A fresh glaze of snow coated Pikes Peak. The trees and ridges were frosted with the snow that fell as rain on Colorado Springs. In rural teller County, a trailhead was covered with a few inches of snow. Wearing shorts and some light socks, I knew I was finished before I made it up the first incline. Today was not the day to test my snow hiking skills.
The roads were dry even as the snow dusted those foothills. Not the Memorial Day I expected but treks up the hill to Teller County often yielded much different weather than what hit the Springs. The city got nearly an inch of overnight rain, and means snow a mile and a half up the hill.
I headed a little further west and the snow disappeared. At the Barksdale Picnic Area, there was only one other car. Granted, the lot only holds a half-dozen cars.
I knew conversation with the other occupant was coming, and for once I embraced it. An older man told me he and his son had been coming year for 40 years. I told him I had been coming regularly for a year, forgetting trips in 2008 and 2015. Not that it mattered. I came here on my house-hunting trip, I came a week after I arrived.
I almost asked if he wanted company on his hike, but decided to press on. I knew where I wanted to end up, and Barksdale was only the start. Out-and-back hikes are not always my favorites but this one deserves the praise.
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| Bubbling creek at Barksdale |
The Shooting Star trail was still cold, with only hints of sun. Irregularly I heard that alpine wind coursing much higher, and a few airplanes miles above.
Even at the trailhead a woodpecker delivered an emphatic salvo into a nearby tree. Its relatives would offer the same drumming as I moved deeper into the national monument, which kindly left the trails open during the pandemic while closing the visitor center and the protected fossil areas.
The little creeks crossing the high-mountain lakebed did not flow like last year. 2020 already staked out a drier path, and the creek flows quickly disappeared into thatches of greenery. The creek at the Barksdale picnic area bubbled like always.
In the year since I moved, I have a spot on this trail that enthralls me every time. It does not appear on any park map, and it enlivens the trail as well as the soul. There are ponds on the other side of the national monument, but none like this one. The creek comes in, and the birds swarm around the placid waters.
The pond stood strong, an oasis in the dry montane landscape, surrounded by blooming aspens and dried reeds of past growing seasons. Birds flew everywhere, and red-winged blackbirds showed the least fear. My first hummingbird of the season hovered in the low reeds.
A couple of women shouted their conversation across te quiet trail. I kept taking pictures, ignoring them the best I could . the hummingbirds darted away, even some of the louder shrieks from the aspens stopped as the voices reached my spot on the banks.
“Oh, sorry, “ I heard from behind me. I never turned around. I didn’t have to. They were not my focus, just the birds and this unheralded ecosystem around the watering hole
I took off to the east, not worried about reaching the Twin Rocks that named the trail. I only wanted to reach the massive ground squirrel field in an otherwise empty valley. Birds flitted in and out of the desolate burrows, which at first seemed to be abandoned. But in a few minutes, the sentry ground squirrels began their squawks to warn those below that I had no intention of merely passing through.
Mountain bluebirds suddenly grew common, their coats standing out against the parches grassland. Blue feathers stand out so sharply in nature. They were a welcome sight among the burrows. After I turned back, I could hear a ground squirrel call I could only conclude was an “all clear” order to the burrow’s denizens.
I stopped back at the pond before I made a strong push for the Barksdale trailhead. Again I could not ignore the red-winged blackbirds among the dead reeds. Those little flourishes on the wing feathers make all the difference.
A hummingbird stopped for some nectar on plants near the trail. Before I could swing the camera off my shoulder, a chipmunk leapt from scrubby grasses and nearly caught the tiny bird that took off into the trees. I don’t know why a chipmunk would stalk a hummingbird, and was glad the contest turned out as it did.
Along Upper Twin Rock Road and the federal highway, mule deer grazed, much later than they normally would emerge in the morning. Males with velvety growing antlers and females munches on the grasses.
The snows melted, the cloud burned off and Pikes Peak resumed its lordship over these foothills.
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| High mountain valleys |
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