Rocky Mountain Arsenal

The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge was an extremely pleasant surprise in such an urban area. Great trails for hiking abound, as do animals. Tread lightly, and don't forget the camera.

Find the bison!

Patterns in a frozen lake.

This guy was down one antler. Still a beautiful creature, though.

And the whole thing was free, which makes it even better. I'm still surprised at how few people were there on a Saturday so close to Denver on a warm-for-winter day. We'll definitely be back, time and time again, and I can't wait to discover the different animals and sights in each season.

Boulder adventures

Well here we are exploring Boulder already! It still feels a bit like an extended vacation, mostly because I'm not working. But it was great to get in a hike, even if it was short-lived (thanks, lack of oxygen. It makes a bigger difference than you think).

So we visited a park that boasts tons of trails, and it seemed pretty popular, so we figured it would be a good place to start seeing the beautiful locales around our new home. There was a bit of snow, but it was packed down and easy to hike on. These trails were certainly popular on Sunday morning, as we had to fight for a parking space. Did I mention it's free? BECAUSE IT'S FREE!

Here's a photo early in the hike looking back over the town of Boulder:

And here's a photo of Boulder's famous Flatirons — it was an incredibly warm and sunny day:

Don't mind the rock climbers — they were hiking up to, I assume, take advantage of the Flatirons' well-known rock climbing.

A sweet adventure

With a rare Sunday sans football, John and I decided to make it special. We woke up early, went out to breakfast (Pancake Mill!), and drove past Florence to this great little web of hiking trails. We discovered them with the South Coast Striders many months ago, and I wanted to go back, just us, for more exploring.

We stopped off a Beaver Creek Falls first (and for some reason, my photos loaded out of order a bit, so there's another photo of Beaver Creek Falls later).

If you climb out onto this huge tree that fell across the creek, you get a great vantage point. The view was worth the bushwhacking we had to do to get here — the trail was a bit overgrown.

Then we drove down to the Homestead trailhead of Sweet Creek Falls, which takes you through this gorgeous canyon for about a mile, ending at Sweet Creek Falls itself. The last time we were there, the water flow was much higher, as it was late spring. Right now, the creek had to deal with a very dry summer, and will soon be up and at 'em. 

Low water flow, we discovered allowed us to sneak down by the creek and wander around much more.

More mini waterfalls along the way.

This stop off was my favorite little side excursion. There were three waterfall tiers (which I couldn't quite get into one photo, as the lower one was quite a bit lower), and how beautiful is this? We were right on the water after a little climbing off the trail.

Here's the random photo of Beaver Creek Falls that got stuck in the middle. Ha.

And back to the off-trail excursion. We found this crawdad wandering about aimlessly. We watched him for about five minutes as he decided where he should re-enter the water — it's a treacherous area for such a little guy, and he eventually (and cautiously) tumbled into a pool.

Here's the lower portion of Sweet Creek Falls. There's a small trail that leads you to the upper viewpoint and upper tier of the falls, but it's running awfully low this time of year, so no photo of that. But this little area was quite pretty. We sat on some rocks in a quiet pool of water right below the falls; this area hadn't been touched by the hot sun, so it cooled us off from the 70-plus-degree day.

And here are a few more photos on the hike back, when the light was better to capture all the beautiful falls along the way. A few of these looks quite impressive with higher water flow, but look delicate at summer's end.

Missing the Gorge

Though I only lived in the Columbia River Gorge for about two months, I miss it. A lot. And I didn't realize that until we took a trip to Portland, saw Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens looming on the skyline, covered in snow.

Then we drove to the waterfall-laden part of the gorge, and I just wanted to set up camp and stay there forever. In case anyone wants to save up now for my Christmas present, you're welcome to buy me one of those cute little homes along the Historic Columbia River Highway — there were plenty of them for sale. 

Here's Multnomah Falls — everyone's seen it, but it's still nice to visit. And best to visit before 10 a.m., when things are still quiet.

Here's a waterfall that somehow had escaped me after all these years and visits to the gorge — Latourell Falls. It was easily seen from the parking lot, but was even better when you walked up to it. And you really could walk right up to it, gaze straight up and feel the mist.

A little perspective, since it's difficult to see just how high this falls is: Here's John taking in the misty coolness of Latourell Falls.

The view across the gorge. How amazing would it be to live RIGHT THERE?

Then we stopped at the Vista House, mostly because John hadn't been there and also because I'd never been inside. It's incredibly beautiful!

Of course, the beauty of the view from the Vista House is really why people are there. Sigh.