Wildflower Hike on Shrine Mountain Trail

Last week my "Women With Altitude" hiking group tackled the Shrine Mountain Trail. The trailhead is off of Shrine Mountain Road, about 2.3 miles past where it peels off the Vail Pass Rest Area parking lot in Colorado. We'd been told by friends that the wildflowers were particularly beautiful on this trail, and they were soooooo right! The photos below don't do them justice. The first photo is of most of the group (minus the photographers), and the next three are of wildflowers.

Then there are the views! Once you reach the top of the ridge, you can see Mt. Holy Cross off to the southwest, the Gore Range to the north and the Tenmile Range to the east. Also, there's the "shrine" itself, a bulwark of a red rock formation (as seen in the first photo below) across a small hanging valley from the ridge the trail goes on (in the second photo).

And there were beautiful but deadly mushrooms. All in all, a fine day for a hike with fine company!

Wildflower Hike

Last Friday, I hiked the Acorn Creek Trail near Silverthorne, Colorado, with my Women With Altitude group. We experience a profusion of gorgeous wildflowers that had us ooohing and aaahing throughout the hike. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera along with me, but I tried to take some photos with my cell phone. The pictures didn't do the flowers justice, but here's a sampling anyway:

Blue columbine (Colorado state flower) and pink wild roses.

Chiming bells in front of aspens and resting hikers.

The mountain view across the valley on our way back to the trailhead.

A red profusions of scarlet gilia, also called fairy trumpet.

Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park

Last week I posted photos from my husband's and my book research trip in Moab, Utah. The week following that trip, we stayed in Estes Park, Colorado for a week so we could do some hiking among the golden aspens and mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park and so we could spy on some of the horny elk during their bugling season.

But first, we stopped off at the Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction that is slated to become a national park soon. The first photo below is of Window Rock there, the second is of the Coke Ovens formation, and the third is of me in the Devil's Kitchen.




Our first full day in Estes Park, we drove up the dirt Old Fall River Road to the Alpine Visitor Center then came back down the Trail Ridge Road. The first photo is of Chasm Falls and the second is of the mountains from the top of Trail Ridge Road. The third is of a marmot we spied alongside the road and the fourth is just one example of the many gorgeous fall color photos my husband took.





In the afternoon, we hiked to Nymph Lake (first photo below), Dream Lake (second photo) and Emerald Lake (third photo) from the Bear Lake trailhead.




The second full day in the park we hiked to Ouzel Falls (first photo below) from the Wild Basin trailhead in the morning, then took our son, who arrived in the afternoon, down to the Estes Park golf course to see the elk and geese there (next two photos).




The third day, all three of us hiked to Alberta Falls (first photo below) and The Loch (second photo) from the Glacier Basin trailhead. While all of our hikes were beautiful, I think this one was the most breathtaking. The third photo shows our son on a rock overhanging Glacier Creek and the fourth shows me and my hubby among some of the dazzling aspens.





On the last full day in the park, we took our son up the Trail Ridge Road to see the sights from the overlooks and hike the Alpine Communities Trail at 12,500 feet. After he left in the early afternoon, I hiked to The Pool on the Big Thompson River from the Fern Lake trailhead (photo below). Then we observed elk stags in rut in the late afternoon: herding their does (second photo below), bugling (third photo), and sparring (last photo).





It was hard to have to go back to work promoting books at the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Trade Show the next afternoon!