Waterton Adventure

I went for a lengthy bike ride today with several missions in mind. Scenery, wildlife, exercise, and to get a couple of geocaches that I was very interested in getting to because they hadn't been visited yet this year!

I set out for the 29 mile round trip at about 2 pm and headed for Chatfield State Park with the intention of continuing through the park all the way to the end of the road in Waterton Canyon. I like to ride the dirt trails that are adjacent to the South Platte River in the park. However, after doing so for about half a mile, I came around a bend and found myself staring at a little creek passing over the trail about 6 inches deep. I rode through this but about 50 feet further, the whole area was flooded. This was due to the recent snow and rain storm we had less than a week ago. The warm weather lately contributed to a lot of snow melt and high waters. I have never seen the river so high and the same can be said for the lake in the park. I had to backtrack a bit and then found my way through some other dirt trails to get back the the main trail that isn't threatened by the high water. I wonder when those flooded trails will be passable once again. They might need some grooming after these high waters.

I arrived at the Waterton Canyon trailhead before 3 pm and immediately continued up the canyon. There are two geocaches that I was interested in finding. The first one is called "Fore the Cars". This cache is about half way up the canyon and then about 1/4 mile up a steep trail. The person who put it there wrote that he saw a mountain lion 25 yards away right after he placed it! I had my eyes open for one of these big cats.

I didn't want to leave my bike back by the road so I pushed it up the trail a ways and hid it behind some brush so as to be invisible from the main trail below. It is a very steep trail with an elevation gain of about 300 feet in the first 1200 feet of the trail. Then it levels off a bit. It was a tough climb but the view of the canyon below was spectacular. 99.9 percent of the people who ride up that canyon never follow any trails like this.

I followed my GPS receiver closer and closer to the cache. Right before I got to the spot, I heard an interesting noise. It was very easy to hear since it was otherwise so quiet. I had gone far enough away from the rushing river so that its sound had completely dissipated. There was only the sound of a slight breeze blowing through the brush and the aforementioned interesting noise which I believe was a mountain lion cub! This was based on the reports of seeing a lion at this location and all those nature shows I've seen over the years. Now I was a bit fearful so I quickly found the cache, which I had actually passed while distracted by the noise, did my trade and log signing and got out of there poste haste. At least I found the cache - this particular one is not visited all that often. It is almost surrounded by prickly pear cactus but I avoided having an unpleasant encounter with the thorns. About half the people who visit this cache report getting thorns in their hands - ouch! It would have been neat to see a lion but I am glad that I didn't see one in this location!

I continued up the canyon to the end where the other cache is. Finding this one, called "Waterton Canyon Cache", was much less eventful. It was by a rest area near the Strontia Springs Dam. Since the river was so high, that meant that there was a lot of water being let through the dam. The result was a fine mist in the air and about a 10-15 degree lower temperature on this hot day. Very pleasant area to cool my heals, chat with some other riders, and find this other cache. It had been 4 months since someone else had visited this one.

One the way beck through Chatfield, I saw a large vulture that was interested in a nearby deer carcass. I also saw a trio of mergansers which are very interesting ducks - intersting coloring and styling. The males and females are so different looking. I wonder if the two males were competing for the females attention.

Here are some photos from this adventure.

This one is a picture of Plum Creek. Notice the high water. Compare it to this picture of the creek at the same location at normal level from last fall.



This photo was taken on the way to the "Fore the Cars" cache. I am about half way up the steep trail, taking a break and taking this photo.



Water was flowing from everywhere. Never saw any waterfalls in Waterton before today - like this one.



Here is a friendly vulture. He posed here for several minutes before taking off. Isn't he (or she) cute?

Activity for a Friday

Had a nice bike ride this afternoon over at Chatfield. Nice weather - about 63 degrees. Tried to get to another geocache while I was there but the area was flooded. Chatfield reservoir is as full as I have ever seen it. In fact, it appears to be above its apparent maximum level. Another foot higher and it would encroach on some of the roads. There are already some paved trails that are under water.

This particular cache is of the multi variety. This means that you have several steps to get to the actual cache. This one is called "Pies are Not Square". The first location reveals a serial number on an object out in the woods and then you have to do some complicated math to determine where the real cache is. No one has been to this particular cache since last fall and I was hoping to be the first one there this year. No luck though with the water level so high.

I have seen some interesting birds in the park lately. Pelicans have returned. They are so odd looking. I especially like seeing them fly when the otherwise all white birds reveal their black feathers.

I have also seen some smaller all white birds that resemble pigeons but are a bit smaller. Definitely not gulls. I wasn't close enough to see any other identifying characteristics.

Today I saw what I thought were 5 dowitchers. Dowitchers are peculiar looking birds with long slender bills and I saw one once before over there. But then I realized that these birds were different because their bills were not straight like the dowitchers. They were curved. I believe that these were long billed curlews which are relatively rare in Chatfield.

One of My Favorite Kid Jokes

What is the difference between a duck?

The answer is, of course, One leg is both the same.

I really don't know what that means either. So I got curious to see what other answers might be plausible to this mysterious question and came up with these on the internet - these are the ones that I especially like:

Twice as much as half the difference.
The higher it flies, the much.
No, because of the moose in camo.
Ice cream has no bones.
The duck floats in water, as do wood and witches
The same as the difference between an orange.
A vest has no sleeves.
Nor is the beak.
You can't get down off an elephant.
The higher, the fewer.
Sponges, because firetrucks have wheels.
The same as the difference between a frog.

Any other bright ideas?

More Snakes

On my bike ride the other day, I managed to see a total of 3 snakes! The first was a plains garter snake. I missed running over its head by about 2 inches. That probably would have killed it. It was about 18 inches long, dark green with yellow or light green stripes running the length of its body. Really cool snake. I went back and shoosted it off the trail to avoid any more near mishaps.

The second snake I saw, I actually did run over. This little guy was about 9 inches long and no thicker than a pencil. I ran over it before I could possible do anything to avoid it. I went back and found him right where I had run over him. He was coiled up and did not appear any worse for the wear. Like the first snake I saw, I encouraged him to get off the bike path with a stick.

A little while later, I came across the 2nd snake's uncle. This one was about 18 inches long and thicker than the first snake I saw. I again used a stick to prod it to get off the trail where it was sunning itself.

These last two snakes were western terrestrial garter snakes.

You can see pictures of these sorts of snakes here.

Two of the Bugs

Two of our travel bugs have been picked up by someone in as many days. Oddly enough, the same person has claimed both but has not placed them anywhere yet. I am anxious to see where they go next.

Travel Bugs

Travel Bugs are items that are trackable in geocaches. I have 4 of them that I "own" and they have all been placed in caches in the last few days to begin their journeys. As far as I know, they have not been claimed yet by another geocacher. They each have a dog tag attached with a unique id that can be used to track the item. These are their names:

Colorado Sea Turtle Bug - a 4" sea turtle
Aragorn - a happy meal sort of toy - Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings
1931 Big Four Indiana - a 1931 square date nail
Kokopeli - from a Kokopeli key chain - about 3" high

I also have a civil war geocoin that I found in a cache and it turns out is was adoptable. I now "own" it. It is called Civil War Geocoin #5 Antietam. I have not yet placed it in a geocache.

Adventures in GeoCaching This Weekend

Saturday was our high water mark so far with geocaching. 12 caches were found in all and all of them were in Highlands Ranch or Chatfield State Park. These caches were in various containers such as metal boxes, plastic containers and even one altoids tin. They are all in fairly clever locations making it not easy to find by anyone who is not actually looking for them. By the way, people who are not aware of this activity of geocaching are referred to as "muggles".

On Saturday, Heather, Katie and I set out to find a number of caches and the first one we actually were not able to find. The location was in a rather conspicuous location but we failed to find it nevertheless. I think I have any idea though and we’ll try again soon.

We then drove about a mile to the next one and we did find this one. The funny thing about this one is that it is right out in the open yet we took about 10 minutes to find it near an old unused concrete structure. This one is called Johnny Caches' Cache Can.

We then moved on the Highlands Ranch Bug House which is supposed to be primarily used for Travel Bugs. More about those later. We then drove to another area that has about 10 caches in it within about a mile’s walking distance. We found 5 of them – we’ll do the others some other time.

Later in the day I set out on my bike and thought I would look for a few around Chatfield State Park. I looked for 5 but only found 4 of them. The one I couldn’t find has given other people trouble as well. I even went back there today for a second crack and failed once again. This one is called Kingfisher Stroll.

Today, I went on another bike ride and found 1 out of 3 caches. A great bike ride and it turns out that I can do two things I like at the same time, cycling, geocaching, wildlife viewing, and even railfanning. Hey, that’s 4 things!