invitingly pulled us toward the pass. Mount Guyot towered nearby while faraway snowy mountains shimmered in the sun. K and I floated in the thin air and awe-inspiring atmosphere.A broad view missed the amazing floral display hunkered down close to the ground. The tundra between us and the nearby mountains initially looked greenish but not flashy. The craggy mountains and ridges held my attention.Then, I looked at the ground, and I saw that delicate flowers flourished on the tundra. In the tundra, the 'cushion' plants play a key role by holding the soil on the rocky terrain. These plants have broad and soft pillows of leaves, less than 2" tall, below their blossoms. Many of them require 30 years to grow a leaf cushion prior to bursting into bloom. That's why it's so critical not to tread on the tundra but to stay on the narrow paths. Some poor plant might have been laying the groundwork to bloom for 29 years, and then a careless shoe or tire destroys its chance to sing.

Many other alpine flowers, which I'll include in the next couple of posts, use the 'cushion' plants as their launching pads. These taller alpine plants literally poke up through the leaf mats of the cushion plants, sprouting from the nutritious soil held in place below the cushion plants. A great book explains the intricate plant and animal ecology of the alpine tundra (Song of the Alpine, by Joyce Gellhorn).

As K and I emerged above treeline, Moss Campion (Silene acaulis subacaulescens), a cushion plant, seemed to carpet the ground next to the path. This patch stretched more than a foot across.While K watched over me, I delighted in each tiny flower of the Moss Campion. Every blossom seemed like an intricate miracle of nature.Alpine phlox (Phlox consensata) also covered much of the rocky tundra surface. My close-up photo doesn't reveal that each flower measures less than a centimeter across.
Next, I noticed Dwarf Clover (Trifolium nanum) lining the path, another cushion plant that provides the environment for other alpine flowers to burst into life. Poor K started wondering if we were going to ever start riding again as I practically lay on my stomach to look at these diminutive blossoms.My favorite cushion plant is the Alpine Forget-Me-Not (Eritrichum aretioides) whose flowers are eye-catching jewels that measure less than a centimeter across.
That afternoon, after riding and running to and from the alpine tundra, we decided to find a quiet and isolated campsite above treeline, far away from the hub-bub of the campground. The view from our chosen idyllic spot amazed me.As we walked into our campsite, a fox watched us from the edge of the clearing. We debated what species he was because he looked rotund and oddly colored for a fox but we finally settled on a gray fox. We surmised that he didn't like our presence, as fox scat appeared on our kettle during the first night. The next night, we brought the kettle inside to prevent a repeat performance, and his scat appeared atop our closed camp stove. Sorry, Mr. Fox, the campsite is all yours now.
Camping up so high made awesome routes possible for my biking and my husband's running. I'll write more about our days at 11,800 feet near Georgia Pass tomorrow.

This panorama shows why I love being 'on top of the world'.