Ouzel Falls - April 27, 2010

Tuesday was so sunny, warm and calm, we just had to get out and enjoy the day. We haven't hiked much in the Wild Basin area just north of Allenspark, so decided to head up to Ouzel Falls. As novice birders, we now know it could have been named American Dipper Falls, but I'm glad they went with the more exotic sounding "Ouzel."

The hike is recorded to have 950 feet of gain over 2.7 miles, but since the access road was closed the distance ended up being a bit longer. For some reason the GPS in Mike's phone couldn't get a lock on our location, so we don't have a trail map or exact distances this time but we think our 7 hour hike covered about 7.5 miles round trip. With an ending elevation of 9,450 feet, the trail was completely snow covered by the halfway point. Micro spikes didn't help with the post-holing, so the hike was a better workout than we'd bargained for.

Just a few minutes past the trailhead, we came to the lovely Copeland Falls and played around taking pictures on the rocky shore. Interesting icicles hung from the edges of the waterfall, as well as from fallen branches near the water. As the trail continued along the North St. Vrain Creek, we passed snow-covered cascades with just a hint of flowing water flowing underneath. I especially enjoy all the little bridges in this area.

Further along, now in fairly deep snow, if was fun to see the "backside" of Longs and Meeker peeking out in bright sunshine to the north. We rested and had our lunch a short distance before Ouzel Falls, which we thought might be completely frozen, but the top section was flowing big time above the frozen ice formations below. It was so great to be surrounded by ice and snow, but no coats needed! We enjoyed our snack of raw almonds and dark chocolate (Green & Black 85%), climbed all over the rocks and generally goofed around for nearly an hour.

Gosh, how could it be almost 4 o'clock already! Gathering up our gear, we headed back down, stopping at Copeland Falls once more to do a long exposure shot in the late afternoon light. We made it back to Estes Park in time to watch the beavers along Fish Creek Road at around 7PM. What a great day!

In Search of a Great Blue Heron

I'd been following the reports from eBird.org to find a spot to view Great Blue Herons. Late in March, one had been observed at a small pond near Erie, CO so off we drove. We were lucky enough to see two of these interesting birds at fairly close range.

Murphy's Law in action - when we got home, we learned that a GBH had been seen that day back home at Lake Estes!

Crosier Mountain Hike

Yesterday we decided to hike Crosier Mountain, a hike we did in June 2008. We loved Piper Meadows, the beautiful green meadow about halfway up which provided a lovely foreground for views of the Continental Divide. Our enthusiasm for Spring preceded the season, because it turns out in April any part of the meadow that is not white with snow is still quite brown. The trail was a little muddy and slushy in a few spots until past the meadow when we encountered mostly all snow, which made for a much tougher climb to the top. I sure wished I'd packed those micro spikes! We did finally make it to the summit, which was surprisingly calm considering the weather. There was a summit register in a PVC pipe, but one of the endcaps was missing, and the spiral notebook inside was completely soaked.

Various songbirds chirped and tweeted all along the trail, but Dark-eyed Juncos were the bird of the day. We saw tons of them flashing their white tail feathers as they flew around nearly every low lying shrub-filled area. On the way out, near dusk, Mike also spotted a red-tailed hawk landing high in the pines overlooking the meadow.

This trail is horse, dog and mountain bike friendly, but we met only one other hiker all day. His dog had found a large section of deer vertebrae and ribs, which she proudly carried in her mouth. I believe we may have seen some bear and cat tracks in the snow. Any ideas of who made the tracks pictured?

On this hike we were trying out some relatively new photo gear. The summit photo was taken with a new Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 ultrawide angle lens. The bird pictures were taken with a Canon 100-400mm lens we got last month. Mike was also testing a new chest pack to carry the DSLR with zoom lens attached.

This hike was fairly strenuous -- over 8 miles round trip, and almost 2000 feet of overall gain, with a lot of up and down. Here's a map of the area.

P.S. If you like Turkey Vultures, and who doesn't, you might enjoy our photos of the one Mike spotted on the way to Glen Haven, just above the little pond on the east side of the road after you turn onto Steamer Drive.