Travels With Winnie - Hike to Zapata Falls

July 20, 2019

When Winnie and Wayne arrived, Wayne almost immediately had trouble breathing. He then developed a cough, had headache sand generally felt bad and was getting worse. Many of his symptoms seemed like a combination of altitude sickness and allergy as his allergy symptoms mimicked mine. He traveled with us two days, then decided to stay home and catch up on his sleep  as he was coughing so much, he was awake a lot of the night.

Winnie and I had spent so much time visiting Blanca Wetlands that we had not gotten to fully enjoy Great Sand Dunes National Park.  Winnie asked to return.  I told her we needed to visit Zapata Falls which is up on Blanca Mountain with amazing views of the San Luis Valley.  And the trail is only a half a mile, although one has to wade through a little rocky creek to get to the view of the falls.   THEN we could continue on to the Park. Winnie loved the idea and we set off. 

For a change, we managed to go directly to the road to the Falls, and then slowly bump our way up the over three miles of rocky switchbacks that climb Mt. Blanca.  But we arrived intact at the almost full parking lot and gathered out hiking sticks and water and set off. (Hiking sticks are MANDATORY for our age group.)

The light on this cactus bloom caught my eye and was my first picture

The trail was very different in feel and appearance and seemed MUCH shorter than my first visit , in March, when it was mostly covered with snow and everything was solid. And it was not moved to take nearly as many pictures of the now almost bare-of-snow mountains.  But what else was different was a cold and fast moving creek between the dry trail and the falls. Winnie hadn't brought her hiking poles, so we shared mine.  Our progress slowed as we searched for the next safe step and probed the deeper parts. Winnie helped one lady who had gotten stuck to a safer path.

Winnie at the entrance to the falls which is in a crack in the rocks that feels like a cave- the girl in the blue shirt is coming out of Zapata Creek

Winnie at the big bolder at the entrance to the "cave".

Almost there - pic by Winnie

Zapata Falls - a hard picture to get - had to wait my turn to take it without people

Whoops - where is the next safe step?  I was using my whitewater skills to plot my course. 

By the time we came back out of the creek,  we weren't sure we still had feet. We walked back to the first bench in the sun and took off our socks and shoes and put our feet on warm rocks while we drained the water out of our shoes and wrung out our socks and started them drying.

Socks, insoles, and shoes drying.  Feet warming up. 

We went on up the mountain to the BLM campsite that occupies a few switchbacks and offers amazing views south and west over the San Luis Valley.

View from the top level of the Campsite. 

We decided we still had lots more time to have fun.  We had gotten to the park the first visit too late to go into the Visitor Center, so we started there to enjoy the exhibits.  Then we hiked down a trail to the creek and walked along the day use area to the road before circling  back to the visitor center.  I hadn't bothered to take my camera, but when the light improved, I took a few pictures with my phone. Then on the way back, while walking on the side of the road, I saw a mule deer buck in velvet taking a rest. I had to get Winnie to come back and take his picture since it required a long lens.

Sand Dunes

I love the geometry formed by the play of dunes and light

Young mule deer buck - by Winnie

Winnie, always even more up for continuing adventures than I, asked about San Luis State Park. Since this could be on our way home, without going out of our way, I agreed to go visit it.  It is an erstwhile state park and offers free electricity but has only vault toilets and no water. But it is on San Luis Lake, which, at times, is one of the local birding hotspots. So we took a little time to enjoy a few species of birds using the lake and to drive through the camping loops.

First gull I've seen in Colorado - think this is a ringed bill gull

White-faced ibis

The birds were far away but the light on their surroundings was outstanding

We got back home, over and hour past supper time and quickly finished  a supper that was mostly ready to heat up. Wayne was still sick and feeling like he had a bad cold, so they decided to cancel the rest of their trip and head home so Wayne could visit his doctor. So the visit was bitter sweet.

Postscript.  Wayne got better after he was home for several days.

August 18, 2019

On a personal note:  My best friend Natalie and her daughter Ellen are currently visiting me. We have been having lots of fun the last few days. We are currently at the library and then will take in Celtic music in the park just behind us.