Wildflowers Galore

Yesterday, I talked about arriving at our Crested Butte campsite and being so happy to see the sunshine. Even better, the sun was lighting up one of the most incredible wildflower displays I've ever seen.

I went for a mountain bike ride on a classic route, while the Runner took both dogs for a high mountain run. Unfortunately, it wasn't a place where I could take Shyla mountain biking with me.

But, the flowers on my mountain bike route blew my mind. The Aspen Sunflowers were taller than me.

They lined the high part of the trail. I literally stopped at least a dozen times to take photos of them. I got a moderately early start on each day we spent there, and I had the trails all to myself. Lucky me!

In some places, purple Fireweed mixed in with the sunflowers. The trail was smooth and tacky - lined with flowers the whole way.

As I look through these photos, I am reminded, yet again, why we try so hard to seize each summer day in the high mountains. Mountain wildflowers have fleeting lives at high elevations. I'd bet that this display is almost finished by now. I feel so lucky to have seen it.

We spent three glorious days enjoying this heavenly wildflower capitol. We'd run/bike/swim in the morning, and recline in the sun in the afternoons.

After those blissful days, we awakened to a change in the weather one morning. Because we were camped so high, we were literally *in* the clouds. We headed down about 3000' in elevation for some exercise. I rode on this pretty trail at about 8000' in the rain.

And then we visited the town and its wifi to research the weather again. We discovered that a stretch of clear and beautiful weather was approaching out in the San Juan Mountains. We immediately hit the road to get there as fast as we could!

We had a super stroke of luck. Normally, we spend the first night in the San Juans camped near a main road, and then I ride a cross-country route to our favorite campsite, meeting the pack there (they drive a 4wd road). For some reason, I started thinking that we should drive directly to our campsite that night, even though it would be a bumpy and painful van ride for me.

As we drove up the 4wd road toward our campsite, we reached a "road closed" sign after about 10 miles. At first, we were morose. Then, we read the sign more carefully, and we saw that the road was closed for the following day - all day long. So, we went around the blockade and made it to our campsite that night.

That was a fabulous stroke of luck because, if we'd followed our usual plan, I would've arrived at our campsite, after 5 hours of hard mountain biking, to discover that the pack wasn't there due to the closed road. We did have satellite communication devices (DeLorme) so I'm sure we would have figured out a solution but it would have been a very rough day. Thank goodness that we decided to break with tradition and go straight to our campsite!

When we arrived at the campsite perched on an overlook, the moonlit view was incredible.

What a great trip we were having!

Friday Skyday

We were beyond thrilled when we arrived at our new campsite outside Crested Butte to find clear skies! Based on our web research, Crested Butte looked like an island of drier weather in the midst of our rainy state - so we immediately made a beeline for it.

Our campsite had incredible wildflowers all around it with sunshine making them glow.

It also had a pond about 50 yards away! R perfected his takeoff technique over the coming days. Lift off...

... and flight!

Shyla was watching his technique, and we saw her take flight for the first time in her young life. After leaping and flying for her first time, Shyla decided that she loved it, and we saw her do this many times in the following days. The "butt up in the air" pose was Shyla's unique twist to the Lab diving technique.

On that first evening, the sunset was beautiful - even more than usual because we hadn't seen sunshine in days.

The few clouds in the sky dissipated after the sun went down. The stars twinkled overhead with the bright moon up just after sunset. It was so bright that it was tough to see shooting stars, although there is one short one toward the upper right of the photo. This photo was taken with the camera pointed to the east while the moon was still up.

Then, after the moon set, I programmed the camera to take photos while we slept. The camera took many 4 minute exposures (with 5 seconds breaks between them) over the course of two and a half hours. You can see how many more stars were visible without the moon in this photo than when the moon was out (above). The North Star is at the center of all those circles.

While my camera was making star photos, we drifted off to sleep, eagerly anticipating riding/running on the many gorgeous trails near us the next morning. It was amazing how sun and clear skies lifted our spirits!

A Stormy Start to our Trip

Our trip started out in the midst of rain. It was raining at home when we departed, and the weather wasn't much different at a favorite campsite of ours. At least they were pretty clouds...

On that first night, for the only time while we were at the campsite, we could see the stars for about an hour. Because I knew the Perseid meteor showers were ramping up, I decided to pull out the camera for some star photos. I love seeing the Milky Way and shooting stars, all in one instant!

Then the clouds started to return, obscuring parts of the sky. Within a few minutes, we couldn't see more than 10' away from us. We were literally camping in the midst of the clouds.

The next morning, it wasn't raining but the Divide looked threatening, by any standard. This photo is on one of my favorite mountain biking trails. Over the days that we spent camping near it, this was the sunniest that it ever looked. I spent almost every instant on this trail pedaling like a maniac, trying to avoid being struck by lightning. I exhausted myself, but I saw the trail without any major mishaps.

We're thinking of visiting that area again soon to enjoy some sunshine rather than perpetual views of the trail like the next one. I found the clouds to be gorgeous but also very scary for someone riding a bike above treeline on the spine of the Continental Divide.

We did have some brief moments of sunshine near our campsite, making the wildflowers shine like candles in the night. We'd all run outside to have some fun in the fleeting sun.

Shyla leaped with joy during those respites from the monsoons.

And R sprinted with abandon (which makes me smile because his elbow seems so strong right now).

Then, as fast as the sun had broken through, a new storm front would appear on nearby mountains. We were perched so high in our campsite that we could see storm fronts coming our way in all directions.

Then the front would creep to the edge of our meadow before the skies above us opened up, again.

It was truly a lesson in life at high altitude. We tried to patiently wait out the storm cycle, knowing that eventually the weather would be sunny and nice. However, we finally gave up when every view of the horizon looked like this one. Again, it was beautiful, in a dramatic way, but it portended another day of thunder storms ahead of us.

We eventually decided to break camp to try to find better weather. We were treated to a pretty meadow vision on that last evening before we departed.

On the morning that we departed that camp, we did a quick run/bike ride before going to town to find a cafe with wifi where we could search for a sunny part of Colorado to visit.

Our decision seemed perfect when our final morning outing from that campsite involved deep fog and the heaviest rain we'd seen yet. Yes, the trail in that photo is on top of a mountain - although it's impossible to tell due to the clouds hugging it.

Our strategy of searching out good weather ended up being successful. The photos from yesterday's post were taken about 8 hours after our rain-soaked run/ride with zero visibility. Our search led us to find an island of sunshine and wildflowers. Sometimes it pays off to scrap your "plans" and follow the sunshine! We had great weather for the rest of our trip because we continued to follow the sun!

Wordless Wednesday: From our Mountain Trip

Lots of Fun!

Life is starting to return to normal around here, after some fun in the Rockies. Many of you know how much we adore the high mountains of Colorado. We love camping up high where we are surrounded by high mountain peaks. We spent a couple of weeks with only rare visits to anyplace lower than 11,000'!

Of course, the Labraduo was with us, snuggling into our sleeping bags every night.

It's no surprise that they love swimming in high mountain lakes. R's enthusiasm is over the top. He literally quivers with anticipation when someone is about to throw a stick in the lake.

Then he launches himself like a flying Labrador.

On our recent trip, Shyla found an intensity level about retrieving that I didn't know she had inside her. She awaited the throw...

And she launched herself high above the water to retrieve the stick.

Seeing the Duo's enthusiasm for something as simple as fetching puts life in perspective. After their intense races to the stick, they often carry it back together.

It's been a wonderful few weeks, replete with long mountain bike rides on the Continental Divide, lazy afternoons soaking up the sunshine, and glorious wildflowers all around us. This is an Elephant flower. Do you see why that's its name?

Yes, there was some inevitable rain too but the bright sunshine is what I remember most. I hope to tell you all about it and to catch up with your summer news!

Wordless Wednesday: The Eyes

Shyla watched the world from a sun puddle early in the morning...

Black Lab Sunday

Wordless Wednesday: A Sunset

This sunset took my breath away...

A Black Lab's Summer Fun

The Journey

I've realized that the next couple of weeks are going to be very busy, with little time for posting. In addition, I finally have a new computer but I have a lot to learn before I'll be up to speed with it. I have a backlog of fun wildlife footage that I will finally be able to collate into videos and share with you!

So, I'll probably have a few short posts in the coming couple of weeks - so please don't be surprised when I'm not on my usual posting schedule. I promise that I'll be back to normal before too long.

Today, I'll share a little bit more about the mountain escape that Shyla and I made earlier this week, hiking up the Continental Divide on a perfect summer day. The wildflowers were sublime, the air was warm, and we were happy!

I think that my favorite thing about the high mountains is that they give me perspective. The towering peaks remind me that we are specks in the universe.

The high mountains also give me perspective on the passage of time. I get all the way up to the Continental Divide only in the summertime. Consequently, it is frequently true that a year has gone by since the last time I visited a certain spot in the mountains. It makes me wonder how many more visits my life will allow, but that thought is too somber to contemplate now.

On this past hike, I was thinking of how much Shyla has changed in the past two years. Literally, by the month, I am seeing her blossom. When she's in the mountain environment, she now views most strangers as potential friends. She wags when people look at her and does a good job of "reading" whether someone wants to meet her or not. If they do want to meet her, she wiggles her whole body with happiness as she gently greets the person.

And, she's not afraid of hiking poles anymore!!! On our first alpine hike together almost 2 years ago, she repeatedly attempted to pull me off the side of a mountain to escape passing hikers who were using hiking poles. The other day, she walked past hikers with poles with no signs of fear. Wow!

I'm so proud of my girl, and I feel so lucky to be part of her transformation. When I first met her, her fears scared me because I didn't know if I'd be capable of helping her to live a happy life. I now have no doubt that she's a very happy dog. She'll always be more sensitive and prone to fear than any dog I've ever had in my life - but I now know that we can cope with almost anything together.

High in the Mountains

I wanted to tell you about our recent alpine hike but I am having some technical troubles. I am still awaiting a new computer so I guess it's to be expected that I'm running into some glitches.

Here's one photo from that day. It sums up all the beauty of that day - the flowers, the towering peaks, the blue sky, and my beautiful girl.

I love the high mountains!

Almost Wordless Wednesday: An Alpine Escape

Yesterday was one of those picteresque summer days that I cannot bear to miss. After our morning meeting the the bear and her cub, I canceled everything on my schedule, and I escaped to the high mountains, together with Shyla.

What an amazing day!

A Magical Meeting with a Bear and her Cub

Shyla and I headed for a normal bike ride this morning, in sunshine and warmth. She was her usual happy self.

I started by taking a few photos of Shyla, like I usually do in the morning. Then, we set out to ride through a pine forest on a sinuous trail perched on a steep slope.

At the start of the trail, I heard some loud sounds of branches breaking, like there was a large animal right ahead of us. Just as I realized that we should probably stop, we rounded a curve in the trail - and I saw a mother bear and a cub very close in front of us.

They'd been lured to the area by the Buffalo Berries that I wrote about the other day. They are ripening now, and the bears seem to love them. There are many bushes of them in our neck of the woods.

I mentioned previously that I took a field course on bear behavior in Minnesota last summer. Today, all the things that I learned in that amazing course came into play.

The cub reacted to us by climbing the nearest Douglas Fir tree. The mother fled downhill and stopped about 15-20 yards away behind some low pine trees.

The mother then started vocalizing while standing still and watching me, Shyla, and her cub. Her vocalizations were not even slightly aggressive. Rather, she grunted to the cub repeatedly, just like I observed wild mother bears do last summer in MN. When a sow's cubs are in a tree, the sow often grunts to them from the ground.

However, this mother's grunts were interspersed with moans. I learned last summer that moaning is a sign of extreme anxiety and fear in a bear.

Fortunately, Shyla showed absolutely zero interest in going near the cub or the sow. She stood very close by my side.

I started talking to the sow, just like I heard my instructors talk to black bears last summer. Don't worry - I didn't believe that the bear understood my words but I wanted to display confidence and calm in my tone, to try to keep the sow calm. I told her in a soothing tone that I was going to leash my dog. Then, I calmly told her that I was going to take one photo of her cub. Finally, after what was probably only a minute but seemed like ten minutes, I told her that we were turning around and leaving.

As Shyla and I started to walk away (I had the leash in one hand and was pushing my bike with the other), the sow increased the cadence of her grunting to the cub. The cub immediately descended from the tree (we were only about 10 yards away) and ran downhill to his mother. Then, the two them seemed to vanish without a trace into the thick forest.

Here was the one photo that I took as I talked with the mother bear. Isn't that a beautiful cub? Look how big his/her ears are relative to his/her head. It's as if cubs are born with adult-sized ears and their heads have to grow into them.

I was never afraid. I knew how to act around a bear - and it seemed like my calm demeanor kept the whole situation calm. I don't think that I could have handled such a close-up encounter without being scared if I hadn't spent the time in Minnesota intensively studying bears last summer.

It was truly a magical experience that I'll never forget.