September-October 2006

Colorado greeted us with two snow storms in the first week. We discovered that our local black bear had been by our property between the two and left a perfect set of footprints! Many of our young aspens were bent over under the weight of frozen rain and then snow on trees with all their leaves. Some will not recover from this insult but the land looked so beautiful!

A full set of bear prints in the mud near our cabin!
Our cabin after the first snowfall
Some of these young aspens will never recover
Aspen enjoying her breakfast
Snow above the Boreas Pass
Three generations
At the top of the Boreas Pass
Angie and Judi catch up on the walk up to the Alpine Tunnel
Judi enjoys lunch at 11,500 feet
Dave prepares rocks for a snooze he was not allowed
Isn't she just great!
The Sangre Do Cristo Mountains
Distant sandhill cranes feeding
A female mule deer grazing on our land
What beautiful birds

We made good use of our 4x4 hire car and visited the Boreas Pass with Dave, Judi, Mark, Bridget and Aspen. Mark rode his mountain bike down the far side to Breckenridge. Much of the north side of the pas was deep mud and ice sheets.
We took Dave and Judi up to visit the site of the old mining town of Hancock at 11,000 feet.

We walked from there up to where the old railroad went through the mountains at 11,500 feet - all Victorian engineering! The old track bed makes the climb easy.

We sadly had to take Dave and Judi back to Denver to fly home after two weeks but we stayed on for two more and saw more snow.

We took a trip with our friends Gail and Tom to see the Sandhill Cranes in their autumn migration. They visit the fertile plains south of the Poncha Pass where Coors grow most of their grain for brewing beer. The fields are harvested inefficiently so that their will be food left for these magnificent birds. They have an 8 foot wingspan! We could not get very close as they just moved away. There were hundreds of them over several square miles.

On our land the wildlife was busy feeding up for the winter. A pair of Stellars Jays visited often.

The chipmonks and a golden-mantled ground squirrel visited our bird food as much as the jays. The mule deer were often seen on the land but the bear has only ever been seen by mark when camping out here.
Aspen will be a year old before we know it. She understands more and more about the workings of her world and should be walking before she is a year old. We had great fun with her again and were delighted to find she accepted us as though we had not been away - quite unexpected!
We had to leave the area in an appalling blizzard and watched a snow plough get stuck on a pass just in front of us. And so back to Maryland...

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