Deer Mountain June 6, 2010

Deer Mountain will always be special to me and Mike, and we try to hike it every year. It is the first hike we ever did together, and because of that, it is the place we chose to be married June 5, 2005.

The views along the trail of Deer Mountain do not disappoint and today was no exception. Not a lot of wildflowers yet, but some Pasque Flowers were still blooming and some Early Larkspur were just getting started. It is hard to beat the near 360 degree view at the summit, stretching from Lumpy Ridge, past Lake Estes, The Town, Longs Peak and all the way around to Chapin, Chiquita and Ypsilon.

Here are some pictures from the hike.

Today began as an unusually hot hike for early June, a good reminder of why it is good to start a 6.75 mile summer hike before 11:30AM! But interesting cloud formations eventually gave way to rain and even some grapple, another reminder to start your hike earlier in the day! After an hour or so, we left headed back down because of thunder, but the rain was refreshing and made our hike back down much more comfortable.

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.

Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska

We enjoyed the Sandhill Cranes at Monte Vista NWR so much, that we decided we needed to travel to Nebraska to see the greatest concentration of them in the world. There is an 80 mile wide migration "flyway" located roughly between Kearney and Grand Island through which 80% of the world's population of Sandhills travel in March and early April. This means up to 600,000 cranes enjoy the safety of the Platte River at night, while fueling up mostly on corn in the neighboring farm fields.



The weather was great for viewing and we saw temperatures well into the 70's. Monday evening we arrived in time to see the birds arriving from roadside viewing platforms near the Rowe Sanctuary and Audubon Center. As the full moon rose, wave after wave of birds filled the skies in layers, from directly overhead to as far out on the horizon as you could see. The magnitude of their numbers was inescapable as their calls surrounded us with sound.

We spent the night up near Grand Island so that Tuesday morning we were closer to the Nebraska Nature and Visitor's Center, where we had scheduled a 6AM Crane Tour. After a brief and informative orientation, our friendly and knowledgeable guide escorted us on a short drive to the viewing blind parking area. A 10 minute walk in the dark got us to the blinds, modified truck boxes which were a little noisy in the morning breeze off the river. At first the birds were mostly still, chatting quietly amongst themselves. As the sun rose, it was fantastic to see them waking up and start their "dancing" with crescendoing calls heard up and down the river. We stayed until 9AM by which time most of the birds had flown off, enjoying our own conversations with other folks in the blind.

After a late breakfast, we drove around the local farmlands to watch the birds feeding in the fields. All along the route we would see them "loafing" as well as flying overhead here and there. We ended up at the Rowe Sanctuary viewing blind in the afternoon, where we enjoyed watching shorebirds and spotted a Belted Kingfisher fishing. Afterward, we listened to their Crane 101 program and visited with volunteers at the Center.

The visitor centers and viewing blinds at both the Nebraska Nature and Visitor's Center (http://nebraskanature.org) and the Rowe Sanctuary (http://www.rowesanctuary.org/) were very good and even if you don't want to pay for a blind tour, they are worth a stop to gather information and view their displays. When we go back, we will be sure to check out the Cranes from Hike/Bike Bridge located at Fort Kearny State Recreational Area. A small fee to park and a 300 yard walk is all you need do to access this old railroad bridge over the braided Platte. Even though the peak viewing for 2010 has passed, there is still very good Crane viewing in early April. And the Prairie Chicken leks are just getting started!

Wild Turkeys in Rocky

Not really a hike, but definitely about local wildlife. We were on Bear Lake Road yesterday geared up to try to photograph a sunset, and instead came across a rafter of wild turkeys practically on the road.

We pulled off, quickly changed lenses and then got as many shots in as we could with the low light and nervously retreating turkeys. Susan was more patient than I was and got the best shots. Here are a few of the best of what we got (click on slideshow below to see full size web album/images).



I went back to previous Estes List emails about wild turkeys and I'm guessing this rafter is the one often seen around Giant Track mountain. We were less than two miles west of Giant Track. There were probably at least a dozen (got 10 in one photo), and one of them was the beautiful gold color previously reported.

Susan did some research and believes these could be Merriam's wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo merriami)
http://www.nwtf.org/conservation/bulletins/bulletin_04_5-20-09.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/yc4mljc

This PDF has a US map with ranges of other wild turkeys.

Rabbit Mountain Open Space Park hike

Susan and I are always looking for new places to hike, especially in the early spring when there's still so much snow in Rocky. We've driven by the Highway 66 turnoff for Boulder County's Rabbit Mountain Open Space Park many times, but had no idea what was back there.

It was a warm day and some parts of the trails were pretty muddy.

We hiked pretty much all of the trails in the Park and enjoyed the scenery to the east, toward Boulder, and the views of Divide, Longs/Meeker, and Indian Peaks. We had hoped to see some raptors as there are a couple of areas of the Open Space that were closed from Feb-Jul for raptor nesting, but we didn't see anything except a raven. Susan read somewhere that there is nesting bald eagle pair on Rabbit Mountain, but we didn't see a nest or any eagles.

Here are some photos we took, including a couple of panoramas I stitched together.


And here's a GPS track log/map of the hike/area.

View Rabbit Mountain Open Space Park in a larger map