Friday, June 20, 2008

The hills






I may not get back up into the hills again this summer, what with the knee surgery on July 1, but yesterday will suffice if that's the case. 'Twas SUCH a beautiful day to go to the mountains! We were gone from about 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ... and only covered 37 miles! 

As Sandy said, we lunched beside a cascade amidst a variety of wildflowers. That's fine dining in my book!

Forward progress was finally halted, after roaring through two snowbanks, when we were confronted by the two pictured. No way to get through them! Also, no way to turn around. So, back to the two we had already plowed through, did some scooping out of the snow and rammed through them ... backwards!

I'm SO glad that the lady shown taking a picture by the redrock outcropping is such a trouper! She helped roll boulders out of the road, helped me swing fallen aspen logs so we could get by ... and at 10,000 feet, that's work ... and never uttered a complaint. Rather, she pointed out flowers and peaks and waterfalls and marmots and enjoyed the trip to the high country every bit as much as I did. Thank you so much, Sandy!

When we stopped going up, we must have been above 10,000 feet on USFS Road 567, which goes up above the East Mancos River to its headwaters in Rush Basin (pictured, with Spiller Peak beyond Jackson Ridge at the head of the basin and Burwell Peak to the right (if I have it right). In truth, I had no idea what these features were (other than that we were in the East Mancos drainage) until I bought the National Geographic's Trails Illustrated map for Durango-Cortez this morning. It was interesting to find we were headed into Rush Basin, which may have been named after my deceased wife Jan Wade's great grandfather, Martin Rush, who was an early prospector in the Mancos Valley (who wasn't, at that time?).

Yes, we found flowers ... yellow fawn lilies, like we found up in Montana (also called avalance lilies in "Meet the Natives," my favorite Colorado wildflower book). And a gaunt, old tree skeleton, still erect above the hillside of rock that marmots were ducking in and out of. 

A great day, a wonderful reminder of why we live here!tv

1 comment:

Reddwritinghood said...

Tom and Sandy,

Peter and I have been taking a lot of drives all over the area, and one of them was up on the loop from Dolores up to an altitude of about 9,000 feet ( I think). There we saw aspen, so dense you could barely see through the woods, and ponderosa pine. We saw snow under the trees, but then ran into a bunch on the road. We didn't dare go any farther! This was just last week, and the cooler air was so refreshing.

I thoroughly enjoy your blogs on your travels!!!
Jeanne