Snow melt is in full effect in the mountains, and all the creeks and rivers are raging. Here are two views of the Animas River in the Weminuche Wilderness of Southern Colorado:
You do not want to swim in this river!! I did see some guys kayaking, but they are probably not alive anymore.
On the second day there, I was greeted by this friendly looking roadside marmot:
Unfortunately, he was well aware that he was in a National Forest and not a National Park. I only got this one quick photo, before he ran away from me. Total marmot count for the week: 3. Total marmot photo count for the week: 1 (slightly out of focus). Someone needs to import the National Park marmots to this area of the state. Perhaps some scientist could write a grant for this important work...
Later that day, I was warned about some dangerous animals that could be potentially blocking the road.
I believe this sign may have been mistakenly placed in this location. It's not Hadley MA, where dairy cows roam the roads with impunity.
Later that week, we were once again warned of a potentially dangerous obstacle.
While not as awesome as an actual big horn sheep; how often do you see signs for them? Not to mention firetrucks, because they usually share the same habitat.
The most awesome spotting occurred on Saturday. Instead of attending the combo tour of the new high school / low rider car show (I wish I could make up stuff this good), we went hiking with Laura's parents in mountains north of Durango CO. Less than a quarter of a mile up the trail, we heard a very distressing yelp, unlike any noise I've ever heard, looked up, and saw this tiny critter on the embankment above the trail:
At first I thought it was a baby deer, as it was very small, but Laura's dad was quite certain that it was an elk. I couldn't believe this, as we had just seen a baby elk the week before, and it was much larger than this guy. Well, this was not just a baby elk, it was a newborn baby elk. Possibly earlier that morning, and at most, a couple of days old!!!
It looked around:
And then came tumbling pitifully down the embankment. It didn't even move after it came to a stop, lying right on the trail.
We took a few quick photos and hustled along; you do not want to antagonize a mama elk, unless you think having a ruptured spleen is a good thing. The mother was nowhere to be seen, but we weren't taking any chances. Later, when we came back down the trail, the baby elk was gone. Hopefully the mother came and gave it some yummy elk milk, and they moseyed on. Or maybe a bear had a tasty lunch. Either way something good happened...
Feel free to stop reading at this point, as I probably won't top this for awhile, and it's definitely the pinnacle of this particular tale. I really hope to see baby marmots (super hard), or maybe bear cubs (really super hard). But since I haven't seen a single bear yet, seeing bear cubs is probably a bit of a stretch.
The next day, Laura and had planned to climb Centennial Peak and maybe Sharkstooth in the La Plata Mountains. Unfortunately I didn't have trail mileages, and was a little optimistic with my map interpretation. After about five and a half miles of hiking and crossing two passes, we got to a view of our objective and realized we still had at least 3 miles to go, and had to drop into a significant valley we would then have to climb steeply out of. At this point it was going to be an 18-20 mile round-trip hike and we realized it was time to abandon our original plan. We then climbed into this high meadow with dainty wildflowers and great views of the surrounding mountains, including Sharkstooth.
We did see a marmot and a few pikas, so all was not lost. Here is the view in the opposite direction:
We had climbed via Kennebec pass, visible in the distance in the far left corner of the photo. We also saw one mule deer on our way back. It was next to our car at the trailhead.
Finally on our way home, we passed the new Unnatural Selection softball training facility:
Tomorrow we climb Mt Audubon and hopefully more awesome beast sightings will occur. Unfortunately we'll be in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and not the National Park, so the beasts may not be familiar with proper posing and behavior. I'll let you know how it goes.
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