Author: Steve

The mighty beaver. And a job well done.

Rags has found a comfortable position from which to contemplate his next
foray.

Friday. Our anniversary. Number thirty-eight. All through with the job in Creede. Stayed right here at this camp, though.
Got to work on the Glenwood Springs job and finish it. When I get to a good
phone connection, I’ve got two files I can send back to the office now. Rags has really adapted well to this trip. He is getting so good about not
dashing out the door. We haven’t hit bug season yet, so we can put him on a
leash outside, and leave the door wide open. He stalks about in the grass,
laying waste to tiny critters, and can go back and forth into and out of the
house as he pleases. When I finished my work, Judy and I took a drive. More Jeep roads up the
canyon north of town. We found the coolest four-wheel drive road. So
steep. So narrow. Right up the face of a mountain. Right up the side of a
mountain, until just before the summit the road disappeared under a snow
bank. No chance of plowing though that. No chance of turning around. Very
very slowly, with Judy looking out one window, and me out the other, we
backed down to a place on the face where we could turn around. Judy observed that this was the roughest steepest scariest road we had ever
driven. Then she drove. Back down off the pass, we admired a beaver pond. I’ll send some pictures
of our “Beaver Encounter”. Drove down the canyon for a nice anniversary dinner at the Blue Creek Café.
It was everything a small roadside Café high in the mountains should be.
I’ve got to get me some of those trout shaped light bulb covers.
At Creede, we’re pretty deep into southwest Colorado. Saturday, we’ll head
deeper.

More mountain scenery. Check out this beaver pond. See the trails leading straight up the mountain? Those are the drag marks
of the trees going down. Nice balance between the beaver and the
fast-growing aspen.

Thursday It worked. Got the job finished, drove back to South Fork after lunch for
another email exchange, drove back to Creede in time for a long exit
conference, and we’re good to go. This is hard work, getting jobs totally
wrapped and done by their due date, but what a way to do it! Hey, guys at
the Denver office, do I really have to come back, or can you just sign me up
for more jobs and leave me out here longer? Every year we come here, and every year someone asks us if we’ve been to the
Wheeler Geologic Area yet. It is the local spectacular, but not many people
get to see it. First, not many people come here. Then, even if you start
from here, it’s hard to get to. It’s a rugged fifteen-mile round-trip hike
if you walk there, or a twenty-eight mile round trip if you drive the jeep
road. They say it’s faster to walk the trail than to drive the jeep road. It was declared a National Monument around the turn of the century. After
fifty years or so, when they still hadn’t built any access to it, or
promoted it, they turned it back to the Forest Service to manage. It is a
unique geologic area, but I don’t know any more than that. I haven’t seen
anything like a good picture of it. All these elements conspire to make
this journey irresistible. We have to go there. We’re not going to do the
all-day hike, so we’ll have to drive. We have never been able to drive it,
because we didn’t tow a jeep, we towed a mini-van. Well, we took care of
that. We tow a Grand Cherokee now. We’re ready. We even scheduled this
trip to allow a full day for the adventure. It’s not going to happen. Not this year. Each year before, the road has
been dry the first week of May. This year they got a good snow pack. The
four-wheel drive road is impassable when wet. This year, it’s beyond wet.
It’s still buried. Maybe we’ll pass this way again in the summer, though we
never have before. Maybe next year will be drier again. Maybe. Whatever,
it remains on the must-do list. Meanwhile, we discovered another must-do
this trip. Talking to Mo, the Executive Director, our client, about
Wheeler, he mentioned another barely accessible marvel. Rattlesnake canyon.
Natural rock arches. Remote. It’s reputedly west of the Colorado National
Monument, outside Grand Junction, on the other side of the Colorado River
from where the roads are. Who could resist that? Look out, next trip to
Grand Junction. After work, we drove jeep roads up the canyon. Ended up past the rock ridge
right below the giant marshmallow mountains. They are, by name, the La
Garita mountains; I was just describing their appearance. We got to use the
sunroof as much as the windows to admire the view. Judy observed that was
the roughest road we’ve been on yet in the Jeep. Sometimes it’s too cold, but it is certainly not now. Highs in the sixties
in the high county is just right. Back at camp tonight, the two geese do their noisy nightly commute back down
river. We never see them fly upriver, but they fly back down past us every
night. Or perhaps there is an endless supply of geese upriver that would
rather be downriver. Two at a time. Tomorrow. Our anniversary.