Frolicking

The Blah life went on the road this weekend - to Steamboat Springs, Colorado!

Per the Colorado norm, the weather was gorgeous.  An 11 mile hike in the Mount Zirkel wilderness was the highlight of the trip. We hiked the Gold Creek Lake-Gilpin Trail loop from the Slavonia trailhead.  The information said that the trailhead had limited parking and that there was heavy usage, so we arrived around 8 AM. There was plenty of parking and we saw almost no one on the entire hike. The guidebook also said that the scenery was "above average." We pondered what "average" scenery is for Colorado and what does "above average" mean...seems like a strange scale.

Although upon completion of the hike, I have to agree with the "above average" rating. Not only were there aspen forests and fields of avalanche lilies, there was a porcupine! It just ambled across the trail and away into the woods as if we weren't even there. The photo below is the only evidence I have and is of its retreat.

The fields of little yellow, down-turned avalanche lilies provided a perfect stage for frolicking:

There was also fungus, which was a big surprise because I don't normally expect to see mushrooms until late summer/early fall. There was even fungus coming up out of the snow!

We even spotted a beefsteak morel (aka brain mushroom), I've only ever seen these one other time in Colorado and they were fairly plentiful on this hike. Here's a little clump of them. 

We did eventually run into some snow near an alpine lake and we lost the trail...this might explain why there were fewer cars and people than expected. Here's what it looked like at the shore of the lake:

There were some ominous clouds that made us a little anxious when we lost the trail completely on the north side of the lake.  Luckily there were some footsteps in the snow that led us back to the beaten path.

The next day we did a short hike to and around Fish Creek Falls. It too had great things - slugs, butterflies, beautiful flora:

And, bonus! There was a cute guy hanging around the falls:

So that was a vacation from the blah life. Now I'm back to the blah. I'm not complaining though! A blah day in Colorado is worth a good week in many other places.

Until next time...