Our time here in Walden, Colorado is soon going to be at an end. There is one last road trip we want to take before leaving the area and that is up to Big Creek Lakes. There is a campground and a big lake good for fishing. Right before we arrived at Lake John, Jim said he had checked the lake and it was still frozen.
The area is actually the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National grasslands. I guess Routt National Forest fits better on a sign.
The drive is beautiful despite the lack of foliage on the trees. It reminds us of the winter drives we used to take in Pennsylvania.
So far my favorite native Colorado spring wildflower is the prairie crocus. They grow in small bunches like this and cover the banks along the road.
As we are pulling into Big Creek Lakes camping area we see a lot of trucks, cars, and boat trailers but no people. We can hear them. Down near the lake edge, you can see it isn’t frozen over anymore and can now see people fishing and boats on the water. Of course, we had to play in the snow a little bit. It doesn’t look deep but John hasn’t sunk all the way to the ground. It is about knee-deep on me.
It is unimaginable to me how much snow these high elevations must get. This snow has been melting for a while and it is still deep. Mother nature doesn’t waste anytime, however. As soon as the snow melts, flowers and vegetation pop out all over. If anyone knows what this flower is let me know. I’ve looked and looked.
The sun is warm, but the air is chilly and we don’t want to be up here when the sun goes down. There is one more camping area we want to check out before we leave. Twisty Park. From the sound of its name, we aren’t thinking we could get our big girl in here, but you never know.
All of this snowmelt creates little ponds of water that the waterfowl take full advantages of. These cormorants have this little pool all to themselves. The big guy is drying his wings. Cool.
I think these are bluebells, and they are very blue.
This red-naped sapsucker teased us for quite a while but with patience and a lot of failed shots, John finally got me a good picture.
There was a marshy field full of what I think are Marsh Marigolds. John is on a roll, he got me another great picture, this one of a bee on the flower. I don’t think its one of those murdering ones though.
No trip into the wilderness is complete without some rockhounding, especially when we have a view like this.
While John is looking for rocks I’m taking pictures of more flowers. Maybe someday I’ll figure out what all these flowers are.
We have arrived at Twisty Park and not only are the park roads very twisty, there is a lot of snow. John says, “I think we can make that.” I say, “Let’s walk it and then we’ll decide.” In the upper right hand corner of the picture you can see some churned up snow. That is where someone else got stuck. There is all kinds of stuff thrown in the ruts where they were obviously trying to get some sort of traction. So yeah, we’re not going through the snow.
It’s getting late in the afternoon and we need to head back. We still haven’t seen any moose but we have seen a couple of mule deer. Look at those ears!
Always curious as to where some of these two-track side roads lead, we take one and come to a shooting area. What the heck. We setup some targets and we each shoot a couple of magazines. Well, look what we have here, sprawling mountain daisies. I love daisies. They just make me smile.
Oh my gosh, it’s a herd of pronghorn. I told John he can take all the pictures of pronghorn he likes, but I’m not posting any more pictures of them.
There is a lake that we keep passing, Walden Lake, that is a nesting site for American White Pelicans. They spend the winter in the Gulf of Mexico but in the summer they head to the continent’s interior to raise their young. It is an odd sight when you are used to seeing the white pelican at the ocean with their saltwater-only brown pelican cousins.
We will be leaving Lake John in a few days. Sure will miss these mountains.
