Picnic at Lewis Lodge

The sky held you firm,
in tight hospital corners,
as I scaled
your weathered rocks
on the edge.
My calloused fingers
and treadless, worn boots
my only connection upon
you.
I rested on your pulpits
of rock-scattered ledges.
Mosaics of stone made
soft and brilliant
by years of
wind and water beating.
I am but a girl,
pawing through
God's jewelry box
of fractured wholes,
shifting landscapes, echo voices,
in sweet, sweet silence.
Your hand guiding mine,
you said you wanted
to picnic here.
And for the first time,
in a long time.
I felt a wave
of no longer being hungry.

Women's Outdoor Group

Back in 1979 a small group of friends got together and formed an outdoor club for women. The club slowly grew by word of mouth for almost two years before it fell apart. In mid 1983 the club reformed, becoming the Women’s Outdoor Club. The club flourished and grew to a membership of well over 200 women until 2007 when an aging, less active membership and the downturn in the economy brought the club to an end.

I am not advocating the revival of the WOC, but I would be interested in forming a women’s outdoor social group for sharing outdoor adventures. Regardless of age, nationality, ethnogeny or whether lesbian or straight. If you live in the greater Denver/Boulder metro area and would be interested in an outdoor group for women that do the type of activities you see pictured on this blog or listed in the Trip Reports on Running Away, send me an email.

Hibernation

I started this blog page simply as a way to share my pictures, travels and a few poems with my family. Over the years Jamie Ann has grown, taking a life and direction of its own. I am not sure what I will do with it or if I will even continue it. I do know that I have arrived at a burn-out point and I need to put this blog to rest for a while.

Winter is approaching and I am hopeful that we’ll have a good snow season here in Colorado this year. I plan on spending the winter month’s x-backcountry skiing my old haunts. So I am going to let this blog hibernate through the winter.

To everyone who has visited “Jamie Ann”, I want to say Thank You for your visit and your comments. To those of you that have filled my inbox with your emails, I especially want to say Thank You. I never expected to receive so many emails from all over the world. It has truly been amazing to me.

Enjoy Life - be
adventurous!

- - - -

Colorado River - Nevada

Paintbox

Put your hand in the paintbox and choose.
Which says the most about you?
I would have to pick the deepest shade,
the saddest shade of night-blue.

But Red - red is the color I’d choose.


I gave my love so long ago.
Writing it down so deep.
And though so many years have come,
never could it fade away.

But Red - red is the color I’d choose.


Through my life one wish has stayed.
Your eternal light shines clear.
Oh’ it doesn’t matter now if I should win, if I should lose,
if I’ve waste my love away.

Red - red is the color I’d choose.


Deepest red in a sky of deepest night-blue.
I don’t care what color you choose.
I just love,
love - what I see in you.

Red - red is the color I’d choose.

Fragile Skin

There is a gentle wind which descents like billowing silk,
upon the soul that accepts its coming death.
A gentle pocket of air, in our turbulent everyday life.
The air gently enfolds our fragile skin,
as if it has been drifting towards us forever.

Our fragile skin is our emblem of identity,
the image we presented to the world.
But it was never who we really were.
It didn’t make us any more or less of ourselves.
It’s was only our clothing, not the essence of us.

" I climbed this thing, now what do I do?"



Click Here

Departure

On this summers eve, the sun has lessened the day
to a fading memory.
As though preparing for a depature.
Cool breezes playfully dance and the scent of the pines
weaves through the air like threads,
entwining with the perfume of the wild flowers,
creating an intricate tapestry of fragrance.

I sit by this still lakeshore, as I have done for decades,
on the edge of sleep, drifting on memories of another life.
Memories –
they are all the aged have.
The young, have hopes and dreams.
While we old ones hold the decaying remains of them,
and wonder what has happened to our lives.

I drift back on my life.
From the moments of my reckless sprouting youth,
through the painful and idyllic changing seasons of life.
To the beetles torments ahead.
I could say that I have lived my life, if not to the full,
then at least almost to the brim.
What more could one tree ask?

Pearl &
Steamboat

Mornings Light

The rising day like a spark of light,
illuminates my soul.
And as each new spark grows brighter,
I too grow, becoming whole.

There is no corner, no dark place,
mornings light cannot fill.
And if the world starts causing waves,
lights promise makes them still.

You always speak to me,
in sweet honesty and truth.
Your caring heart keeps out the rain,
your presence, the ultimate roof.

Eleven Mile

I'm Lunch

I started the day with what seemed like a wonderful plan. Pack the kayak and camping gear and head for Homestake Reservoir for a couple of days of remote camping - visiting Paradise Lakes and getting pictures of Paradise Creek Falls while the spring runoff is running full and the alpine wildflowers are emerging, and then hiking on the continental divide. A simple plan.

Since Homestake is in a deep high walled valley, the only way to get to Paradise Lakes and the waterfalls is to kayak or canoe the two miles across the reservoir to its southern end, then hike up the foot trail along Paradise Creek to the lakes just below the continental divide.

As I arrive at the southern end of Homestake, I could see the mist hanging in the air and hear the roar of the cascading whitewater through the breaks in the trees. For a while I sat just off shore where I could see Paradise Creek Falls through the trees and took some telephoto shots of the falls.
I beach my kayak and start looking for a good camping spot at the edge of the forest when I realize that I am beginning to wave my arms around and swatting at my bare legs. Mosquitoes! Not just a few, but hundreds, thousands of mosquitoes. Within minutes, I am incased within a black swarm of hungry mosquitoes and I’m the main course on their lunch menu.

I have spent a lot of time in Colorado’s high country, and mosquitoes are always present in the summer months, but I have never experienced such a massive swarm of mosquitoes as I did today. It was just like backpacking in the Southern Wind River Range of Wyoming. Something you don’t ever want to do in July.
I ran for my kayak and didn’t bother getting back in, I just straddled it and shoved myself back out onto the reservoir. About a hundred feet offshore, the mosquitoes left me and returned to the forest.

Paradise Creek Falls

So much for a great plan. - I abandoned the camping idea and settled for some long telephoto shots of the waterfalls. I’ll go back in August after the mosquitoes die-off. The spring runoff will be over and the waterfalls will be just a trickle, but the camping and hiking will be just as good. Even with the mosquitoes, as long as they stayed on shore, it was still a good day for kayaking on Homestake.

Life is Good.

- - - - -

There are new signs popping up at Colorado’s lakes and reservoirs. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has initiated a campaign to help stop the spread of the Zebra Mussel in Colorado waters. Please click on this link “Zebra Mussel” to visit the Colorado Division of Wildlife web site to learn about the program.

Low Water

Gross Reservoir is one of those local places that I keep going back too. Nestled in Coal Creek Canyon only 30 miles from Lakewood, it’s easy to get to, yet once your there, it has a remote feel about it. The bad news is that the reservoir is only about 60% full. Denver Water, who owns and operates the reservoir, tells me that the reservoir is still a good 30-foot below its normal water level. The good news is that with Colorado’s great snowpack last winter, we are having a good Spring runoff. South Boulder Creek is running fast and full, so the reservoir water level is rising about 3-feet per day. Even with the low water, Gross is still a great place to go for a morning kayak until the noon winds kick up whitecaps.

The Osprey Point boat launch is still well out of the water. It’s a long walk carrying your kayak and gear down to the water. The return uphill walk seems even longer.

When Gross Res. is full, you can almost kayak right into the outlet of South Boulder Creek. Not today, if you’re a whitewater person, you could have a wild ride for about a quarter mile. I paddled my 14-foot sea kayak into the current and paddled my heart out just to hold myself in place.

If you left click this picture, you’ll see the white buoy chained to the top of the rock to warn boaters of the underwater rock hazard.

I find it hard to believe that I am the only woman in the Denver metro area who owns a sea-kayak and actually goes kayaking at least once a week. If you live in the Denver metro area, own a kayak, and would like to be part of a Women’s Kayak Group, send me an e-mail. I would love to start a local day-trip and multi-day trip group.

Even with low water – Life is still good!

For those compelled to be adventures in life,
the practice of imagination,
is a dangerously captivating magic.

For imagination has no linear commands,
there are no regulatory signs,
no warning lights, and no directions along the way.

You are free to move in any direction - change lanes.
Or, just stop right in the middle of the road,
refusing to move - refusing the obligation to proceed.

For there is no such thing as progress in imagination.
Only a perpetual recurrence of isolated moments,
lost beyond time.

Procession

Procession Panel

Some say it’s a funeral, a celebration, a gathering of the clans.

Procession of Days

I have known a flat and empty time.
When seldom were there windsongs or rain rhythms,
a time of chill without the lucid taste of winter’s cold,
a time of sex without the giddy shiver of love,
a place of shelter without the ember-glowing heat of my own soul.
A cold time,
in which the procession of days
was only the passing of moments,
only the passing of life.

isolation

You may declare your independence,
your “letting go”, through some outward show of defiance or self-reliance,
but know this, nothing exists outside of relationships.

Though we travel to the heart of a desert and there pitch our tent,
we may succeed in being isolated yet we fail to be unrelated.
A relationship will exist between us and the land,
between us and the lizards, cacti, coyotes and sand.
Moreover, all those we fled will come along with us in our memories.

Independence is a state of mind, not a place of residence,
is a genuine feeling, not a posture.

Nothing exists in isolation.

Enter the isolation of Comb Ridge and you will pitch your tent in the ever-present voices of the past. Stand in Fishmouth Cave or sit before the Procession Panel. Hike into Monarch Cave or Pronghorn and you'll hear the voices ridding on the wind, echoing through the canyons. Stand before Wolfman, and you'll know that in your isolation you are not alone. You are never alone.

Hayfield

I listened to the fields today,
the fields and their conversations with the wind.

First it was only the sound of the wires
taut in the violent gusts sweeping before the coming clouds.
Then it settled to the steady flow of moving air,
and I heard the rustling of the deep green,
dense,
and spring-moist hay grass.

And later, crossing the highway to the yellow-stark stubble of fallow acreage,
I heard the crisp and random whispers of the dead.

Such were the voices in the hayfield.

"On this Earth Day and all days –
Please, Respect the land".

Metate Arch - The "Devils Garden"
Grand Staircase Escalante

Balance and Prayer are self-confrontational.

Prayer -
Prayer begins spontaneously,
in sync with the heartbeat.
Balance -
A point of muscular and spiritual exertion,
becomes a point of effortless calm.

At such a point - you meet yourself.

Devils Garden

Fixed Shape

I thought love had a fixed shape.
I thought love was feelings that focus on a particular body.
A particular heart.
A particular face, a sound.

With you, it’s different.
It’s something that opens up.
A door.
A candidness.

It’s something that my soul feeds upon,
weathering all time.
It’s like dope, I’m hooked on it.
I’m afraid of losing it.

White Pocket

Birth of Spring

I wait with my soul wide open.
My senses spread by these lingering, fickle, chilled days.
Snow flurries mockingly, teasing pass my window,
drifting down from winters white-gray sky.

I know of the certainty coming.
Of the warmth and the life it will bring.
Steadly, I walk through the gate of March,
toward the birth of Spring.

Couldn't get There

Have you ever had one of those days, when you really wanted to get somewhere but you just couldn’t seem to get there? It certainly wasn’t from my lack of trying, nor was it something I did. I just couldn’t get there. I should be expressing gratitude; her presence should flood my soul with joy. Yet, she beat me down and now somehow, I feel I failed. I just couldn’t get there.

Snow, I love her, but what am I going to do with her?

Snow

Her gift of softness - falling snow.
It’s silent voyage from sky to earth,
carries a radiance,
rising from deep within me.

She makes my heart ache with desire.
With shivers, her still peace,
warms my soul,
as I’m wrapped in her blanket of white.

There is a mystery about her.
For her song is in silence,
music to my earthly soul.
Her life, she opens for me to embrace.

She is truly beauty,
the best of all my dreams.
I will love her throughout eternity.
With not part, but with all that is me.

Herman Gulch

Ambling

Mt. Guyot

At first I was only fleeing confrontation with myself.
but somewhere down the harried highway,
it was my own being I encountered.

Ambling peacefully along.

Since then I have pleasantly accepted the necessity,
of joining that particular manifestation of my energies,
that knows the heart of the gypsy.

Kenosha Pass (west side)
Colorado Trail

The Sun

“Imagine,” she said,
“that there was something in the sky.
Something that was going to hurt you,
perhaps even kill you.
A huge eagle or something.

Imagine that if you went out in daylight
the eagle would get you”.

“Well,” I said.
“That’s how it is for me.
Only it’s not a bird.
It’s bright, beautiful, dangerous daylight,
and I’ve embraced it all my weathered years.”

Butler Gulch

Street

It was a four bar night
in a mountain town.
I was stumbling and falling
on the frozen ground.
(You don’t know what you’ve lost
until you see just what you’ve found.)

And the howling winter nights were just beginning.



Click Here to read this Tale.

Red Fox

This picture is not typical of what I usually post. I love nature, and so I am always awed and grateful when I encounter wildlife in the wilderness. This however is not the wilderness; it’s my urban / suburban backyard. For two years now, this Red Fox has lived in the junipers lining the back of my yard. Watching the fox and being watched by the fox has given me great pleasure. Today I discovered that I have a pair of them in residence.

Living in harmony with the symphony of nature.
She smiles upon the children of the world,
and to those who remember,
it doesn’t belong to us.

We belong to it.

Kenosha

You can hike it - You can mountain bike it - A few people snowshoe it.
Not many people know that you can ski it.

Kenosha Pass East

the Old Iron Stove

Winters first morning brought not just frost – Ice.
Ice - that blurred my cabin window like a cataract.
Ice - on both sides of the glass.

In winter’s morning’s chill, wrapped in woolen blanket,
I knelt in front of the old iron stove,
as if in prayer.

The old stove, oxidized with age.
Ash-grey on the surface, sot-black in its belly,
like the coal, sleeping lifeless in the side bucket.

With hot frosted breath, I blew on the stoked coals,
in hope of a rust red glow through layers of black.
A sharp smell of burning dust.

Offering tribute, I fed the stove, bringing life into its iron belly.

Through opened blanket, I bowed over it,
the iron skin of the old stove almost touched mine.
Heat spread quickly across my belly,
stinging the skin of my face.

On winter’s first morning, bowing over the old stove,
I collected all the warmth it could give,
until all I could breathe was summer.

Thankful

My life is a spiraling cycle of collects.
Of moods and passions.
Of beauty and boredom.
Of love and vacancy.
All caressed and brutally collided.

Through all the dust-settled, dreary days.
All the wild and child-free, fantasy days.
The subtle, silent days.
My life is a mosaic of all moments,
a gathering - for which I am Thankful.

Witches

So, where do the witches come from?
The ghouls, the ghosts, the grave-tilling banshees.
Where do the awful things begin,
that stretch across centuries to touch our heart with the cold,
clasping hands of fear?



Cleck Here to read the poem.

Autumn's Night Walk

Autumn is damp and chilled.
The yellow-orange leaves lie wet upon the sidewalk.
I walk upon them and they are somber in the grey air’s shift toward darkness.
Distant draped windows glow in the illusion of warmth, as the heavy air smells of fireplace smoke.
It is a street of old trees and close houses shuddering in the chill of damp autumn’s evening.



Click Here to read the poem.

Cedar Mesa

Memories

Memories are the fuel we burn to stay alive.
Whether those memories have any actual importance or not,
does not matter.
They are all the fuel, the maintenance of life.

Important memories.
Not-so-important memories.
Trivial, useless memories.
There is no distinction; they are all just fuel that keeps us alive.

The memories of where I’ve been,
fuels my life.
Calling out to where I’ve yet to go.
Too memories, yet lived.

- - -

"Twilight" at Cave Towers - Picture by Jon Fuller - Moab.

Welcome to Utah’s Cedar Mesa. A stark land, a land of mesa tops, a land of deep canyons, a land of beauty, a land alive with memories. From the fortress of the Citadel, to the communities of Moon House and South Mule Canyon, or neighboring Cave Towers. From Butler Wash and Ballroom, down the Comb Ridge to the Valley of the Gods. Come see the beauty and experience new memories.

Bill Richardson

I did not start this blog to use it for any type of a social or political platform. I have never been what I would call a politically motivated person. My interests and loves in life have always been nature and environment based. Regretfully, under the Bush administration, this country has only degraded. Although the endangered environment is now a global issue, this country has long been in the forefront of its demise. It is past time that we stop. With the presidential election on the horizon, I ask that you earnestly consider the candidacy of New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson. Please click the link below to visit Governor Richardson's campaign site.

Bill Richardson

Devils Tower

“A dark mist lay over the Black Hills,
and the land was like iron.
At the top of the ridge I caught sight of Devils Tower.
Upthrust against the gray sky
as if in the birth of time
the core of the earth had broken through its crust.
And the motion of the world was begun.”

N. Scott Momaday - Kiowa writer and poet.

Devils Tower National Monument

Morning Sky

I have of course, the morning sky
and the river

I have considered stellar reaches
and the local eternity of ceaseless waters

I have perceived beyond the transient realm of mortality
a sense of promise
of extension
of connection

I hear it in the flow of the ever-moving river
I glimpse it in the warm-shimmering sphere
of the morning sky

We are all, it seems, so very young here in the venue
of this light-spiraling millennia

Petty logic fails the heart
and though night has its mocking intimacy
and tears make bleary the lucid visage of light
Clearly, I can tell you
there are voices and touches of the Infinite
in the loving might of each human spirit

I hear them in the whispers of ceaseless waters.
I feel them, in the glowing-echoes
of the morning sky

Upper Missouri River Breaks
National Monument

Across the Clouds

“Soaring across the sky,
in never-ending sleeplessness.
The meadows are fresh with dew.
The pond glimmers.
You draw me to you from across the clouds.”

Sylvan Lake

Jefferson Lake Tour

Jefferson Creek inlet

65 miles southwest of Lakewood in the Pike National Forest, you’ll find Jefferson Lake. Jefferson is a small natural lake just below timberline. This is a wake-less lake offering five miles of forest lined shoreline well suited for quiet, early morning kayaking. If you like to fish, the lake is well stocked with Brown and Rainbow trout.

The Passage

Blue on Blue
Lake Dillon, Colorado

The Gateway

The Entrance

The Middle

The Exit

The End

It's always like that in the beginning, you know something is happening but you have no idea what! It's as if you had electricity flowing through your body! You're practically vibrating with emotion. Begin by listening to your heart, and feeling the sensation in your body, only then will you be able to judge the intensity of your emotions. Could this be desire, or even love? Better yet, the first day of summer in Colorado.

Alive

Winds of the cosmic whisper, touching my time upon earth,
they batter me with terror and caress me with beauty.
I sing life’s song to the sunshine hillsides
and bow to the applause of wind-rustling pine boughs.

I delight in the myriad stars of the wild-darkness of mountain night
though they have given me no more answers
than have preachers or philosophers or beer.

I am life's voice as is the river the voice of fallen rain.

When I sing the songs of humanity,
they are the bellow of a bawdy beast,
the soft whispers of a subtle lover,
the cry of flesh, lost to the labyrinth of mortality,
the anthem of a soul, small as an alpine flower
and as vast as eternity.

It is a wonder to be alive.

Song

Spring has come late and fitfully to the mountains this year.
Settling with full flourish in deep valley pockets, where fresh leaved aspen trees commence the processes of summer, while ignoring chilled, steep slopes and wind-raw ridges.
Where cottonwoods are only sparsely coloring in the hint of life’s emergence from the stark strength of their dark reaching limbs.
And, regardless of spring’s fickle caress, throughout the random poetry of the wild lands in metaphor with wintry wood or lyric harmony with verdant glade, dogwoods are flowering white.

From my hillside vantage where wild grassy fields and low juniper treed thickets fall gently toward the waking town and distant mountains are brushed by the drizzling mist of the morning rain, I watch and listen.
My coffee steams in the moist chill of the morning air.
A raven watches from a nearby perch.

In this symphony of early morning, the woodwind birds flute and piccolo, and distantly a single solemn mourning dove oboes a haunting counter to the chirping variations upon a theme of nature’s lusting appetites.
Far down the falling valley, a freight trains rumble percussion.
And all about me the ineffable sweep of tremolo, straining strings vibrates from the virile energies of life.

As I sip my honey-sweetened coffee and absorb the crescendo of this mellifluous moment of birdsongs, rain scent, and the beating of my own heart, the ever-dissonant tones and distractions of humanities blind reality are made mute by the might of the song.

Rattlesnake Canyon

Voices in the Canyons

I listened to the canyons today.
The canyons and their conversations with the wind.
First, it was only the warm sound of the steady flow of moving air,
sweeping, before the coming clouds.
Then it chilled to taut violent gusts,
dense, with spring-moist rain.
I heard the restless rustling of the ancient stone,
Later, in the red-stark stubble of wind ravaged stone,
blanketing the canyons floor,
I heard the crisp and random whispers of the dead.
Such were the voices in the canyons.

Click on this link to visit the Southern - San Rafael Swell

Solitude

Before I enter the room of your solitude
in my living form, trailing my shadow.
I shall have come unseen.
You will believe a bird flew by your window.
A wandering bee buzzed in the hallway.
A wind rippled the bronze grasses.
Or will you,
know who it is?

Click on this link to visit the Northern - San Rafael Swell

Cypress

Just a lone cypress tree
standing sentinel on a hill.
Watching across the valley,
the world of stone – dissolving.
Giving rise,
to concrete, glass and steel.

Sedona, Arizona

Some one in Arizona screwed-up big time. They took one of the most scenic red rock locations the state has to offer and put a high-end, overpriced, over-congested tourist town right in the middle of it. And they're still building! Why?

There is no place you can go hike without people, without Pink Jeeps, without the sight of seven figured homes, golf courses and tourist helicopters. What were they thinking?

For this wilderness backcountry loving girl, it was all I could do to turn a blind eye to the commerical ravages of mankind, so that I only saw the beauty of nature.

So, if you do find yourself in Sedona, Arizona for Spring Break and you’re not into tourist shopping, here’s a few thing you could do.
- Go hike the Broken Arrow Trail or the Devils Bridge Trail or the Secret Canyon Trail or the Vultee Arch Trail or the Soldier Pass/Brins Mesa Loop Trail.
- If you're not into canyon hiking but like walking. You could go visit the ruins at Honanki and Palaki or Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot or the pictographs at the V Bar V or go to Cathedral Rock via Oak Creek.
- If you prefer to drive, Red Rock Loop and Schnebly Hill are worth the gas. Just turn a blind eye to anything manmade.

Life is Good! even in Sedona

Spring Equinox

Patience

I wait with my senses wide open.
Soul spread by these lingering, fickle, chilled days.
Snow flurries no longer pass my window,
drifting down from a white-gray sky.

I know the certainty coming.
Of the warmth and life it will bring,
Patient, I wait through Mach,
for the birth of Spring.

Moonlight

At the settling of dusk, I was yet far up the distant realm of a mountain valley. Hastened by the deepening threat of darkness, I quickly descended the gentle path along the creek toward camp. Sensing the ancient presence of the nearing night, I spoke to a spirit, asking, “What can you tell me?”
Distracted by the sound of my own voice, I stumbled over a shadow-hidden stone, all but sprawling myself upon the trail.
And the spirit said: “I can tell you to watch your step”.

As a seeker of answers to the ultimate questions, unimpressed by this revelation from the voice of my invisible link to the infinite, I spat back in anger at the mocking night, “I’ll just do that.” But, then, humbled by the impotence of my outburst and knowing it was not only the diminishing light that had made me desperate, from a heart that pulsed a despairing soul, I shouted to the dimming heavens and the ever-listening mystery of the trees, “Spirit, what can you give me?”
And the spirit said: “I can give you moonlight upon this elusive trail”.

Disheartened by the obvious, I asked no more, and it wasn’t until the darkness had made phantoms of the jutting rocks, and the grace of creek-gathered pine groves had become a conspiracy of wind-shifting shadows, that I began to grasp the immensity of the spirit’s white glowing gift flowing through the forest before me.

Butler Gulch

Things to do on Tuesday when it’s cold.

Take US 40 west past Empire, CO. to the Henderson Mine turn off. Follow the Henderson Mine road to the Jones Pass/Butler Gulch trailhead parking lot.

The bowls and glades at the head of Butler Gulch are a popular destination for Telemark skiers. However, because Butler Gulch is a wide, intermediate rated trail, about four miles long, it's a great place for backcountry skiing and snowshoeing. It’s one of those backcountry trails that makes a great half-day trip.

It would have been wonderful if Mother Nature had been more cooperative with the weather. The day was cold with a light snowfall. As hard as the sun tried, it just couldn’t break through the overcast. So what can you do, dress for the cold and go play anyway.

I like skiing Butler Gulch because there’s a long narrow glade that parallels the main trail for almost three miles. When the sun is out, which it certainly wasn’t today, the glade is beautiful. Skiing the glade, there always seem to be great powder, and you can cut your own trail, winding in and out of the trees.

Towards the end of the glade, the trees thicken and the climb to the main trail becomes steep.

From the Butler Gulch trail, this is looking down to the ski tracks I cut climbing through the trees out of the glade.

Back on the Butler Gulch trail, it’s a smooth easy glide back to the parking lot and lunch.

Life is Good -
even if the sun doesn't always shine.

Clinton

How to spend a lazy Tuesday morning.

About 65 miles west of Denver on Colo. Hwy 91 you’ll find Clinton Reservoir Facilities. It’s not a large reservoir, only 4,372 acre-feet with 2.2 miles of shoreline. Because it’s small, most people just pass it by never knowing that it offers some wonderful scenic lakeside backcountry skiing.
Plus you can ski up the Clinton Amphitheater valley below five 13ers. Or, if you want a long loop, you can cross over Gold Hill and find yourself in Mayflower Gulch.

Click on this picture to enlarge it. This view is looking south across Clinton Reservoir. You can see 13,857-foot Clinton Peak (foreground), 13,790-foot McNamee Peak on the right and the tip of 13,852-foot Traver Peak on the left.

Clinton Reservoir is in the White River National Forest. Except for crossing the valley at the southeast end of the reservoir, you can ski around the reservoir in the trees.

Because Clinton Reservoir is small, it frizzes rock solid in the winter. It’s not often you can ski across a snow-covered frozen reservoir. Looking northwest across the mile long reservoir, you can just see the dam. 13,205-foot Jacque Peak is on the right.

Jewels of Sensation

Winter has come,
wearing a crown of bitter splendor.
I have touched his unmerciful hand in the justice of his season.
My breath,
has broken in the baleful chill of his eye.
Yet I have tasted the closely wrapped delights,
in his sackful of sweetness & precious gifts;
Jewels of Sensation.

Welcome 2007

ANewYear - and I cannot think of a better way to start it than skiing in the beauty of Colorado's backcountry. So on this first day of the new year I grabbed my skies and headed for Fraser, Colorado and the Experimental Forest.

Welcome to the Spruce Creek / Deadhorse Loop.

Winter Solstice

The Solstice Child

What child is this who brings such light,
Reborn from the darkest of nights.
Rekindling the flame of its soul.

The Solstice Child.
The brilliant light - the light wild,
Rises in glorious morn.

With a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
Rise from your knees! O hear the voices.
O light divine - O light.

Come ye - sing and rejoice,
This solstice morn, O glorious morn.
When light is reborn.

Zion Moon

At one end of an aisle called sunset
Is an alter of birth and death
Where night weds day
And stillness flows over the land
As the moon rises in the winter sky
She smiles down upon the groom
In a gown of cold light.

Coyote Buttes

A coyote’s cry.

Dancing in harmony
with the symphony of the wind.
Can you hear the echoes
of the spirits of the land?

Rain, like a woman's tears
after kissing the sky.
Coloring the land.
The whisper of nature’s subtle hand.

The Wave

Liquid Red

And the sky opened
Crying upon the dry mesa so hungry for the gift
Tears flowed across the red earth
Dancing – racing like Thelma and Louise
Towards the mesas edge
Coloring the world below
Liquid red

Colorado River

Life, like Love, is full of regrets.
But then what are they?
Leaves from passing seasons
Fallen, forgotten and swept away
By the changing winds.

Fall Equinox

Like the mountain wind
Falls upon trees of oak
I heard your distant cry
And listened

Like winged sparrows
Swift with the whirling of leaves
Through middle air
I feel your breath

Gather your songs
Your sweet perfumes
Come, sing for me
As I once again desire your beauty

Dinosaur

What if you found yourself here at Dinosaur N.M. in Utah,

but you’d rather be here at Dinosaur N.M. in Colorado?

Then click here.

Cloudy Moon

Clouds appear
and bring a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.

Sheep Creek & Kingfisher

Bendable

The winds that blow -
ask them, which leaf on the tree
will be next to go.

Firehole

The touch of a wind,
drip drip of cherished water.
Ancient image stares.

Firehole Canyon & the Green River

Meadow

When you say the words “Grand Tetons”, I think most people would bring to mind images of the rugged peaks of Wyoming’s Teton Range or perhaps the Jackson Hole Valley and fly-fishing on the Snake River or the great skiing at Jackson Hole. But if you venture east of the Teton Range into the Teton National Forest, it’s becomes a different world. Low rolling hills of lush forest, clear rushing creeks and large open meadows. Hiking/backpacking the Arizona Creek Trail into the Wildcat Range through Bailey Meadows and Brown Meadows offers some of Wyoming’s most beautiful scenery, and few people ever go there.

Bailey Meadows

Almost Full

A white sky hangs, almost full
pieces of blue scatter,
slide like clouds, in soft summer breeze.
We lay in our meadow
listening to the song of grass
your head nestled on my arm.

Cool air made for kissing
dances upon our skin
chilling whatever is damp.
You stir, quietly smiling,
my soul hangs on summer eve
floats about our meadow.

You sigh, move closer
snuggling in, once again
your breath stirs, awakens.
Hands join in gentle caress
exploration shared and renewed
so smoothly, so softly.

We turn, lips meeting
slow, soft, delicate
building quickly to demand.
Crying out, beginning and end
collapsing, breathing ragged.
Sky hangs, slightly fuller.

Fading

Heart’s memory of the sun
grows fainter.
Sallow
as the winter grass.

- - -

Shoshone Lake

What is This

What is this?
Who rises into the night,
A cold harvester of days light.

What is this?
A burning angle of light,
Wholly beckoning me into the night.

What is this?
This awing, growing within my soul.
This warmth, this tranquil lull.

By what shall I know you?
Who reaches towards the stars.
"Daughter of the Sun"
Or, my elusory lover of the night.

- - -

Blacks Fork River

Seven nights in Wyoming

Let's say you’re having one of those restless feeling that creeps over us every now and then. For me it’s usually more of a “Now” then a “Then” thing. I think deep down I may be running away from life, but I’m having a great time, so I’ll worry about it later.

5 great places to kayak in Wyoming

I packed up the kayak and headed for northern Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin and the Bighorn Canyon. Between Wyoming’s Horseshoe Bend and Montana’s Barry’s Landing winds 15 miles of great river kayaking.

I headed back to Colorado by way of Yellowstone N.P.. Crossing Lewis Lake and then heading up the Lewis Channel to Shoshone Lake is a wonderful backcountry camping experience.

Better plan on at least two nights on Shoshone lake. The sunsets are awesome.

Since Grand Teton N.P. is on the way home, I thought a night on one of the Jackson Lake Islands was needed. Even if you see them in the rain, the Grand Tetons are beautiful.

What a great scenery change. From canyons to forest to mountains to rolling plains. The Shoshone Indians called it Seeds-Kee-Dee Agie (Prairie Chicken River). Now it’s called the Fontonelle Reservoir.

The confluence of the Green River and the Blacks Fork River of the Flaming Gorge. It’s an awesome place. You'll need a day for each river.

Enjoy Life!

Homestake

I seem to have fallen into a habit, I’m not sure yet if it’s a good or bad thing, of just spontaneously packing my Jeep and disappearing for days at a time with little concern for where I’m heading. The only thing I know for sure is that there’s a longing within me that needs to be filled, being in the outdoors fills that yearning, and I feed upon it. Such is my love affair with Nature.

Homestake

- - -

Whole

When I dream of you
I can feel you in my soul
my heart taking flight
I can hardly wait to join you
in the stillness
of warmth and light
for I feel your breath, your touch
ascending
hot and sweet, circling within.
When our bodies come to meet
is when I feel
whole.

Cosmic Coffee

I know, another plug for a coffee shop. What can I say; I’m addicted to a good latte, so I’m always looking for a little independent shop. And if the shop just happens to be woman owned and run, then all the better. So, if some morning you find yourself heading up Coal Creek Canyon (Colo. 72) on your way to Golden Gate State Park for some hiking, or to Gross Reservoir for some morning kayaking, stop in at the Cosmic Coffeehouse. You’ll make three young ladies very happy.

Spring on a Rock

I loaded my kayak on my Jeep this morning and headed for Glenwood Canyon and Shoshone Lake. Shoshone Lake was created by damming the Colorado River in the middle of Glenwood Canyon. The lake provides water to run the hydroelectric generator two miles down river from the dam.

My plan was a simple one. Start at the dam and kayak about eight miles up the Colorado River to the little town of Dotsero where the Eagle River flows into the Colorado. If you don’t mind paddling against the river current (rated about 3 mph above the dam), working through several rocky fast-water chutes and the traffic noise of I-70, it’s a wonderful paddle. Glenwood Canyon is beautiful, a Colorado show piece, and I-70 through the canyon is an engineering masterpiece.


The things you find along a river can be quite varied and are most often disgusting. But occasionally you find something unusual that captures your imagination, which is what happened this morning. Along the south bank of the river below a field of reeds, sunning itself on a large low rock, is a massive, old rusting spring. I-70 runs along the north bank of the river through the canyon. Along the south bank of the river are railroad tracks. I can only speculate that this rusty old spring popped out of the truck of a rail car and landed on this rock in the river.

Summer Solstice

Summer’s first morning:
the mirror I stare into
shows my father's face.

- - -

Solstice Sunrise

Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Only once a year – on the Summer Solstice - will the rising sun flood the window of the great kiva of Casa Rinconada, filling only the seventh notch.

Sunset over Pueblo Bonito.

Spilled Water

from a restless creek
white water spilled into the lake
slight muddiness appears

South Boulder Creek flowing into Gross Reservior.

MountainBuzz

If you’re like me and you have an addiction to a really great latte (I recommend Almond), and you happen to find yourself in Georgetown Colo. as I do quite often. Then the MountainBuzz Café is where you want to be.

I could make some kind of a social statement about supporting the local and independent businesses instead of giving your money to the CEO’s of the big box stores, but I won’t. I just want to say that the MountainBuzz Café is a great place to eat, hangout, find local mountain information and get a great latte.

Lake Dillon

How do you spend a beautiful June morning in Colorado?

Kayaking the islands, waterways and the 25-miles of coastline on Giberson Bay and its neighbor Heaton Bay.

Buffalo Mountain reflected on Giberson Bay.

Ten Mile Peak reflected on Heaton Bay.

Life is Good!

Moon House

Speak to me
Of your memories past
Of the dreams and the tears
Deep in your silent sleep
Speak to me
Of your stories rare
Of birth and death
Of essence of life
In your songs of glory and dare
Speak to me
Of the earth and the night sky
So I too - may know why

Guardian of Moon House

Old Friend

Where are you going,
where have you been?
My dear, close, and quiet friend,
Come sit with me in the soft springtimes end.
We'll take comfort in each other once again.

Tell me your stories,
I'll tell you mine,
And so will pass a few measures time.
With the quaint and the comic and even sublime,
Silently searching for the elusive sign.

We'll fashion our future and polish the past,
Allowing the memories to amass,
While the grains of sand slip through the glass.
'Til a tranquil lull pervades at last.

Natural Bridges N.M.

Sixth Face

Seek me
Stand before me and enter my eyes
I will show you another time, another place
What you know fades away
Only questions remain
Only through imagination
Will you find what you seek

- - -

The Thirteen Faces

Hovenweep Castle

I ride the white mare of midnight
With nightshade and hemlock at her temple
I look up at the ashen clouds
The sky above me changing faces.

- - -

> Hovenweep National Monument <

Crest of the Sun

I was born on the crest of the rising sun.
Where darkness stands thick
against the edge of light's return.
And so my life has followed
that even in the utmost darkness.
I've waited, with hope born of belief
that the approach of light is soon to follow.

Spring said:

I ache like a women
Though I am
Like mad love
Like a rusting symphony
As gorgeous and as ugly
As the forest floor beneath me

I sing of a white rose
And I will recall the gift
Of the sun
And the rain for you

Sleep now if you must
And dream as you awake

Snowflake

Once a snowflake fell on my brow
and I loved it so much
and I kissed it
and it was happy
and called its sisters and brothers
and a web of snow engulfed me

I reached to love them all
and squeezed them
and they became a spring rain
and I stood perfectly still
and was a flower

Weathered

If hardened eye and calloused hand
are able to perceive
a rim of gold around a plate,
a touch of lace upon a sleeve.

If the rough and scaly bark
of some gray trunk can be
at one with tender leaves of green
to share the single name of tree.

Perhaps a body hard with bone
and muscle, firm within,
may own a soul most delicate
beneath a weather-beaten skin.

Morning Mist

Morning mist
Flooding the valley
Drifting ever upward becoming sky

Edge of Time

Behold the ego
Set in glowing emptiness
On the edge of time

She Called

A cloudless, clear sky of azure.
Broken only by a burning intensity
Kissed the ice lying silently beneath her surface.
The wind's breath of crystal snow
drifted coldly down from the trees.
"Come play with me if you dare", she called.
"Come give me your spirit,
I’ll show you my soul unforgiving".

Darkness

Sun rises on the land,
And silently, he stalks the dew-clad fields.
Noon whispers in the forest,
And he comes to rest in the mid-day heat.
Sunset finds his breath but a stream of mist,
As he calls to the otherworld.
Midnight finds his silhouette
Splayed across a frosty moon.
Hungrily, darkness takes in the cold white light,
She calls them to her - all too soon.

Sleep

Watching you sleep
My weary heart rises up on wing
I hear your smiling laughter
And deep within me, my memory sings

Oh my love, I cannot tell you
How time just flies
Gracefully, we lived our day of glory
Under a sunny sky

Now these days, your bright dreams
Are all I long to see
So sleep well my love
And dream of me

Veil of Blue

What I dream on in Winter,
is what I can not have.
Enamored by a bridal veil of blue.

Spruce Creek / Lower Crystal Lake

2.4 miles southwest of Breckenridge Colorado, on the backside of the Crown subdivision, you’ll find Summit County Road #800. At the end of SCR #800 is the parking area & trailhead for the Spruce Creek Trail.


The Spruce Creek Trail is a narrow, rolling, intermediate rated trail that continually gains elevation as it winds its way through a thick Spruce and Lodgepole Pine forest. After just 1.8 miles and a good cardiovascular workout, the Spruce Creek Trail joins the Wheeler National Recreation Trail. Turning north on the Wheeler Trail, you’ll enter a large flat open meadow. Cross the meadow and you’ll find yourself just below a three-way junction. Continuing north on the Wheeler Trail, you’ll start climbing again, working your way towards the Continental Divide.


Continue climbing up the Wheeler Trail for about a mile or so and you’ll find another large open meadow. You’ll also find Francie’s Cabin, one of the Summit Hut System Cabins. When you reach Francie’s Cabin, hang a left across the meadow then continue north for about three-quarters of a mile. You’ll find yourself on the east edge of a large bowl surrounded by 13.633-foot Peak 10 – 13,852-foot Crystal Peak – 13,615-foot Father Dyer Peak and 13,164-foot Mount Helen. Turn left into the bowl.


At the west end of the bowl is Lower Crystal Lake and the remains of an old miner’s cabin. On a sunny Colorado day, this is a great lunch and nap spot. You’ll need the nap, the four mile ski back down to the trailhead will be Fast & Furious. - This view is looking west over frozen & snow covered Lower Crystal Lake toward Crystal Peak.

Welcome 2006

Can there be a better way to welcome in the New Year than skiing Colorado’s backcountry under a fresh blanket of white? Welcome to three Colorado ghost towns: Montezuma – Saints John – Wild Irishman.

Sts. John & the Wild Irishman Mine

Winters Tree

Winters tree
departing leaves
arriving sky

Monarch Lake / Arapaho Pass

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow. - Sandwiched between the western boundary of the Indian Peaks Wilderness and the eastern end of Lake Granby, you will find Monarch Lake. Monarch Lake is a small scenic lake, but otherwise there is nothing really outstanding about it. The lake however, is the trailhead and gateway of numerous hiking and backcountry ski trails into the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Arapaho Creek flows off the west side of the 13,000-foot Arapaho Peaks and eventually drains into Monarch Lake. The Arapaho Pass Trail is seven miles of outstanding moderate level, forest skiing to the base of 11,905-foot Arapaho Pass.


At the north end of Monarch Lake, you’ll find a small ranger station and this brand new trailhead sign. Accessible from this trailhead are nine trails, some lead into the Indian Peaks Wilderness and some into Rocky Mountain National Park. And one is just a 3.9-mile leisurely ski around the lake.


The first three quarters of a mile of the of the Arapaho Pass trail parallels Monarch Lake until it turns north into the Arapaho National Forest following Buchanan Creek.


After a couple of miles, you’ll reach this bridge over Buchanan Creek. Cross the bridge and turn south for a short distance, then turn left at the trail junction. After several more miles, you’ll come to an open valley below the Arapaho Peaks. Today's weather was heavily overcast and snowing, so a side trip to Hot Sulphur Springs was a great after-ski reward. Life is Good!!

Mayflower Gulch

Six miles south of Copper Mountain Ski Resort just off Colo. Hwy.# 91 on the way to Leadville is a semi-hidden, nondescript, unmarked parking lot. There are no signs, no markings of any kind as to why this parking lot is here, plus, there are no restrooms, just a parking lot. This parking lot has only one use; it is the trailhead of Mayflower Gulch.


Mayflower Gulch is one of Colorado’s outstanding scenic ski trails. Originating in the Tenmile Range, Mayflower Pacific Creek flows down through a small narrow scenic valley just three miles long. The ski trail parallels the creek and has an 1,100-foot elevation gain from the trailhead to the old Boston Mine site buildings below the headwall of 13,951-foot Fletcher Mountain.
Mayflower Gulch’s main ski trail is on its shaded north-facing tree-covered slope, but the sunny open valley can also be skied creating a six-mile loop. The north facing headwall of Gold Hill offers excellent powder Telemark skiing with only moderate avalanche danger.

This is a view from the remains of the Boston Mine site buildings looking down the valley. 13,205-foot Jacque Peak is in the far background.


From the Boston Mine site, this is a view looking west up to the headwall of Gold Hill.


A view of the upper Boston Mine site building and the bowl of 13,951-foot Fletcher Mountain as seen from the valley.

West St. Louis Creek Loop

About 5 miles northwest of Fraser Colorado on county road 107, you’ll find the Fraser Experimental Forest. Established in 1937, this 36 square mile wilderness was set aside for forest and hydrology research. You may only access this area by foot. This year's early snowfall in the Fraser Valley is exceptional, and so is the backcountry skiing within the experimental forest.


The West St. Louis Creek Loop trail is an old isolated logging road which now serves as a 10 mile looped hiking and ski trail through the forest. Branching off the St. Louis Creek Loop, you’ll discover a network of trails rated from Novice to Expert. - If you are looking for a leisurely ski through a beautiful forest, the St. Louis Creek Loop is it. There are no grand vistas, no open meadows, no lakes or rivers, only trees. Millions of trees. This is truly a place where you “Can’t see the forest for the trees”.


If you enjoy the beauty of nature, the quiet stillness of a forest. If you dislike crowds, if you enjoy powder skiing, if the only sound you wish to hear is your skies gliding under a blanket of white. This is Heaven.


Welcome to the Deadhorse Loop. Two miles of narrow canopy tree skiing. If the West St. Louis Creek Loop is a beautiful, leisurely “Walk in the Park”, then the Deadhorse Loop is “Endorphin Alley”. --- Life is Good!

Jim Creek

The sky was overcast, only a faint glimmer of sun breaking through. A light snow was drifting down, blanketing the trees. Except for the babbling of the creek and an occasional call of a moose, the world was still, silent. - As much as I love hiking and exploring the desert, I love my Colorado mountains in the winter. The snow has arrived and its time for backcountry skiing.

Nestled in a secluded valley below James Peak on the west side of the Continental Divide you’ll find Jim Creek. As backcountry ski trails go, Jim Creek is not long, about 3 miles. Nor overly difficult and challenging, the elevation change is only 840 feet. It is however, quite beautiful, quiet and secluded.

Jim Creek sits on the eastern edge of the Fraser Valley and is home to a diverse population of wildlife including Moose.


Along with the scenic views of James Peak and the Continental Divide. This secluded ski tour offers open meadows to lunch in and “picture postcard” snow canopies to ski through.

Boundary Waters

>Paula<

Faces

All American Man

Four Faces

>Five Faces<

>Thirteen Faces<

This is a small world, and you do not have to live in it particularly long to learn that. There is an old theory that, in the whole world there are only five hundred real people and they all know each other. The cast as it were; all the rest of the people in the world, the theory suggests, are extras. In reality, the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and re-discovering each other in the same unlikely places. There is an un-avoidability to this process. It’s not even coincidence. It’s just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or for propriety. So life is not a question to be solved, but instead a reality to be experienced. For life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of memories that are forever flowing through our mind. The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. So let us live, so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Stone

Come live with me in a house of stone.
We’ll plant the land,
Rooting our soul.
Standing forever, the face of time.

- - -

> Beef Basin - Ruin Park <

Gold into Red

I am a morning person and so love the promise of the sunrise. Yet my soul renews in the still quietness of a sunset. … The artistry of one cloud over ten minutes.

These pictures were taken during a trip into > Utah’s Northern Glen Canyon Rec. Area <
To see a trip report, just click the link above or visit my illusion II page.

Light

A gentle word like a spark of light,
illuminates my soul.

- - -

> Cleopatra"s Chair <

Color - Color - Color

> Lizard Lake <

Bones of Gold

There is a mountain,
in the air within my body.
That only my soul can touch.
A cloister, a silence.
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
my bones turn to gold.

Enter

Before I enter the room of your solitude
in my living form, trailing my shadow.
I shall have come unseen.
You will believe a bird flew by your window.
A wandering bee buzzed in the hallway.
A wind rippled the bronze grasses.
Or will you ...
know who it is?

- - -

> Bandelier National Monument <

Decaying Soul of America

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle

Anticipation

One of my favorite Autumn backpacks is into the Lost Creek Wilderness. These two pictures were taken in an area known as Lake Park.


I am learning that peculiar legacy time brings to the traveler. The longing to seek out a place a second time, to find deliberately what we stumbled on once before, to recapture the feeling of discovery. Sometimes we search out again even a place that was not re-markable in itself, we look for it simply because we remember it. If we do find it, of course, everything is different, The rough-hewn door is still there, but it’s much smaller; the day is cloudy instead of brilliant; it’s spring instead of autumn; we’re alone instead of with three friends, Or, worse, with three friends instead of alone.

-Turks Head-

Autumn is advancing upon Colorado, my most cherished season. Yet I am about to seek out the desert, too arrive at Turks Head by land. An adventurous journey for even a seasoned desert-rat. The onset of Autumn - my soul blossoms with anticipation of what is to come.

I love backcountry skiing. The top picture was taken in the bowl at the foot of Gold Hill at the end of Mayflower Gulch. The bottom picture was taken while skiing at Jim Creek.

Just another Sunrise

Moon setting over 14,255 foot Longs Peak

Rattlesnake

So why go to Fruita Colorado?

Mike

Well, there’s Mike the headless chicken for one. He was a young Wyandotte Rooster heading for the frying pan back in September of 1945. But after being severed from his head, he refused to just lay down and die. Mike became an over-night celebrity bringing fame and wealth to the farmer who only wanted Mike for Sunday dinner. Alas, poor Mike tragically choked to death in an Arizona motel room in March of 46.




The #16B - Chili Rellenos breakfast plate at Pancho's Villa, 229 E. Aspen, in old downtown is outstanding.






If you’re a Mountain Biker, Fruita is right on Moab’s heals as a mountain bike Mecca. In the world of mountain biking, Fruita is the home & starting point of the world famous 140+ mile Kokopelli Trail. Besides Fruita’s challenging desert and slickrock trails, it’s also home of the annual Fat Tire Mountain Bike Festival. Then there’s the white water rafting on the Colorado River and hiking and backpacking in the Colorado Monument.


Mike the Headless Chicken - The Kokopelli Trail - breakfast at Panchos and white water rafting on the Colorado River are all great reasons to travel to Fruita. However, Fruita has a well hidden secret few people know of. Hidden on the back side of the Colorado National Monument at the end of 12 miles of rocky four wheel drive road, is a secluded sandstone cliff canyon called Rattlesnake. Besides rattlesnakes - Rattlesnake Canyon contains the largest collection of sandstone arches outside of Utah’s Arches National Park. What makes the arches of Rattlesnake truly unique is that they’re all Vertical Arches. Weathered down through the top of the sandstone cliffs. Autumn is approaching, the hot canyons will cool and the cottonwood trees lining the bottom of the canyon will turn a brilliant yellow. If you have the endurance to reach it, Rattlesnake Canyon is Colorado Autumn hiking at its best.

Rattlesnake Canyon

Elphaba

Hurricane Pass - Colorado

S.O.B. Hill - Utah

Elephant Hill - Utah

I affectionately call her Elphaba in honor of the Wicked Witch of the West. She’s a 2000 Jeep Cherokee Freedom with a factory “Off Road” package. She’s a Rubacon under her Cherokee skin. I raised her only three inches, then set her on half ton rated springs which raised her another inch & half. Realigned her transfer cast and drive shafts to optimize her high torque and added good heavy duty off road shocks and dampers. Then gave her steel wheels with 31x10.5 Goodrich AT’s that took her to a 20 inch undercarriage clearance. I love Utah’s desert canyons, so I built her for slick rock, however she climbs these Colorado mountains like she’s a native Big Horn Sheep.

I have an adventurous soul and love of exploring. As was Elphaba’s namesake before she met Dorothy, I have a deep respect of nature and the environment of this planet we live on. It may sound like a contradiction of terms, but you really can “Four Wheel” and still “Leave No Trace”. Just use good common sense and maintain an awareness of what you are doing and its impact.

I know that I am not the only woman that enjoys exploring the outdoors. Through my association with the Women’s Outdoor Club I know a great many women who love the outdoors and also own four wheel drive vehicles. However, very few of them take their vehicles off a paved or well graded dirt road into the backcountry. I have my own opinions as to why there are so few women in 4-wheeling, but I won’t get into that here. If you have an opinion on this you'd like to share, I’d welcome your comment.

Lavender Canyon - Utah

SO!, here’s a question for all women who own a four wheel drive vehicle. Would you join and support a “Women’s Four Wheel Drive Club” if there was one in your area? I know that a few women’s 4x4 clubs exist, a simple Google search shows that, however I can’t find one here in Colorado.

SO (even with the escalating gas prices), I wish to start an off road club for women. If you live in the Denver/Boulder metro area, and have a serious interest in exploring Colorado and Utah off the paved road, I would love to hear from you.

14,150 ft. Mt. Sneffels - Colorado

Davis Canyon - Utah

> Indian Creek < - Utah

Enchanted City

Full moon on a misty night

Have you ever dreamed about going to the Moon? Well you don’t need a Shuttle or an inside connections at NASA, you don’t even need millions of dollars. All you need is a good four wheel drive vehicle and a sense of adventure. Quietly sleeping at timberline, twenty two rough miles from the historic mining town of Creede, Colorado in the La Graita Wilderness, lies the “Enchanted City”. One square mile of surreal Lunar landscape known as the > Wheeler Geologic Area < .

"The Enchanted City"

Amazing

How amazing you make me feel.
If I am crazy,
don’t want to know what’s real.
You’re like a wave of heaven breaking over me,
to change the destiny of a soul that’s lonely.
But how amazing and how surreal.
To live in a desire that you may never feel.
I can sell everything but my soul.
For I have never settled,
just to play some kind of role.

Creede, Colorado

Lush Mountain Settings

Mirror Lake

Dry Basin

Schofield Pass

The past several day have been quite adventurous, four wheeling, camping, hiking & fly-fishing back and forth over the Continental Divide and the Sawatch Mountain Range in central Colorado. Mirror Lake on the Continental Divide just above the ghost town of Tin Cup is so full of trout, you’d think the lake was boiling when the fish start rising. The Taylor River below the Taylor Reservoir spillway and the Almont Triangle - Dry Basin Creek are fly-fishing heaven. The Crystal River above the town of Marble is so clear, the trout have no place to hide.

Schofield Pass between Crested Butte and Marble is reputed to be the “Deadliest” four wheel drive pass in Colorado. This old shelf wagon road is unbelievably narrow, rocky and steep. Even for the experienced four wheeler, it’s a true challenge to take a Jeep over it. How the minors got horse drawn supply wagons over this road is unimaginable. Then there’s the snow field that has to be crossed. The sheer mountain beauty of this 10 mile trip somehow makes the risk worthwhile. The high alpine Lead King Basin and the Crystal River Valley below the ghost town of Crystal offer some of Colorado’s best scenic and wild flower beauty, but only backpacking, horse back or four wheel drive will get you there.

Lost Horse Mill

Crystal Mill, (Lost Horse Mill is its actual name) is reputed to be the most photographed location in Colorado. The mill sits just outside the ghost town of Crystal. Crystal never had nor does it now have, electricity. The building referred too as the “Crystal Mill” actually housed a water turban generator which turned a vertical shaft that ran up through the wooden tower. The generator powered a mechanical air compressor for use in ore processing and also to operate the air drills for at least two of the local mines on the hill above the mill. The ore processing mill the generator once powered is now just a pile of rubble. Crystal Mill sits in a beautiful aspen forest on the edge of the Crystal River. Autumn, when the Aspen’s are turning and early snow is lightly capping Crystal Peak is the best time to visit this historical site. Crystal is six miles east of Marble on a very narrow, one lane, four wheel drive road. It’s worth the trip!

Crystal Mill

Crystal River camp

Lizard Lake

The Stream

Henson Creek - Colorado

Imogene Creek - Colorado

Capitol Creek - Colorado

> Indian Creek <- Utah

The Stream

I am the mountain stream.
What you see is clear and shallow,
with the occasional waterfall just for texture.
You think you can cross me
without getting your feet wet,
by stepping on my soundest flooring.
You think I am passive,
And I am,
where you have found me.
But you have not come down the mountain,
and you do not know how deep I am,
or what life teems beneath my surface.
Or when your next step will be the price you pay,
for your misjudgment.

Gibson Creek - Colorado

Geneva Creek - Colorado

Howard Creek - Wyoming

> Deep Lake Creek < - Wyoming

Cabin in the Forest

I am truly fortunate to have the luxury of time & freedom to live my life as I please. I can travel the backcountry of Colorado and Utah, backpacking - 4x4ing - canoeing - skiing - biking, discovering the natural beauty of the land and the truly wonderful secluded out-of-the-way places few people see.


Hidden in the Pike National Forest just below the Continental Divide is one of Colorado’s little gems. - A cabin - A true hand built, remote one room log cabin, no power - no pluming. Nestled on a thickly forested hillside along a cascading stream, this rustic cabin offers shelter to the backcountry explorer/skier. In the true spirit of love for all mankind, its door is never locked, always welcoming to all. To pack or ski into this little remote backcountry cabin always fills me with hope and a renewed sense of the goodness within the heart of mankind. This little cabin, built in the early 80’s, survives un-damaged, un-vandalized. Each visitor taking care of it, adding to it, replenishing its supplies, leaving it ready for the next visitor.

Virginia Park

Secluded deep within Utah’s Canyonlands National Park is a rare and magical place of stone & grass. A place so sacred, you won’t find it on a map. To enter this oasis is as if stepping back in time, seeing the land as it once was, before the ravages of modern man, livestock and machine. > Virginia Park <

Rocks

I am a rock and my brothers are rocks,
And our family name is Patience.
Grinding our lunch can take most of a decade.
Step soft, we’re a beach: step firmly, a landslide.

At the head of the sky is a burning stone.
A circlet of stars, a mirroring moon, an eye of blinding gold.
At the bottom of every sky is a world.
At the foot of its forested mountains always a stream.

We aren’t the stream nor the sound of its rushing.
We aren’t the gold nor the blue nor the slope.
We are the bed on which the world rests.
Its patience, its bleak awing patience.

Starbucks

Sunrise over Downieyville

Because of an early morning Vanilla Latte addiction and the lack of a "Ma and Pa" neighborhood supplier. I actually went into a Starbucks this morning. I know better, I really do. Watching the sloppy production line assembly and then the reality of the tasteless liquid they call a Vanilla Latte, I vowed once again to never return.

Anyway, after reading Terry McMillan point of view about Starbucks. I can't help but too agree with her, "We should all start boycotting them since they’ve started appearing like dandelions on every corner within urban, rural America. Even within international hotels and blocks of third-world countries, thus giving a sense that they’ve come to Earth pretending to be philanthropic when in fact they are really an alien empire sent here to take over the world. We, their addicted slaves, don’t even realize that we have learned a new language, their language. Many of us cannot even afford their stock since they went public, but have shown a different kind of loyalty by spending astronomical amounts of money once known mainly to drug addicts for coffee and tea. But somehow we don’t seem to mind. Why is that?"

So here I am

Ghost town of Animas Forks

Virginius Mine on Imogene Pass

So here I am, midway through the summer of 05, the weather in the Denver metro area is HOT! My poor lawn breaks when I walk on it. I really feel bad for the grass, that’s clearly reflected in my water bill, sadly, bindweed seems to be the only green that thrives. That OK, at least something green is growing. The important part here is that I’ve got the COOL high mountains to nurture myself in. I am spending this summer exploring Colorado’s back roads. It’s old mining roads, passes and Jeep trails. In the process I’m learning the history, at least the mining history of Colorado. The great part of all of this is that this adventurous nature lover is not withering in the city with my yard. I am an outdoors person. My kids are grown and have their own withering yards to contend with. Backpacking, hiking, skiing, canoeing, biking, camping & 4x4ing is what my life has evolved into.

Life Is Good!!!!

California Gulch

So here’s a question for you...Are there any "Women Only" 4x4 adventure groups here in Colorado?

I know a great many women who like myself, love the outdoors. Many of them own a 4x4 SUV. However very few of them are willing to drive them or have the knowledge & skill to drive them off a paved road. There are many 4x4 off-road clubs and groups in Colorado. However they all seem to be male organized and run. No!, I don’t hate men, and not all men act like children when they’re outdoors. Just most of them, or so it seems. They seem more occupied with their off-road toys then the impact their toys have on the land. I won’t even get into ATV’s. I’ve been leading backcountry wilderness trips for women for several years. I love nature and the land. Four wheeling has allowed me access to natures beauty that I would not have experienced otherwise. You can preserve the environment and still enjoy 4 wheeling the backcountry. I don’t want to get on an environment soap box here, I’m just interested in forming a Women’s 4x4 group.

Lake Como from California Pass

Placer Gulch

Exhaustion

Backpacking is such exhusting work!

- - -

> Welcome to the Lost Creek Wilderness <

Pothole

cloud image
a few cool seconds
on my bare feet

Summer Solstice

summer heat
the stillness of wind chimes
before the storm