Bear hunting 
August 16, 2013

We’ve landed for four nights in La Veta, Colorado, amidst what surely is the most breathtaking scenery anywhere.  Aside from a bit of altitude adjustment (it’s been many months that we’ve been at elevations lower than our mile high at home), it is glorious - clear cool mountain air - it just can’t be beat.

This was chosen as a stopover after we had a brief encounter several years ago with the town as the terminus of the Alamosa scenic train ride.  After our super railroad excursion from Alamosa to La Veta and back in one day, the place earned a strong vote of “Let’s go back there!”.  At that time, we heard there were bears in town and plainly that is still the case.

In fact, there are bears right in our RV park.  This morning I saw bear tracks right along behind the trailers, but despite my best efforts, have yet to spot a bruin in the flesh.  Yesterday, a neighbor gave quite a breathless account of her encounter of the bear kind while walking her dog, and we’ve heard many more accounts from folks who spend the summer here.

We are in one of the more enjoyable RV parks we’ve stayed at - “Circle the Wagons” it's called.  We have morning sun and afternoon shade; the Cuchara River (a stream in reality) borders the park, and the facilities couldn’t be better.- lots of nice patio sitting areas and best of all, a whole small campground filled with friendly outgoing folks, many of whom summer here every year. . . and they love having Chris play the keyboard, so I know they have good taste.

Bird feeders . . .

Maybe it’s a requirement at the Circle the Wagons, but literally everyone has put up bird feeders; of course we do so everywhere we go.  Great fun to be back in the West where we have a myriad of hummingbirds, not just the ruby-throated, beautiful as they are, farther east.  Already we’ve added broad-tailed, and are having fun watching the rufous fight for dominance at the feeder.  Rowdy thinks it’s entertaining, too.  Also in the park, we've added lesser goldfinch to the bird list.  They are one of our most common birds at home, yet we've nary spotted a one in eight months on the road.

La Veta . . .

La Veta is a really charming little town with one very unusual aspect: every afternoon, deer come into town and graze through every yard without the slightest regard for people.  They literally walk right up to folks; we watched them grazing at front porches and back yards, sauntering across the main road; there’s even a doe with triplet babies who views the RV park as her private nursery domain.

Fleeting . . .

Structures abandoned to the elements in the Colorado high country are soon overgrown by vegetation and collapsed under the weight of winter snow.

Beavers . . .

There are lots of beaver dams on these high streams.  I couldn’t resist a picture of this large tree the creatures had felled that was easily 150 yards from the water up a very steep embankment.

Spanish Peaks . . .

In La Veta, we are at 7,037 feet elevation, surrounded on three sides by incredible mountains.  The majestic Spanish Peaks soar to their above-tree-line height of 13,626. 

It was that direction we headed for a bit of recon.  The length of the drive was short, but the time was not because we were continually stopping to hike off in one direction or another or going back to snap a missed photo op.

Radiating out from the Spanish Peaks are massive volcanic dikes - rough stone walls of massive proportions.  The nature of their structure leaves windows and some of the oddest crumbly formations I’ve seen.

This formation is called The Devil's Stair Steps.

Three lakes up in the direction of the Cuchara Pass are idyllic spots and each is very different from the others.  Blue Lake seems to have good fishing but appears to be fairly shallow.  Little Blue Lake, a short walk from there, had not drawn any fishermen when we were there and may not be productive at all.

Our favorite of the three was Bear Lake, quite a bit larger.  I think it would be a good one to take the kayaks on for some fishing.  We had an excellent hike around it and identified lots of birds in the process: new for the trip were Townsend's warbler, mountain chickadee and black-billed magpie.

I took approximately 1,000 photographs of rollicking clear streams cascading over rocks down the mountainside.  Unfortunately, the result is invariably so much less than the magic of the reality that I end up throwing away my efforts.

I especially love the scenes of trails leading to who knows where - therein lies the wonder and mystery of what's over the next rise.

Trying to convey the breathtaking beauty and incredible breadth of these mountains is not something I can accomplish; they need to be experienced first-hand.  That doesn’t stop me from trying, though.

 

Amanitas mushrooms - beautiful but hallucinogenic and highly poisonous.

 

 

A chipmunk gave us lots of "awwww" opportunities as he industriously ate the seeds from an apple core that had been dropped.