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.

Travels with Winnie - Blanca Wetlands and Great Sand Dunes

August 17, 2019

I was so excited to learn Winnie and Wayne, friends from Corpus Christi, were going to visit. They would be taking a trip through the West, stopping to visit me for a few days.  I expected them on the previous Friday but got a message that they had a light on in their almost new RV and needed to go to a Ford Dealer.  Further messages insued, culminating in a message that they had to wait on a part. They finally were able to leave Albuquerque the following Tuesday morning and get to my house early in the afternoon.  After a late lunch, Winnie and I decided to go visit the Great Sand Dunes.  She is also a photographer and avid birder and wanted to see birds.  So I decided to stop by Blanca Wetlands, a breeding bird site for water birds that had just reopened after breeding season.  We did a lot of exploring and enjoyed beautiful views and hundreds of avocets.

I loved the view of Blanca Mountain from Blanca Wetlands

Winnie may spend even more time behind her camera than do I

A few of the hundreds of avocets on this lake

There are a lots of alkaline flats and salt covering some of the plants close to the water. 

We finally got to Great Sand Dunes after the Visitor Center had closed and after clouds had moved in. Winnie raced to get across Medano Creek and  up into the dunes. Medano Creek has fallen from its flood level of about eight inches to about a half inch so it proved no barrier to hikers.

I grabbed a view of the sand dunes on the way in

Winnie rushing across the creek to the dunes

Medano Creek at the end of its season - it is formed by snow melt. 

I can never resist the sand dune patterns

We got a little more sunlight just as we left

It's hard to envision the hugeness of the dunes

Us two.  

A pastel sunset lite up southern clouds 

We got home in time to drag out the food I'd had ready several days ago and eat a quick supper before bedtime.

Tomorrow - Winnie and Wayne take me on a train ride.

On a personal note: I'm busy with spraying for perennial pepperweed and trying to get rid of weeds around my bunkhouse and whip my garden into shape.  I'm way behind in weeding and am having to harvest lettuce and Swiss chard every few days.

A Visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park

September 30, 2018

I was excited to see that Great Sand Dunes National Park  is only about an hour away from Monte Vista National Wildlife Area. I remembered going there with some friends who had moved from Louisiana to Colorado when my children were small.  At that time,  we camped in old beat up  pop up trailer with holy canvas, as well as in the back of a covered pickup and rode in the back of that covered pickup looking like migrants as we toured several places in Colorado.  This was one of them. 

I don’t think we climbed the dues as our children were probably between two and eight years old. I decided to rectify that this trip.  I started early and got almost to the Park by the time the sun rose. You don’t see the dunes on the way in, until you are almost there, but you are driving towards the the Sangre de Cristo Mountains which overlook the dunes. Just before you  get to them, you take a left turn to reach the accessible area of the park.  

It was too early for the Visitor Center to be open, so I parked in the parking lot for hikes into the dunes, and prepared to hike.  It was barely warm enough that I thought I could get along without my jacket, but I had worn a long sleeved shirt. The dunes were beautiful in the early light and had long shadows helping to better define them.  

There is a big field of sand between the parking lot and the dunes. It was a hard slog just to get  to the base of the dunes.  I hoped to climb to the highest dune.  I ended up picking the wrong path and, when I got to the top, I saw I would have to climb down a long ways before I could climb up again.  It had taken to crawling to beat the steep slope because my legs were sinking almost the length of my stride and I couldn’t move fast enough to make much progress walking. AND I was already exhausted. By this time the sun was too high for pictures anyway, so I sort of skied back down part of the way and walked the rest. 

Sunrise coloring a cloud over the Sangre de Christo Mountains

Sun lighting up the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Before the sun hit the sand dunes

Dunes in sunlight and shadow

Hikers on dunes

Wind carved dunes 

My shadow

A field of little pitted dunes

Ripples

A closer up look of my shadow and the textures on the dunes. Several have gone before me.

A bigt of dune grass

A closeup of the sand.  I was surprised at the colors and roundness.

As I climbed higher, I could get more of this field

Footprints mostly don't have definition

Textures

Shadowed sculptures

Shadows are getting harsher

Another, higher view - and the right path to the highest dune

Dune landscape

Still heading up

Another landscape

Sand sculptures on a very large scale

I was amazed at the knife edge some of the dunes had - and the two very different sides

Huge sculpture

Textures

These are my footprints along the edge of a dune

This is a footprint from the ridged side of the dune just above- the sand flows out of the footprint and
 forms fingers in the ridges

A very peaceful place

These willows were glowing in the sun which backlit them

The last mullein bloom

A distant view of a pronghorn buck who was guarding his harem - in the hollow behind him

I spent a little time in the very lovely and informative visitor center and listened to a talk by a ranger about how the sand dunes formed. Most of the sand comes from the San Juan Mountains.  Wind patterns and water keep it locked against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  The dunes are super stable and look almost identical to pictures taken over one hundred years ago.  Most of the park is Wilderness and can only be accessed by horse or four wheel drive, so I don’t know how much of it I’ll get to see. But I’m sure I’ll go visit it again next spring as this is where I’ll be living and working mid April to mid October. 

I will be traveling to Texas when this blog comes out.  I finish working at Monte Vista/Alamosa, Friday. I'll give you a little taste of the refuges soon.