Animals

Luke Visits Alaska, Part I

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Debora

I almost forgot to write about Luke’s trip to Alaska last year! I’ve probably forgotten a lot of the details, but let’s see what I can piece together.

He flew out from Denver International Airport on August 23, 2024. Delays caused him to miss his connecting flight, so the airline rescheduled him for the next flight. That takeoff was also delayed, due to technical issues.

The next morning he took a walk through downtown Anchorage.

I’m skipping all the messages where he’s complaining about freezing his ass off. Apparently 45º and overcast feels a lot colder in damp Alaska than in dry Colorado.

He drove his rented Jeep to the nearby Glen Alps/Flattop Trailhead, and hiked the overlook trail.

He spent the second night at Base Camp Anchorage Hostel. Then he dropped off the Jeep and boarded the Alaska Railroad for a scenic eight-hour journey to Denali.

He spent the night at a hostel in Denali. In the morning he took a shuttle into Denali National Park, and did some exploring in the wilderness.

This post is getting kind of long, and we’re only about halfway through, so I’ll pause it here. To be continued!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, environment, Family, Life, Travel, Weather, Wildlife | Tags: Alaska Railroad, Anchorage, Denali National Park, Fairbanks, Fort Yukon, Kaktovic | 1 Comment

DOT by Bike and Rail: Cherry Creek Trail, C-470 Bikeway, Chatfield Reservoir

Posted on August 30, 2025 by Debora

For most of last summer while I was riding the DOT, the R line was always running late because of track maintenance. It took three hours just to get from home to the Golden station for that Golden-to-Arvada loop, partly because of the chronically late R line and partly because I had to take the A to Union Station to connect with the W to Golden.

For my seventh loop, I wanted to start in Golden again and travel south. I wondered if I could make better time by riding my bike directly to Auroria West station on the W in Denver, via Cherry Creek Trail.

This is a pretty ride. I stopped to peek through the fence at Four Mile Park in Glendale, were I got to see some of the giant lanterns for the annual Bright Nights Lantern Festival.

Following Cherry Creek northwest into Denver, I shared the trail with lots of pedestrians, scooters and other bicyclists. It’s much more scenic than the train ride!

I arrived at Auroria West station and took the W back to Golden station. Total travel time to get to Golden…about three hours. No time saved, but I did enjoy the bike route more.

Like Segment 1, Segment 2 winds up into the foothills on steep, rough dirt trails that my commuter bike is not built for. I opted to take the C-470 Bikeway instead, which was mostly a good call, at least in the beginning.

Segment 3 of the DOT hops onto the Bikeway near Bear Creek, and that’s where I picked it back up.

Bear Creek Lake Park looks like a nice place to cool off on a summer day.

Apparently there’s a controversial plan to enlarge the reservoir by 20,000 acre feet, which would put most of this park underwater. I can see good arguments on both sides of the debate.

The DOT returns to C-470 via Turkey Creek.

Right around here is where the ride stopped being fun for a while.

From here it was just nine miles of following a freeway with not much to look at other than cars. The DOT bails about halfway through and winds back up into the foothills, but I was locked in until the Chatfield Tunnel at Chatfield Reservoir.

Then it got pretty again.

This loop took me almost to the end of Segment 7, where I left the DOT and followed the Platte River up to Mineral Station in Littleton.

Took the D line to I-25 and Broadway station, then transferred to the H line. That took me to Florida station, and from there it’s a short bike ride home.

Coming up: the final loop!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, Artwork, DOT by Bike and Rail, environment, Life, trees | Tags: Bear Creek Lake Park, Bright Night Lantern Festival, C-470 Bikeway, Chatfield Reservoir, Cherry Creek Trail | Leave a comment

Prairie Life

Posted on August 8, 2025 by Debora

During the week my friend came to visit last August, we went in search of prairie wildlife for her to photograph. My two favorite natives of these eastern plains are the prairie dogs (they’re everywhere!) and the pronghorns (they are elusive).

We visited the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, but didn’t see any pronghorns.

Next we tried the Plains Conservation Center, which is normally a surer bet. Got some nice shots of an old warplane near Buckley AFB, but alas, no pronghorns.

We visited the Morrison Nature Center. Not much chance of seeing pronghorns there, but the trails are nice. The prairie grass was humming with little insect lives.

We checked out some local prairie dog villages. This is one of her pics, it’s cuter than any of the ones I got:

I was sad that she didn’t get to see pronghorns on her visit.

A few days after she left, I was driving out to see Mahogany and saw a bunch of them in the field next to the road. All I had with me was my phone, which takes terrible pics, but here is photographic proof that pronghorns do roam the plains of Colorado:

More to come!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, environment, Friends, Life, Wildlife | Tags: Plains Conservation Center, Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Star K Ranch | Leave a comment

Rocky Mountain National Park

Posted on August 7, 2025 by Debora

My second-favorite thing we did when my friend came out to visit last August was to drive Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park, from the Estes Park side to Grand Lake. This is such a scenic drive. We got out for a short hike or two, and saw some wildlife on the trails, but if all you have time for is the drive, it’s still worth it.

I wish I’d gotten better shots of the wildlife, most of the ones I did get are blurry. But we saw bighorn sheep,

deer and elk,

lots of birds,

lots of insects and wildflowers,

a curious chipmunk,

and a moose.

We also saw some pikas and a mink, but I wasn’t quick enough with my camera to capture those.

This rocky riverbed has a story behind it:

So back in 1903, some Loveland farmers hired an irrigation company to build a small dam where Lawn Lake empties into the Roaring River, to create a reservoir for watering their farms down in Loveland. The dam embiggened Lawn Lake’s surface area from 16.4 acres to 48 acres.

In 1915, when Rocky Mountain National Park was established, Lawn Lake was within its borders, but the irrigation company was allowed to retain ownership of the dam and its associated water rights. In 1931 the dam was raised to 24 feet high.

In mid-July of 1982, the dam failed due to neglect, dumping 674 acre-feet of water into the Roaring River. Lawn Lake emptied in half an hour, just an absolute tsunami. Four decades later you can still see the alluvial fan of rocks and debris that the floodwaters left behind when they poured into Horseshoe Park.

After continuing across Horseshoe Park and into the Fall River, the flood destroyed a second dam and a state fish hatchery before washing through the town of Estes Park and eventually being absorbed into Lake Estes. Millions of dollars in damages and three lives lost. Insanity. You can read more about it here.

This next pic is kind of grainy because I took it with my phone, but I like it because it did a better job of capturing that golden shade of meadowgrass in the valley.

Even in August there were still patches of snow up at the higher altitudes.

Trail Ridge Road is the highest continuous paved road in the United States.

It tops out at 12,183 feet of elevation, up in the rocky tundra.

There are two small lakes in this pic, but I don’t know their names:

They look like pure snowmelt.

It’s chilly at that altitude, even in August.

And then down the other side.

Near this bridge is where we saw the mink.

This was a little village we saw in Grand Lake on the way home. So pretty!

And that was our drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. I’d like to camp up there sometime and do a real hike, but we still need to upgrade our tent and sleeping bags so we don’t freeze.

More to come!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Animals, environment, Friends, Life, Road trip, trees, Wildlife | Tags: Lawn Lake Dam, Rocky Mountain National Park | 1 Comment

Pikes Peak by Rail

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Debora

Luke keeps asking when I’m going to update my blog. He says the easiest way to keep track of his road trips and other adventures is by looking them up here. I keep meaning to, but between work, house projects, recreational reading and getting into political arguments on Twitter, there never seems to be time for blogging.

But next month will mark a full year of unblogged adventures. I need to either catch up or admit that I’m never going to. So I’ve made a new rule for myself: every time I finish reading a book, I can’t start a new one until I have written and published a new blog post.

So where were we? Last August a friend I’ve known forever (since middle school!) flew out to spend a week with us. I think my favorite thing we did that week was take the Broodmoor Cog Railway to the summit of Pikes Peak.

That was on August 13th of last year. Elizabeth had the Tuesday off and came with us. Luke was saving up PTO for a solo trip to Alaska, so he was at work that day.

The Cog Railway Depot is lovely. The current cog trains were shipped out from Switzerland, and the depot embraces that Swiss aesthetic.

The depot sits roughly between the foot of the Manitou Incline and Barr Trailhead in Manitou Springs. As we rolled out of the station, the first views were green and lush.

The views get more rugged as you get higher.

This majestic marmot was hanging out above the tree line, up in the tundra.

At one point we rolled off onto a side track to let another train descend.

The tundra gets rockier near the top.

There is an active gold mine in the background of this photo, on the top right:

It takes about an hour and ten minutes to reach the summit.

The new visitor center sits next to the ruins of the old visitor center from the 1800s.

We went in and ate lunch and got some famous Summit House donuts.

The peak was cold and windy, but we walked around and took in the views.

There’s also a road you can drive up. I think it would be fun to take a car or train to the top and then ride a bike back down.

After about 40 minutes we were called to reboard. The operator relocated to our car, which had been at the back of the train during the ascent, and was now at the front.