The Boreas Pass Scenery: A look back at South Park. Spruce/fir on the way up. Aspen on the way down the other side. A look across at the ski area from above Breckenridge.
life bird
A day trip in the Jeep. We drove a short loop from Breckenridge, over Hoosier Pass (Continental Divide), through Alma, into South Park, left at Fairplay, left at Como, dirt road over Boreas Pass (Continental Divide), and back down to Breckenridge. Maybe fifty miles altogether. Not very birdy; mostly scenery; but remember that pine grosbeak I almost got in Estes Park, but couldn’t quite find? There was a bird standing in the road at the top of Boreas Pass. We stopped the car to look at him and there it was: the elusive pine grosbeak. A female. The picture we took isn’t very good. We took it through the windshield. But LIFE BIRD. That’s good.
Colorado Trail
We have access to the Colorado Trail from Tiger Run. It’s a five hundred mile trail through the mountains from Denver to Durango. Haven’t quite covered the entire thing, but we have made lunchtime walks in both directions. The Colorado forests are changing. The pine beetle is giving us reason to learn to admire not only shades of green, but also shades of brown. It’s like going to Yellowstone. The fires changed Yellowstone forever by our standards. But the standards of our lifetime and our memories are just a blip in geologic time. The blackened Yellowstone forests still stand, but they are gradually coming down. The seedlings on the forest floor are asserting themselves and they will someday be as tall as the remaining snags. The Colorado forests will look like a forest fire has gone through. It will be a slower oxidation that takes several years to complete. We will get to watch part of the recovery process as well. It will be a long cycle; not like the annual change of seasons. We will only get to see part of it, but then nobody gets to see everything do they? Mountain weather. Highs mostly in the sixties. Lows in the forties. Blue sky in the mornings. Fifty degrees, calm, and sunny feels warm. Intermittent showers in the afternoon. Lush undergrowth. Flowers everywhere. Tiny flocks of pine siskins on the feeder. Rufous and broad tailed hummingbirds. White crowned sparrows. Mountain chickadees. Swarms of violet green swallows overhead. Robins on the lawns. An American dipper works his way up and down the stream behind our site. There are trout in the stream.
Tiger Run
In another section there are combo sites that are a mix of park models (like a mobile home, but more the size of an RV), chalets (bigger than a park model), and RV sites. That’s where we are this year, in the combo sites. Not many RVs here. Every time another chalet gets built, an RV site goes away. Some owners have a chalet and RV site combination.
Tiger Run
Then there are the oversize deluxe sites. We’re not there this time either.