High Country: Ascending to Trout Haven

After a seven-year absence, I forgot how quickly the mountains rise above Colorado Springs. In Denver, the mountains give some warning; you can see the Rockies long before Denver appears. Cross into Colorado’s second-largest town, and the soars above everything. Nor does the interstate follow a flat route along the Front Range.

Elevations increase significantly as Denver slips behind. Pike’s Peak announces itself long before Colorado Springs (flying in, it’s the first mountain of prominence, preceded only by a distant ridge of anonymous Rockies). Colorado Springs has another thousand foot elevation advantage over Denver, and still it sits 8,000 feet below the top of Pike’s Peak.

It’s a mountain I could live beneath. By the time U.S. 24 hits the Manitou Springs line, the incline into mountains increases rapidly. A few blocks after Manitou, the road swerves across a mountain pass and into the shadow of the best-known 14’er. We had a little business in Colorado Springs before we migrated to higher elevation (no marijuana stores, in case you wondered).

Ending our hunger came first. I had driven the road to Divide in 2008, but my navigation abilities failed me in trying to access U.S. 24 near Manitou Springs. Eventually we found its main drag of vintage motor courts, upscale boutiques and eateries. Up a nondescript foothill, we came to the Crystal Park Cantina. Spanish wines and good mixes of native and Mexican cuisine (fry bread quesadillas with chili and a dynamite New Mexican chili burger. Rather than Colorado beer, we went with Spanish reds and Portuguese vinho verde.

The old street signs in Trout Haven

Downtown Fine Wine and Spirits gave us a case of Colorado wine and select favorites, including a couple of Gruet sparkling wines unavailable in Tennessee. At Boonzaaijers Dutch Bakery in Colorado Springs, we picked up a cake for Nancy’s dad for his 88th birthday. Along the way, we drove up Wahsatch Avenue and its colorful century-old homes. Nancy’s paternal grandparents had retired to a house on Wahsatch, which we unwittingly passed. Around every corner in this part of the country runs rich with Todd family history.

Nancy drove from Colorado Springs to Divide, eager to retrace the childhood path up the foothills to the near-legendary cabin. Neither Nancy nor I remembered the windy, mountainous path after Manitou that led to Woodland Park. The 45 mph signs were not a suggestion in this rocky canyon. In a handful of traffic lights, Woodland Park zipped by, Divide only had one and a single commercial block. To this point, our destination still felt like fantasy, a journey to forbidden place. I suspected we might pass the cabin on a Colorado visit someday, but never dreamed we might stay there.

We left the paved road and passed a mix of vacation homes, survivalist cabins and suburban construction. One even posted a Confederate flag. The nearby wolf sanctuary sat like a fortress, one that we would not reach on this trip. We passed the little private fishing resort that managed a series of lakes on a dammed creek. Glimpses of Pike’s Peak through the trees came at a higher elevation as we traversed the dusty roads. Here on a second Wahsatch Road, we came to a dead-end.

At a curve before the road ceased sat the Trout Haven cabin, its front door open. Her parents greeted us as we arrived. They let Tennessee on Sunday, stopping in Hot Springs and few other locations, including Rocky Ford, where Nancy’s dad stopped to fulfill a lifelong wish and bought a number of melons that would be devoured during the weekend.

At last, the cabin

The cabin itself seemed sturdy and welcoming. Nancy’s dad constructed it in 1970. Almost 45 years later, he got to celebrate a birthday under its roof, a roof none in the family ever expected would cover them again. The shag carpet had been pulled, the hardwood floors exposed. An upstairs half-bathroom had been expanded to include a tub. Modern appliances accented the kitchen.

From the living room, the same impressive view of nearby lakes and surrounding mountains dazzled. Walking into that room for the first time, I saw the genius of Donald Todd's designs. You could sit here and absorb the best of the Rocky Mountain high country all day.

 Outside, trees planted as saplings matured. Porch chairs lined the massive rock in the middle of the yard. Chunks of quartz and sparkling rock lined the front walk. While we toured I struggled to catch my breath, a common theme for the next three days.

Barely an hour into our vacation the new owners invited us to the adjacent property, which they purchased to build a more rustic camp experience. They lived in a loft cabin with canvas walls, with outdoor sinks, a solar shower and a massive bear-proof cooler.

As the wind roared through the pines and color-changing aspens, we chatted about the cabin. The new owners seemed anxious at the chance to pull out construction details and answer questions about its eccentricities – for example, to access two balconies on off the second-floor, one must climb through a narrow window.

Home again

Nancy’s dad copied the Swiss chalet design of a business in Woodland Park. Although cabins and suburban-like homes now filled in adjacent properties, He picked a perfect rocky site with generous views of lakes further down the hill. Several huge flat rocks provided space for lounge chairs. It was paradise at 9,600 feet above sea level, even if my lungs were not ready to accept that depiction.

The new owners showed us motion-camera footage of black bears testing the bear-proof garbage cans and cats that fell taxonomically between feral cat and mountain lions. Most likely, it fell in the range of exceedingly large feral cat, since only lynxes were of the same size, and this one lacked the tufted ears and stocky legs. They also dubbed the two properties the Colorado town of Fluoride(or Floride, we didn’t press them on the spelling) , because the land straddled the line between Divide and neighboring Florissant.

Soon the sun began falling and the temperature dropped, so we dashed to the grocery in Divide and got the raw materials for a birthday cookout. The grill fired up and in minutes; soon we had a table-spanning feast. One of the Rocky Fork melons struck me as a sublime combination of pear and honeydew, exotic and perfect.

You can't have an 88th birthday without a cake, especially not for a sweet lover the likes of Nancy's father. The fruit-topped cake was even better. Even with the cabin’s interior lights, the Milky Way revealed itself rapidly, with more stars popping through the atmospheric haze every minute. Tired as we were, it was a hard view to shake. With any luck, two more nights of cloudless Rocky Mountain night awaited us.

In the comforting mountains