Burning Bear Creek Trail #602

Location: Pike National Forest north of Grant, Colorado.

Directions: From C-470, take Highway 287 west toward Fairplay for about 39 miles. At the town of Grant, turn right onto CR-62, or Guanella Pass Road. Follow Guanella Pass for approximately 5 miles. The trailhead for the Burning Bear Creek Trail will be on the left at the top of the hairpin turns and there will be a small parking area on the right side of the road. There is a brown, wooden trail sign at the entrance to the meadow where the trail starts.

Duration: Approximately 3 hours.

Route: Follow the Burning Bear Creek Trail – there is only one route out and back.

Access Notes: The parking for this trail can accommodate no more than several cars. You may need to park lower down on the road and walk up a quarter of a mile if you can’t find parking across from the trailhead. It takes about an hour and a half travel time from Westminster/Arvada to arrive at the trailhead without traffic. Guanella Pass Road does not go all the way through to Georgetown as of 9-10-10 due to construction and landslide abatement, so taking CR-62 from Grant is the only way to and from the trail. Guanella Pass Road is a gravel road with limited winter maintenance and in dry conditions is easily passable by passenger car to the Burning Bear Creek Trail. Dogs are allowed.

The Hike

View from the Burning Bear Creek Trail

This hike begins in a marshy meadow on top of a constructed, elevated path that turns into a wooden bridge that crosses the Burning Bear Creek before it enters the shady confines of the trees. There are views of surrounding mountains: Arrowhead Mountain (el. 11,209 ft.), Kataka Mountain (el. 12,441 ft.) and Geneva Mountain form a bowl of rounded peaks directly to the east-northeast of the trail. To the west, the direction the trail runs from Guanella Pass, you’ll see distant Red Cone (el. 12,801 ft.) and Handcart Peak (el. 12,518 ft.). There’s very little discernable elevation gain the first 2 miles of the trail, only occasional undulations as it runs alongside the soft swells of a forested hill where it meets the meadow.

The winding creek at the start of the hike was a strange shade of teal blue when I was there – perhaps mineralized runoff or bacteria was coloring the water. It was running low but with enough volume to indicate at least a little bit of precipitation had fallen recently in the mountains up slope. The trees at the start of the hike are mostly pine and spruce, but aspens do make an appearance about a mile in. Across the large meadows you’ll see a house and perhaps some horses and cattle, but it won’t be long before you’ll have more of a sense of wilderness as you walk deeper into the forest. It is quiet here, being that it is so far from Highway 285 and the traffic is considerably lower on Guanella Pass since its closure at the half-way point.

Wild mushroom

The creek is much smaller and closer to the trail about a mile up, and you can stop to enjoy the sound or just dip your feet for a while. In late summer, the trail close to the creek appeared eroded from mud, so I imagine that it can be quite muddy on parts of the trail in early- to mid-summer. Look for mushrooms in the darker, moister areas, some of which can grow to the size of large grapefruit. Just don’t pick them or eat them—mushrooms can be toxic and only an expert can be sure if they are or aren’t.

Dead Cow and Talking Ravens

It was a sunny, breezy and warm day when I hiked this trail for the first time early in September. There were hardly any signs of the approach of autumn on the drive up yet, with the exception of a few patches of orange-yellow from select branches of narrow-leaf cottonwoods and aspens along the South Platte River to the west of Conifer. On the relatively flat path in the woods at the start of the trail, I would occasionally hear the rumbling and clattering of tractor trailers as they lumbered up Guanella Pass to where they were doing road work. Otherwise, the sounds of trees and birds was soothing and pleasurable. A woodpecker would pound its head against a dead tree trunk and make a repetitive, hollow sound like a tiny jackhammer. A breeze would comb through the hillsides and down the meadow through the brush, as grasshoppers took off and landed, took off and landed underneath my feet, their flight haphazard and brittle-sounding.

The woods changed texture and shape the further I went. At first, the branches were lower and greener, creating a dark green canopy with a lap of mossy growth at the base. Then the trees got leggier, with bare branches reaching further up and allowing more sunlight and warmth to the floor. An amber light enveloped the trail at that point, creating an atmosphere of mystery and suspense.

A series of raven cries got my attention at the point where the path led out of the woods into a grassy area. There, about 100 yards away from the trail in the meadow, were about a dozen of the big, confident birds, perched on what appeared to be a large black boulder with white streaks in the middle of the straw-colored field. Some of them were flapping their wings and some were balanced squarely on the edge of the black object. I walked off trail toward the scene, curious and suspecting it might be a dead animal of some kind. The ravens departed as soon as they realized I was approaching, cawing and fussing at me for encroaching on their prize.

I got as close to it as I dared before I realized it was a dead cow. It had been laying in the field for some time, its interior completely caved out by scavengers. The white streaks on the black hide were bird feces from the ravens, disrespectful and crass by human standards, normal protocol by bird standards. I snapped a couple of photos and returned to the trail.

It was there that I saw the rest of the herd: cows laying about, slowly chewing their cud, moving like ghosts between the trees, quiet and contemplative in their bovine repose. Whether they knew about their fallen herd member or not, it was hard to tell. They seemed to be enjoying a rest in the shady woods and staying far away from the gruesome scene in the sunlight. They didn’t seem concerned or frightened or worried. Whatever killed their fellow cow was no longer threatening them—or never did to begin with. Maybe the cow died of a heart attack or stroke. Do animals get strokes?

A bleached animal skull – I’m guessing another cow skull from a different season, a different year, perhaps, decorated the trail nearby. I bent down to touch the teeth. They were like human teeth: rounded, white, solid molars toward the back and pointier, more jagged teeth for slicing in the front.

I always wonder why we don’t see more carcasses of dead animals and birds around. There are thousands of birds in a suburban neighborhood. There are maybe dozens of squirrels and rabbits. Sure, once in a while I’ll see a stiff corpse of a bird or a flattened rabbit in the gutter, but is that it? Surely, the rate of casualties must be high in the animal world where the average life span is a few years or less. Nature’s trash collectors and recyclers must do a bang-up job disposing of remains.  No landfill needed. No morgue, or hospital, or hospice necessary. Death seems to occur in private, in burrows and ravines and under vegetation.

An hour later, after an exploratory taste of the woods deeper into Pike National Forest, I turned around to head back to the car. I passed the scene of decay once again. I began to hear strange clicks and murmurs coming from the trees. It took me a while to confirm the sounds were coming from the flock of ravens I had disturbed earlier. They had flown up into the trees above the trail and were having conversations. These weren’t the insistent “caw caw caw” sounds you typically hear from crows or ravens when they’re announcing their location or yelling at each other. These were alien-like whispers, trilly little clacks and brrreeps and bird-like clucks of the tongue (do ravens have tongues?). They were quiet conversations; gossipy and bantering. When I stopped to look up to see where the sounds were originating, I would be startled by a sudden swoosh and a flapping of black wings overhead. The ravens didn’t like to be observed.

I continued walking and just listened. I imagined their exchange went something like this:

“You think she’s going to want to eat some of our beef, Bob?”

“Probably not. She looked a little freaked out by it.”

“Whatever. I’m pretty full anyway. That meat was a little on the tough side.”

“Yeah, but I hear there’s a fresh kill of elk just over that ridge there. Maybe we should check it out later.”

“You go. I need a nap first, Phil.”

I wondered what the take-away message was from this hike and I decided there wasn’t really a message. I had stepped into the living (and dining) room of Burning Bear Creek, intruded on a lunch buffet, eavesdropped on afternoon gossip, and tromped through what may have been a period of bereavement or rest for a tribe of cows. It was regular life and death drama, going on as it does every day, every month, every year, whether humans see it (and hear it) or not.

Imagine what it would be like if one day a couple of squirrels with backpacks decided to walk through your house for entertainment, exercise and to take in “the view.” You and your family would be enjoying a roast at the dinner table and one of them would jump up on the table, get a good look at the scene on the serving platter, and then continue on his merry way to your kitchen, then bedroom, then your den. One of them would stop and pee in a corner behind a chair. On their way back out, they’d pass through where you were sitting in the living room, pausing only briefly to look at your with mild curiosity and amusement as you discuss the day with your spouse. Then they’d go back to their tree and wonder what it all meant.

At about the same time, I joined another hiking group on MeetUp. It advertised itself as being just a regular group – nothing thematically special about this club. Most of its members were avid hikers and the organizer had already been on more than a hundred and fifty hikes with the group since its inception. It wasn’t a contemplative group, it wasn’t necessarily competitive and it wasn’t for just singles or a certain age group. I joined because I thought it might be fun to try new trails with a group and meet other hiking enthusiasts.

It took a little while for my own MeetUp to get promoted by the website’s administrators, so in the first few days the only members were my close friends and family, who joined to show their support. I was excited to attend my first MeetUp with the other hiking group, at a trail that was almost two hours’ drive from my house and one I hadn’t hiked before. I carpooled with a couple of nice women that lived near my house.

When the entire group of more than 25 finally converged on the trailhead, we split into the required two groups (to stay within NFS group limits) and began our trek up the hill in the middle of the Lost Creek Wilderness. The pace was decent, certainly not relaxing but not crazy fast. Many people brought their dogs, half of which were border collies that wove in and out of the line of hikers, “herding” us together and then bounding up into the brush. As if on cue, we all started various strands of conversation as we walked over logs, crossed streams and passed wildflowers. There was no time for stopping. We wanted to limit our hiking time to 4 hours but there was a pretty beaver pond to visit, so we had to hustle.

I noticed interesting rock outcroppings at several points on the trail where the trees parted enough to view the landscape. I couldn’t stop to admire these, as the group was in the “zone” and I would have caused a bottleneck. At one point, we began a steep ascent up some rocks that required an extra effort, and I slowed down to preserve my energy since we weren’t even half finished with the long hike. A smaller group bounded ahead—practically racing to the top. Maybe they were training for something. I felt sluggish and out of shape in comparison.

More dogs joined the group. With at least seven circling around, I wondered when one or two would start nipping and growling at each other or trip someone. It didn’t happen, fortunately. When we arrived at the beaver ponds many of the dogs jumped in, got completely soaked swimming the pond, then ran around the group, shaking off the water into people’s lunches and laps.

At the beaver ponds most of the group stopped to take a break and eat something. Clusters of hikers gathered to converse and some laid down to relax on the grass. I enjoyed the scenery, but it was hot and getting late and I was ready to make my way back down.

I lead the way for the women I carpooled with. I kept a steady, quick pace. The fast group made their way past us again, this time practically running down the trail, their butts and hips swaying quickly and their elbows swinging wide in order to keep balance. I thought they were a little ridiculous. Weren’t they going to miss just about everything around them by hiking that fast? Certainly, you can’t even look up when you’re trotting downhill over rocks and roots without the possibility of launching into the bushes. But hey, I know how much more fun it is to exercise outdoors, so I shouldn’t judge.

When I finally got home I felt worn out, through and through. The heat, the pace, the endless chatter, the dogs bouncing around me frayed my nerves. I wondered if my own experiment with starting a MeetUp group was going to bomb. Maybe people didn’t want a quieter, more contemplative experience while hiking. Maybe people just wanted to work out and use the trail as a background for socializing. Maybe they preferred to hike with their dogs, not without them. Maybe I was out of touch with what people really wanted.

I felt defeated and a little sad.

When I got home I checked my e-mail. In my inbox were no fewer than two dozen requests to join my Contemplative Hiking MeetUp group! I read through the reasons people decided to join the group and felt giddy with each new e-mail:

“Want more solitude and appreciation of surroundings.”

“Being in nature feels like a spiritual practice.”

“…not just an hiking club, but combining hiking w/ finding that divine connectedness while enjoying the nature.”

“I think it is good to be outside and get in touch with nature while also looking within.”

“I want to learn how to read and listen to the environment and to spend more time connecting to the wind, water, flowers and earth.”

One person even commented that they themselves were considering joining a similar group, but then they saw mine. No one seemed bothered by my “no dogs” rule, either. (See my blog post regarding “Should You Take Your Dog on a Contemplative Hike?”)

Since that day, my MeetUp has attracted more than 85 members and I’ve led five hikes with the group. I limit the amount of RSVPs, so there have never been more than ten people hiking with me on the trail. Keeping the group size small is important to keeping the feeling of intimacy and contemplation. Almost every person I met who has attended a hike said that they loved the required silence. Some have said that it’s like hiking alone, but they feel safer with a group. Some said they don’t like the chatter of other groups, because it detracts from their appreciation and awareness of the surroundings. Some have said the group is perfect for introverts who don’t want to talk too much or feel strange about being quiet. We spend so much of our day in chatter: e-mail, Facebook, text messages, television, radio, headlines and advertising. It’s rare to experience relative silence, just the sounds of birds and animals and weather, especially with other people. That silence radiates out like a balm, soothing our minds and opening up our inner and outer awareness.

We’ve had some adventures together in the short time I’ve led the group. A couple of the hikes happened during rain storms. The first hike I led was to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain before sunset, and we were the only people on the trail that evening. Things that would have felt inhibiting otherwise felt invigorating within the context of the group hike: an impending wind and rain storm, darkness and dusk, evidence of bears, a deep and solitary silence in a canyon. I love seeing the light in people’s eyes when they experience something extraordinary or notice something new. I know their souls are coming alive and they are creating memories that will stick with them for a long time. I know I am.

It’s not easy staying silent for the entire hike – not for me and not for most people. Each hike has a theme and at some point in the middle I stop and we do some kind of activity that I have created (many of which I write about in this blog or in my book). I like to “check in” with people when we’re close to the end of the hike, or after the activity. We talk about what we’ve observed or felt, which deepens the experience. It’s interesting to observe that need to speak, then stay with the desire and let it pass. It’s like walking meditation and each desire to blurt out a comment becomes an observation of our monkey mind, then a letting go. No judgment, no criticism. Just a letting go and coming back to the present, to the forest, to the meadow and to the mountain.

At the end of each of the group hikes, I come away feeling invigorated and calmed. I can’t wait to see what adventures and experiences lay ahead for myself and the group in the coming year.

If you live in the Boulder/Denver area and would like to join my MeetUp, visit http://www.meetup.com/Contemplative-Hiking-Along-the-Front-Range. It’s free to join and you get reminders and invitations in your e-mail about each upcoming scheduled hike.

I was at a department store at the mall the other day, getting clothes for my 7th grader. We smelled perfumes. We looked at shiny new jewelry. We tried on trendy jackets. I commented at how it felt like 1982 all over again, with clunky boots, layered tank tops, cheap chain necklaces and skinny jeans, none of which I could fathom wearing at my ripe age. Yep, there’s nothing like walking through a department store to make you feel dumpy, fat, ugly or old. Almost everything you see is meant to make you feel like you’re lacking in some way.

Anyway, this is when I noticed the t-shirts. They were displayed prominently as we passed the children’s clothing section. “Think Green.” it blared in 150 point type across the flat chest of the manequin. Forget the fact that these shirts represent nothing uniquely sustainable– they’re just thin cotton shirts mass produced in China or Tawain. The idea that a 10 or 12 year old girl would want to advertise her eco-consciousness is saying something.

It’s telling me that her parents are probably making comments and judgments about their own eco-habits. Maybe they talk to their kids about the importance of doing the right thing and living more sustainably. I know, because I talk to my daughter about stuff like this. I tell her the importance of living in harmony with our environment. She knows about recycling and saving energy and reducing pollution. She is young and she is impressionable and she really wants to emulate her parents.

Maybe talking to our children about the importance of living in an ecologically sustainable way and actually putting some of our values into practice is a very important way of teaching them to be better Earth citizens. Making sustainability “cool” is one way of getting a kid to embrace the idea. But how do you get it to stick so it doesn’t go the way of other adolescent fads like break dancing, Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and feathered bangs?

Also, what about adults? Can going green become MORE than just a fad and actually become part of a person’s value system for the long-term?

The question of how a person makes a psychological shift from feeling detached from what’s happening to the environment to actually wanting to live sustainably and in harmony with it all comes down to one thing: ecopsychology.

Numerous studies have shown that people who care about the environment seem to have one very important thing in common. They identify with nature in some way. Their environment is a significant part of their lives. Perhaps they love to hike and spend time in the mountains every chance they get. Or they lovingly tend to a backyard garden and like to watch birds in their yard. Maybe they take daily walks on a beach to enjoy it’s vastness and to feel peaceful.

People who spend time in nature typically care more about what happens to it.

Ecopsychology studies why we persist in destroying their environment, and what it takes to change the way we think, so the protection and conservation of natural habitat is equal to the preservation of our OWN mental and physical well-being.

I know that the single best way to change the way a person perceives the environment and their place in it is to get them out in nature and connecting to some beautiful aspect of the wild. I also know the best way to bring up my child with the right values is to do things like going on walks with her in the woods, or taking her down to the lake with a field guide and watch the ducks make lazy circles in the water. Sure, it helps that I tell her about recycling and the importance of not being too materialistic and consumed by retail fads. Ultimately, though, the one thing that’s going to have long-lasting impact on her developing mind is the time she spent tending a campfire up in the mountains while watching the sun set over a peak, or standing among pack of mule deer, or having a camper jay land on her hand to swipe a piece of bread out of the palm of her hand.

Those are the moments she’ll refer to when someone asks her someday, “What do you care if they cut down that forest to make room for a new mall?” She’ll care, because she’ll know that no tchachke, trinket or t-shirt bought at that mall could ever take the same place in her heart as feeling that wild bird’s tiny feet grip the tips of her fingers in tender and hungry gratitude.

Peeps and Peter

I didn’t know that  last night, coincidentally, was prime viewing for the Earth’s annual pass through the Perseid meteor shower. We were excited to include this into our agenda and decided, at the last minute, to hike much further west of Boulder than we had originally planned in order to have darker skies.

We still had a sliver of twilight left as we headed out on the trail. Ours was the only vehicle in the parking lot at the trailhead. A small herd of deer were grazing nearby. We spent the entire drive up to the trailhead talking about the dangers of grizzly bears up in Yellowstone, where Dave and I had spent time last week, as well as the perceived dangers of mountain lions and black bears. Bears are dangerous when you startle them or get between a mother and her cubs. I said that there’s really no chance of ever startling a mountain lion. They know you’re there, even if you can’t see them. They’re stealthy, observant creatures who are normally very reclusive. Black bears, on the other hand, can be easily startled if you’re downwind and quiet, but in my personal experience they’d much rather run the heck away from you than pounce on you when they see you. Grizzlies are a different story, but there aren’t grizzlies here in Colorado.

Our discussion of predatory animals persisted at least 20 minutes into our hike, which indicated to me that we were still a bit on edge and nervous about hiking around in the dark, despite being rather loud and in a group. There’s just something about how the trees and boulders became these black, one-dimensional shapes heightens my level of awareness and anxiety. As it began to get darker and the last of the sunset faded, we saw a large, mountain-sized storm cloud far to the northwest, from which occasional lightning flashed across the sky. There were no bird calls. No squirrel chatters. Just the shrill reee-reee-reeee of crickets in the tall grass around us.

I started to lose my sense of depth perception with the loss of light and started to stumble on the rutty trail. I didn’t want to turn on any headlamps or flashlights yet, because the trail was still mostly visible as a dark gray strip under our feet. Christine let me use one of her hiking poles to feel out the ground like a blind person. Occasionally we’d hear the distant barking of a dog or the rumble of a large airplane overhead. Otherwise, it was soothingly quiet and windless.

We decided to stop where a large meadow opened up the sky and allowed us a good view of the stars. We sat right down where we were standing and leaned back on our backpacks to watch the sky. The Milky Way was faintly visible—a subtle stripe across the sky that resembled a thin white cloud. If I looked in one spot long enough, I would see twinkling stars and then one faint, non-twinkling star move slowly across the sky. These were satellites, some bigger and some smaller, or perhaps some further and some closer.

Then, quick as a flash and just as bright, we’d see a meteor streak across the sky. The streak lasted less than a second, bright and dramatic like nature’s roman candle. It was thrilling, perhaps as thrilling as spying a bear from a safe distance, or seeing the crouched shape of a mountain lion stalking a deer from a half mile away. The night became all about contemplating the things we so rarely see: a popular hiking trail at night, meteor showers, bears and mountain lions.

I couldn’t shake the feeling of vulnerability, sitting on the ground and surrounded by the tall stalks of grass in that meadow, with the black silhouettes of mountains and hills all around.  What was watching us? Would something dare come out of the grass to investigate us? I was worried because I had a precedent for this.

Earlier this summer I was in Ridgway, Colorado with my daughter and we went for a walk in town after dark. Ridgway doesn’t have a lot of streetlights, probably for good reason. They want to keep light pollution down because the night sky there is black and spectacular. We were walking through a town park, barely able to see the trail in front of us, when an animal appeared and approached us in the darkness—a large, furry, light-colored animal with a long snout. Before I knew it was a dog, I screamed, and then I yelled at the poor thing, unsure if it was friendly or not. It must have been, because it slunk away, dejected and frightened too.

Perhaps that’s the experience that was steaming through my subconscious as I sat there, trying to relax and enjoy the night sky.

After a while, it started to get cold, so we headed back to the car. I want to do another night hike again soon. This is different than being in a tent while camping. This is different from walking alone in my neighborhood long after dark.  This feels more raw, more primitive. It’s like I’m privy to a secret world that most people don’t get to experience. Dave suggested we do a full moon snowshoe hike up near Brainard Lake in the winter. As much as that freaks me out to imagine, I’m going to do it. I’m going to open myself up to the possibility. I like challenging myself this way, leaning into my feelings of anxiety and creepiness to see what lies beneath.

Yellowstone hot pool

One of the “rules” that I have for contemplative hiking is that it should be done in silence. You don’t have to hike alone, although sometimes it’s good to get outside in nature with yourself, by yourself, and really unwind from the expectations of friends or loved ones. You can relax, go for a long walk in the woods, think about nothing but how the clouds are moving over the mountain peaks, and feel that momentary feeling of oneness and self-lessness. You can do that whether you’re alone, or with a friend, or with a small group of strangers, as long as there’s silence and space for everyone to have their own experience in peace.

Last week I went on a family trip to Yellowstone with my husband and daughter. It wasn’t my first time there, although I was my daughter’s age when I was there last with MY parents. Yellowstone is a place of beauty and danger – lots of danger. It is a place where you have to watch your step, stay on the path, stay far away from wildlife, and be conscious of where you are and what you’re doing at all times. You can be scalded, drowned, bit, and mauled if you don’t. The volcanic nature of the area makes it an ever-changing and shifting landscape, and sometimes the ground beneath your feet can literally drop out on you in a second. (Incidentally, while we were vacationing there last week, a pair of escaped convicts were hiding out in the general vicinity. Something else to be leery of!)

One of the guidelines the park has set up for visitors is not to hike alone and NOT to hike silently. This is to assure you don’t surprise a bear, whose sense of hearing is probably much better than their sense of sight. Bears don’t like to be startled, especially if there are cubs involved. A grizzly can and will rip your face off if it senses that you are a threat.

We listened to a ranger during a group hike in the nearby Teton Range tell us that wearing bear bells on a backpack isn’t enough – as a matter of fact, they’re insufficient in warning bears of your presence. Park officials advise that when you’re hiking in Yellowstone, you go in a group and you get LOUD. I mean, chatty and obnoxious. Give the impression of a large, obnoxious herd clomping down the trail. This way, they say, you’ll scare the bear away and ensure your safety. And just in case, have bear spray with you and “know how to use it.”

Apparently, in the history of the park, there have been only a  handful of fatalities from bears (grizzlies) and in all cases the parties in question were hiking alone.

So when it comes to Yellowstone, contemplative hiking is not a good idea. At least my idea of it.

This led me to consider my recommendations for doing contemplative hiking along the Front Range in silence. I don’t see it as a problem here the way it is in Yellowstone. For one thing, there are no grizzlies here. Black bears hibernate from November – April, so the only time where this may be an issue is in summer. As anyone who likes to hike along the Front Range in summer will attest, there is rarely a trail where there aren’t at least a few people around, chatting away, making the noise, even if you aren’t. As for mountain lions, they know you’re there. There’s never been an incident of a person “surprising” a mountain lion. They’re saavy and stealthy creatures who see you even when you can’t see them.

If the idea of hiking alone and in silence anywhere near the Denver/Boulder area freaks you out, then I invite you to join my Contemplative Hiking MeetUp group. You can meet like-minded people who enjoy going out in nature and hiking, but don’t necessarily enjoy all the chatter and social pressures that go with hiking in groups. I’ve organized four MeetUps so far that have been wonderfully relaxing, contemplative and for the most part, silent. But they’ve also felt safe, because we’re in a group, and a group is intimidating to all manner of predator, be it a furry black one on four legs or a less furry taupe one one two.

This is only half of the garden

I thought I’d take a little break from writing about contemplative hiking this week and instead do an update on our home permaculture garden and its ongoing bounty.

Last fall we expanded our backyard food garden by about a fourth with a sheet mulch method of putting down cardboard directly on the lawn, then layering cow manure, horse manure, straw, amendments (powdered sea kelp, ground rock) and dead leaves into a foot-thick pile that slowly decomposed over the winter to form very nitrogen-rich soil. Before learning this method from Sandy Cruz, a permaculture teacher in the Boulder area, in past years we would purchase and haul in bags of potting soil and compost from the local nursery or Home Depot to expand our garden. No more of that! This sheet mulching method is far superior and far cheaper, as a bale of straw is maybe a few bucks and a pickup truck load of fresh manure is either free or, where we get it from, $5. There’s a little more labor involved with shoveling the stinky stuff into a wheelbarrow and out onto the soil lasagna, but it’s worth it. There’s no amount of MiracleGrow that can compete.

Compost - from the bottom of our bin and one year old and ready to use

Although we don’t have a perfect permaculture design in our backyard garden, we have incorporated some techniques to make gardening easier, because we’re allowing nature to do a lot of the work.

We diverted the rain from a nearby drain down into a pipe that we buried under the garden. The holes in the pipe allow for a slow, deep moistening of the soil when it rains. Before, the drain would just gush out into the middle of our lawn and form a pond – a total waste of good rainwater. No more.

We mulch our garden with any weeds that may have reared their resilient heads (as long as they haven’t yet gone to seed, and NO bindweed as mulch – that stuff will germinate from its roots). The weeds decompose and return the nutrients back to the soil, and they act as a moisture barrier for the soil around plants they’re covering.

Planting onions under apple trees deters pests

We planted things to have multiple purposes. The green beans and peas are nitrogen fixers and “feed” the squash and cucumbers, and in turn the squash and cukes shade and cool the ground and prevent weeds from growing. We planted onions underneath the apple tree to repel those moths that bore holes in apples, and it seems to be working for the most part, at least for now. The apples are still the size of apricots, but are looking rosy and healthy. We planted clover, another nitrogen fixer, under the plum tree and around the pumpkin and squash plants, because clover will feed the soil.

We also have raspberries in the low spot behind the vegetables, where they can partake of a wetter environment since that’s where all the water goes when it rains. We haven’t had many berries this year because the birds get to them before we do. That’s ok. The birds deposit their own fertilizer on the soil around other plants we enjoy, too.

Instead of planting the same crop in neat clusters or rows, we planted kind of hodge-podge, so that pests can’t congregate in one area and destroy an entire crop. This has helped us avoid such pests as flea beetles, horn worms and other nasty things. Having flowers around our vegetables also attracts pollinators and letting birds partake of berries and worms no doubt helps with pest control, too. (Although worms aren’t pests. But caterpillar larvae and slugs are.)

The climate around the Front Range has been bad for the cool weather crops this year. It was cooler and wetter than normal for a while in April and May, and then, bam! It got hot pretty quickly. The cool weather plants had a slower start due to the cooler spring, then just petered out when temperatures hit 90 degrees. Therefore, we got only a handful of peas from at least the dozen plants we sowed, and the broccoli heads were pathetically small. We also learned that beets don’t like fresh manure, so our beet crop was generally non-existent due to some of the manure mulch still not being decomposed enough in April. We enjoyed a lot of lettuce, making salads not just for ourselves but for several big family get-togethers in June.

The tomatoes were the funniest story this year. As we always do, we started about three dozen plants from seed in late February. I don’t know what happened, but the good psychic energy we gave the plants paid off and in April the plants were green, bushy and 2-3 feet tall and ready to go in  the ground! It was way too early, though, as temperatures need to be at least 50 degrees overnight and that just wasn’t happening (and wouldn’t be, until late May). But we needed to do something. We started hardening off the tomatoes by placing the pots outside for several hours a day of sunlight. That made them grow taller and leggier. They were getting fragile and spindly, and hard to protect when transporting them around.

Our solution was to plant them in the garden and make a miniature hoophouse around each plant. We encircled the plants with wired garden fencing, wide enough to accommodate the growth, and about 3 feet tall, then wrapped each cylinder with clear garden plastic, covering the whole thing with remay cloth each night. The temperature in the mini hoophouse stayed a few degrees warmer and thus protected the sensitive tomatoes from getting chilled.

So far so good… But one day in May a warm front moved in and wind began to whip through the neighborhood. I looked out the window to see tomato cages strewn about the yard and a couple of the plants snapped in half – at the base of the stem! Argh! I had to quickly rush out to remove all the cages that day until the wind died down, then replace the cages again that night. What a pain in the ass.

Those tomatoes are damn prima donnas, with all that early seed tending, the weeks of marching the pots in and out, in and out of the house. We even did some frantic covering with chairs and tarps in the middle of a lightning and hail storm in early June in a desperate attempt to protect them. All I can say is, they better produce a fine crop this summer. And in fairness I have to admit that so far, they’re coming through.

Late July harvest of peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers

We planted a Bulgarian variety of heirloom tomatoes called “vorlon” which has proven to like Colorado weather. The leaves are dark and robust, the fruit is large and one of the first to ripen. The flavor is a bit less acidic than the average variety of tomatoes. It’s like the Hercules of tomatoes in our garden. And yes, a bit less prima donna.

I have to say that so far I’m happiest with the cucumber crop. We planted at least 15 plants and have been picking flavorful cukes, one each day, for a couple of weeks now. We also have a lot of peppers, but with them being neither sweet nor spicy, I’m not quite sure what to do with them.

I’m looking forward to tasting our Italian plums and apples later this summer and partaking of some of the unusual varieties of squash we planted – Pennsylvania Dutch and Honeyboat.

kale and collards everywhere!

We’ve had one serving of green beans so far and about 40 pounds of collard greens. The collards are amazing. They just keep growing and growing, and it doesn’t matter the weather or soil quality. I’m a little burned out on collards, as well as chard, and kale. Not only are we getting it from our garden, but we’re bringing it home from the half-share CSA we have, too. I’m feeling rather bovine-like with all these greens every meal of the day. We’ll have to blanch that stuff and freeze it for fall and winter, to put in soups and stews. I think I’m done for a while.

There’s nothing like the feeling of getting food from your backyard, though, or biting into a tomato or cucumber you just picked a minute ago. It’s a worthwhile venture, and it never really feels like work. I enjoy going out there in late afternoon or early morning, listening to the birds, watching the bees, and zoning out while I water everything. But we come nowhere close to producing all of our own food, just enough to not have to buy vegetables for a few months from the store. I’m sure that if we had to survive off what we grew, the effort would be exponentially larger. Our anxiety would be, as well. I once asked Dave, what if our survival depended on the success of our garden? He admitted that we would be protecting that garden like crazy, never leaving the house if there was even a small chance of a hail-producing thunderstorm.

For now, thankfully, this is just a pleasurable and educational hobby.

Purple pole bean blossoms

Location: West of Boulder, between Nederland and Estes Park, near Ward

Directions: From Boulder there are two ways of getting to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area:

1. From central Boulder take Canyon Blvd. west to Nederland, turn right (north) on Highway 72 (the Peak-to-Peak Highway) and go 11.5 miles. Turn left at the brown sign indicating the Brainard Lake Recreation Area. Once you enter the park, follow the signs to Brainard Lake, and then the Long Lake trailhead parking lot.

2. From north Boulder and I-36, take Left Hand Canyon Drive west through the small town of Ward. At the T-intersection at Highway 72, turn right (north) and make your first immediate left where you see a brown sign for Brainard Lake Recreation Area. Once you enter the park, follow the signs to Brainard Lake, and then the Long Lake trailhead parking lot.

Duration: 2-1/2 to 5 hours, depending on if you go just to Isabel Lake or all the way to the top of Pawnee Pass (elevation 12,943 ft.) and back.

Access Notes: If you’re planning this hike in summer and going as far as Pawnee Pass, which is above treeline and very exposed, it’s wise to get as early of a start as possible—before 8 a.m. This way, you’re more likely to be off the mountain when afternoon summer thunderstorms and lightning occur. The Brainard Lake Recreation Area and the Long Lake and Mitchell Creek trails are one of the most popular alpine hikes near Boulder, particularly in summer and on weekends. The parking lots fill up quickly, so arrive before 8 a.m. or even earlier if you can manage it. If one of the lots is full, try the other and walk to the trailhead. That will only add 15 minutes to your hike. There are limited spaces to park along the road.

Brainard is an hour’s drive from downtown Boulder.

The Forest Service may discourage hiking the Long Lake and Mitchell Creek trails as late as mid June due to snow drifts, slush or muddy conditions on the trail by closing the parking lots to the trailheads. Check before you go by calling ahead.

There are pit toilets in the parking lot and the road all the way to the trailhead is paved. Dogs are allowed on leash, and this is strictly enforced. As of 2010, there is a $9 entrance fee per passenger car that is good for five days.

The hike:

This hike is one of the most scenic alpine hikes near Boulder, and if you’re a fan of it, you can’t wait for the snow to melt and the mud to dry in early summer so you can go all the way to Isabel Lake or even the top of Pawnee Pass. Lush green forests of pine and fir are framed by the snow-covered Indian Peaks above: Pawnee Peak to the north, Shoshoni in the middle, Navajo and Arikaree Peak to its south, and the smoother-topped and grassy Mount Albion flanking the trail to the south. At the base of the mountains is Isabel Lake and Isabel Glacier, which fills in summer and cascades down in the form of small waterfalls and brooks lined with green grasses and wildflowers.

The Isabel Glacier trail, which is accessed at the Long Lake trailhead, ends at the glacier 2 miles from the parking lot and intersects with the Pawnee Pass trail at that point. The first 1-1/2 miles up the trail are easy, with little elevation gain and a sandy trail with the occasional tree roots to watch for. The trail passes through thick pine and fir forest whose floor is lush and green in mid-summer. Long Lake will be to the south next to the trail, then later a few small meadows afford a nice view of the Indian Peaks on your way up.

At the second wooden sign for the Isabel Glacier the trail begins to gain elevation and the path becomes rocky. You’ll have to cross a waterfall on a small bridge and a few hundred feet further up, you’ll be skipping wet rocks to cross another waterfall (bring waterproof boots). Lake Isabel is over the crest past the falls—deep, dark and flowing. You may see snow banks in the crevices of the mountain peaks as late as mid-July, and you may even walk across the slushy remains of the “glacier” as you reach the lake.

Beyond and above the lake is a long, rocky climb up to Pawnee Pass that is moderate in difficulty due to the elevation gain and switchbacks. You’ll pass a rock fall where you may spot pikas or marmots. At the top, you’ll be near the Continental Divide and rewarded with a view of the lake below, Boulder to the east, and believe it or not, Lake Granby directly west and below the Pass. It’s hard to believe that Lake Granby is so close to Nederland and Boulder, since the only two ways of getting there from the Front Range by car is a long drive up I-70 and Berthold Pass, or over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. As the crow flies, however, it’s closer than you may realize.

The New Cosmology

As you reach Lake Isabel, ponder the following essay on the evolutionary role of humans.

Scientific discoveries in the last two centuries have allowed us new and amazing insight into who we are as human beings and our role on Earth. These discoveries have necessitated the telling of a new story of our origins and the purpose of our presence in the world. The old story of creation, based on religious doctrine that’s thousands of years old and adapted by Western culture, is that humans are the pinnacle of existence on Earth, that all the world’s creatures were created for our use, enjoyment and “dominion.” We are told that we are God’s favored creation and that our role is to create a loving and compassionate society to serve God, so that we may further honor and worship Him in the afterlife.

In this old story, originating mostly in monotheistic religions, humans are favored creatures apart and separate from the rest of nature. We are tasked with either caring for our more-than-human friends (in the form of “management”) or we’re given authority to use natural resources for our livelihood and prosperity in order to “go forth, be fruitful and multiply.” This paradigm has resulted in placing human endeavors as a priority over the wellbeing and health of forests, animals and oceans. It elevates the economy as the ends to justify the means, with ecology in service to the human economy.

The consequences of such a paradigm have been disastrous. Species loss on the scale of 20,000 per year, world-wide soil degradation, fresh water shortages and climate change are just a few examples of evidence that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the picture.

The question then arises, why did human beings evolve in the first place? If our presence on Earth is so destructive, where have we gone wrong? What is really our true story and purpose? Perhaps the answers lie in the new story of creation, a story that places humans at the razor’s edge of evolution and reveals a greater directive—only if we have the courage and determination to face the truth squarely and accept responsibility.

Brian Swimme, mathematical cosmologist and author, tells a new story of creation based on the last century’s scientific discoveries. (See www.brianswimme.org)

The new story starts with a flash, an explosion. It starts with the birth of the known Universe during known time—13.6 billion years ago. That’s how long ago astronomers and physicists calculate the Big Bang took place. Shortly after that moment, all that existed in space was light and energy, which eventually coalesced into matter. This matter created stars, which in turn created their own source of light and energy.

Stars have a life cycle, just like anything else. Throughout their life cycle, stars actually create elements such as hydrogen, phosphorus and oxygen. In the later stages of their life cycles, stars create iron, and since iron can’t be burned up, the star no longer can hold back its gravity. It collapses in on itself. In a split second, it goes from being a massive cauldron of energy to a tiny spec, and then explodes outward. This is called a supernova. It is the death of a star, and it is at this exact moment that the star creates its last element—carbon.

For life to even exist on Earth, carbon had to be present. Therefore, a star had to die in order for life to evolve. All of life on earth contains carbon. Without carbon, not even bacteria would exist.  You can think of living forms on Earth as the further evolution of a star. The elements in our bodies, including oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, originated in space billions of years ago when stars formed, transformed and died. Stars created the building blocks to life itself.

The Earth reflects the evolutionary process of the Universe, a process of which we are a part. Humans are not elevated above all species as we were told in the old story of creation. We are simply at the tip of evolution’s arrow, the tip of the arrow of time, an arrow that has traveled the path of ever-increasing complexity and interconnectedness from its origins 13.6 billion years ago.

Here’s something else to think about: Life existed for 3.5 billion years before creatures evolved eyesight. The ability to see isn’t necessary for life. So why did life evolve eyes? Furthermore, why did it evolve a brain, or a consciousness?

This is the mystery that is endlessly fascinating and unanswerable. It is examined within the context of Brian Swimme’s writings and also in anthropologist Loren Eisley’s book, The Immense Journey. If life doesn’t need eyes or a brain to survive and thrive (bacteria and single-celled organisms don’t, for example), why is it that life developed refinements with respect to the senses? Some animals have hearing and eyesight ten or a hundred times more acute than ours. We have the largest mental capacity of all mammals. Other life forms may have evolved communication that is beyond our capacity to perceive or understand.

One might say that the imperative of life is to simply survive and reproduce, but if that were really the case, then wouldn’t evolution just stop at single-celled organisms or bacteria? They are very efficient at reproduction.

Perhaps life itself wanted to deepen its understanding and awareness of itself and its origins. It wanted to see more, hear more and sense more. Ultimately, in the form of humans on Earth, life is now able to contemplate itself, look light years beyond the boundaries of our solar system, ponder the past and future, touch and examine not just everything within our immediate grasp but also rocks and soil from the moon and nearby planets. We as humans have a capacity to care deeply for one another and for the Earth itself. We can have spiritual experiences and feel wonder and a communion with things beyond our immediate grasp.

One of the theories about why we developed and evolved as humans was that a genetic mutation in our evolutionary past slowed down our rate of development. We remain children much longer than any other mammal species. This makes us more dependent on our parents for guidance and education, but also prolongs the period during which we feel wonder and curiosity about the world. We aren’t born with instincts. We must learn everything we need to know about how to survive in the world from our parents and our society. We are who we are and we know what we know because of 200,000 years of human culture that has been passed down to each generation, through books, stories, art or tradition.

If stars evolved into humans in order to be self-aware, what is our purpose as human beings in the Universe? Right now we are living at a time of a great mass extinction, one that happens only once every 100 million years. In the past, these cataclysmic events took place because of external forces: asteroid impacts, super volcanoes, rapid climate change, advancing and receding glaciers. This time, however, humans are the primary driving force behind this latest extinction. We have displaced species, destroyed habitats and polluted our oceans, lakes and rivers. If the arrow of evolution has led to this moment, why is this happening? Is it because we are simply a transient species, soon to be extinct ourselves to make room for a more complex, even more perceptive beings?

There’s simply no reason to think that the “bucks stops here” (at humans) when it comes to evolution. Everything is constantly in flux. Millions of species of birds, insects, mammals and reptiles have come and gone since the dawn of creation. The only thing we can surmise from looking at the past is that things change constantly and evolution tended toward more complex, more aware life forms. Sometimes the experiments failed, and sometimes they persisted. Where evolution goes next is unknown.

Our challenge now is to identify our true role, thereby creating a new society of humans who live with the Earth community, not apart from it.

The Activity

Consider that you are the end result of the Universe attempting to know itself, to see itself, to perceive itself.

What do you think is human’s role in the Universe?

Do you think that because animals have evolved to be increasingly more complex and aware, evolution has a purpose? What do you think that purpose is?

Really think on the idea that YOU are the Universe, and that you are now seeing, feeling and hearing yourself for the first time. You are awakening to the end result of billions of years of change, upheaval, death, birth, and adaptation. You are perceiving creation, the force of life and change. How do you see the Earth and all its creatures and landscapes? What would you change in the future? What would you keep the same?

Knowing there are forces of destruction on Earth, whether man-made or natural, that are creating great changes in the ecology of the planet, how does it make you feel to know that you are living at such a time? Does it frighten you or empower you?

What do you think is your personal role in the evolution of the planet at this point in time? In other words, what do you think you’re supposed to do with your time on Earth?

Bella's red truck (not actual?) in front of the Forks Chamber of Commerce

At the end of the 56-mile drive from Port Angeles to Forks, Washington, we came upon a large, wooden roadside sign:

“The City of Forks Welcomes You”

My sister pulled the rental car over and both she and my 12-year old daughter RAN out to take photos of themselves next to the sign. It was the culmination of months of anticipation for both of them. Forks, Washington! The setting for “Twilight”. My daughter proudly posed as my sister snapped a photo. Then they switched. Just then, a pickup truck drove by and a couple of teenaged girls stuck their head out the window and screamed, “Twilight whores!”

Yes, the city of Forks certainly did welcome us in so many ways.

My daughter is on Team Jacob. You go girl!

My daughter is a big fan of the Twilight series. She’s read all the books and owns the DVDs of the first two movies. She has black and white laser printouts of Jacob scotch-taped above her dresser and even managed to stuff her Jacob/Edward throw pillow in her small suitcase for the trip. Make no mistake — she’s not obsessed or anything. She has a healthy perspective about things. “Bella” is a drama queen and sometimes the dialogue in the movie is “waaaay cheesy.” The hunky wolf guys are cute, and Edward is super dreamy, but she rolls her eyes at the part where Bella throws herself at the mercy of the Volturi, begging them to “take her” instead of her beloved Edward.

“Give me a break,” she says. “Like any guy is worth dying over.”

May I remind you she’s 12?! I can only guess that her hormones haven’t yet kicked in, so she still has some common sense about her. This is probably why we women start rolling our eyes at men when we hit pre-menopause, too. It’s just not worth it, we think, and roll our eyes much the same way, our emotions less influenced by hormones than they were ten or twenty years ago.

The stacks at La Push

Knowing how much she liked the series, my sister offered to take my daughter to Forks, Washington to see the town where parts of the movie were filmed and where the story is set. I came along because, I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a Twilight whore myself. But mostly I’ve always wanted to see the Olympic Peninsula. I’ve been to Seattle and the Skaggit Valley a couple of times, but not to the O.P. I’ve wondered about it. The few times I’ve seen the snow-capped Olympic mountains from across the Puget Sound, they were shrouded in clouds and fog and mystery. I fantasized about what it must be like to hike the lush fir forest, dripping in moss and vegetation. I longed to explore the landscape and see the ocean from the most northwestern tip of the Continental United States.

Hiking the Hoh Rain Forest

Our trip took place in late June, and the weather was probably typical of early summer in the Olympics: temperatures in the low to mid-60s, heavy cloud cover most of the day, clearing in the afternoon, some drizzle and rain. A proprietor of a lavender farm we visited told us that in Port Angeles, where we were renting a vacation home, we were in the “rain shadow” of the Olympics and therefore didn’t get as much precipitation as the western side of the peninsula. She added that in Forks it rains every day. Every day. Fifteen FEET of precipitation a year. Yuck. I get depressed just thinking about it. No wonder Edward Cullen was such a sullen, pasty dude and Bella was cranky all the time.

Lupines, daisies and other wildflowers grew like weeds alongside roads and in meadows and clearings. Everywhere else were trees, trees, trees. Deciduous trees, fir trees, spruce trees. Some trees, like the ones in the Park, were grand beings at least 100 feet tall with trunks as big around as one of those 1970s above-ground swimming pools. Some, planted 20 years ago by logging companies, were smaller, only about 30 feet tall and still a young, fresh green. Those weren’t as grand and won’t be for at least another 100 years or more. Too bad. The area around Forks has really been scrapped and raped in service to our mail order catalogs, tract homes and phone books. My husband says that we’re experiencing “peak wood” at Home Depot and quality isn’t what it used to be ten years ago. It takes a long time for trees to grow to the girth and length of old growth, and we simply are too impatient to wait. As much as I hate sitting in front of the computer all the time, there are certain benefits to going completely “paperless” in the way we do business and entertain ourselves.

Lupines grow everywhere in Port Angeles, WA

Moss clings to trees in the Hoh

Forks has really cashed in on the Twilight mania. The Chamber of Commerce there has put up a Bella and Edward poster on the front door in case you’re worried about embarrassing yourself with stupid questions about the movie. Inside are life-sized cardboard cutouts of the characters one can stand next to and pretend. There are Hollywood-style maps the chamber employees dole out, indicating where certain landmarks are located: The Cullen House, the high school, the hospital. Granted, these are NOT the actual buildings that are featured in the movie, just pretend landmarks that one could take photos of and say, “Hey, I stood on the steps of the Forks high school!” Really?

We opted not to take the map and see the fake landmarks.

Instead, we walked the main drag (two blocks by two blocks) and shopped for Twilight souvenirs at one of a few stores set up especially for the occasion. Before the movie came out, Forks was just a sleepy (and rainy) logging town with a population of just over 3,000. It’s slightly less sleepy now because droves of teenaged girls and their families walk and drive up and down the streets, frequent the local eateries (like we did), and maybe even stay a day or two at one of the nearby hotels or B&Bs. Maybe some of the girls secretly hope to catch a glimpse of Jacob and Edward, the way I used to ache to see Santa Claus on Christmas or naively hope to run into Mark Hamill on the streets of Hollywood when I was twelve and vacationing in Los Angeles with my parents. The lady at the Chamber of Commerce told us that not everyone is happy with the sudden popularity of the town, but I’m sure in a few years after all the movies have come and gone from the big screen, Forks will get its town back and everything will get back to normal…whatever that is.

This is the first poisonous mushroom I've seen in person!

After the excitement of celebrity—cardboard and imagined—we drove twenty minutes outside town to a trailhead along the Bogachiel River and hiked for a couple of hours in the magnificent pacific northwest rainforest. It’s like stepping into a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, with witches (ok, vampires), red-capped mushrooms, strange insects like banana slugs the size of sausages and the color of coal, berries that look edible but could be poisonous. Eating from a place like this seems insane. Everything in this forest looked fatally seductive. The only thing missing was Victoria running at lightspeed through the woods, chased by a pack of grizzly bear-sized wolves, to the soundtrack of Radiohead.

The lake formed by the Elwah River dam (soon to be drained)

One of my favorite stories from the trip was something I learned when visiting the Elwah River Park. I learned that due to a resolution passed in the 1990s requiring the restoration of certain watersheds, the Elwah dam will be demolished at the end of the year, allowing for the reparation of a watershed that hasn’t had salmon in 100 years due to the dam being built without proper fish channels. The US Dept of Fish and Wildlife will then bring in salmon fry and “seed” the river with salmon, so that once again, hopefully, the ecology of the river will contain the native fish that so many generations of indigenous people and native animals relied on for food. When I read about this and saw the river, I cried. I mean, this, to me, is progress. This is people waking up. This is people acknowledging that ecology cannot always be in service to the economy. That sometimes we need to fix that which we have broken, restore that which we have pillaged for our own benefit. Animals, plants and most of all, indigenous people, have a right to the pursuit of happiness as much as everyone else.

Port Angeles on a sunny, clear afternoon. Yes, it happens.

I would like to have had something to say about Port Angeles, but we spent most of our time outside—hiking, looking at waterfalls, smelling lavender, picking strawberries, roasting marshmellows over a campfire, fishing— and we didn’t have much time to see the town. I’m sure it’s quaint and friendly, at least that’s the impression I got from driving through.

Our whirlwind trip had a little for everyone: pop movie culture for my daughter, nature and hiking for me, and some of both for my sister. I want to go back someday and stay longer, explore more, immerse myself in the environment there. No matter how long I stay next time, I’ll just have to keep movin, because if I sit too still for too long in the Olympic Peninsula, I’m bound to grow moss.

Lost Mountain Lavender Farm

Pawnee Buttes

(Note: This is a great hike and activity to do with kids aged 9 and up.)

Location: Northeast Colorado, approximately 55 miles north of Ft. Morgan

Directions: From Denver: Take I-76 to Ft. Morgan. From Ft. Morgan, exit on Main Street and CO 52 (exit number 75). Turn left (north) on CO 52. Go 25 miles to CO 14 and turn left (east) to road 390. Turn right (north) on 390. Weld County Road 105 is the first right angling off Road 390 just past Keota. Stay on it until it dead ends into County Road 112. Turn right, and when you cross a cattle guard, you’ll see the first sign directing you to the Pawnee Buttes. The signs for the Pawnee Buttes are small and brown and could be easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. Follow the signs to the trailhead. It’s 18 miles trip from CO 14 to the Buttes, all on gravel roads.

To reach the Pawnee Buttes from Ft. Collins, Loveland or Boulder, consult a map to see the best route to CO 14 and go from there. You may need to take US 34 east to I-76 or CO 14 east.

Duration: 1-1/2 hours

Access Notes: The gravel roads to the Buttes are completely passable by passenger car. This hike is best done in late spring, around May 25- June 10th when it’s not too hot and prairie wildflowers are in bloom. This is a completely exposed hike with no real shade. Be mindful of forecasted thunderstorms, as this area is prone to hail and tornadoes in spring and summer. It’s best to go as early as possible in the morning to avoid the worst weather. There are no facilities at the Buttes, and the nearest food and gas is at least 20 miles away, so pack food and water for your hike. Dogs are allowed on leash.

The Hike
Although two of the trails are closed March 1- June 30 to protect nesting birds, the main Buttes Trail is open from the parking lot. This is an easy 1-1/2 mile hike each way with barely any elevation gain or loss, however, the first quarter mile descends down into a shallow canyon where water has eroded sandstone walls. Junipers, yucca and a variety of prairie grasses and wildflowers grow along the sandy trail. You’re very likely to see and hear several varieties of larks and grasshoppers from your car on the way to the Buttes and along the trail. You may also encounter pronghorns (a type of antelope), lizards, and snakes.

The grass prairies were referred to by early settlers as a “sea of grass”. If you come in spring or summer, you may feel as if you’re indeed afloat on an endless green sea as the wind creates undulating waves in the grass and there are no obvious signs of civilization for miles from certain vantage points. It’s just you, the green waves, and the vast sky above. If you come on a weekday morning, you may be the only person around for miles. This is a different kind of wilderness than the kind in the mountains and foothills of Denver and Boulder.

To the west and not far away, you will see a wind turbine farm with its graceful and towering white blades rising over the hills and rotating soundlessly. The juxtaposition of the prairie and the wind turbines is the intersection of the timeless and the modern, the past and future together.

Unlike the claustrophobic feel of a thickly-forested mountain trail, where you imagine predators such as cougars and bears silently watching, here you experience the opposite: an aloneness and quiet that is broken only by the tootee-tooteleedee of a meadowlark and the long swishhhhh of the wind combing the grass.

The Buttes rise up mysteriously out of these soft swells of grass. They’re steep, chalky and rough. The rock is brittle like pressed sand, so you have to be careful where you step as you approach the formations. You imagine these buttes having been tall dunes at some point in the past, or something softer that has since weathered and hardened, and then eroded into a steeper formation from wind and rain.

The beauty of this place is in its unbroken, green landscape and sense of expansiveness. The sky here is as wide as the ground, and invites you to imagine a time when there were no houses, no power lines, no cows and no cars—only grass, bison and small clusters of tee-pees where Plains Indians went about their lives. You almost expect to look up at the horizon and see a group of Pawnees sitting on horses, dressed for the hunt, feathers and ribbons of leather rippling in the breeze. You wonder what it must have been like to feel the deep rumble of a herd of a hundred thousand bison migrating across the hills instead of the distant rumble of an airplane. The solitude and silence was once unbroken for hundreds of square miles. When you visit the Pawnee National Grasslands or the Buttes, It’s easy to contemplate a different kind of life and a different relationship with the land here, both now and so many years ago.

The Value and Sacredness of Land
Before white settlers populated the west, there were at least 700 million acres of prairie in the western United States. Large grazing animals such as bison, elk and antelope roamed the grasslands. Native grasses such as switchgrass, buffalo grass and blue gamma grass grew thick and lush because they were species that evolved to need very little water in areas that get as little as 15 inches of precipitation per year.

Currently, untouched prairie represents a tiny fraction of what once was a “sea of grass” that extended from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. In the last 200 years, the prairie has been turned into ranchland, agriculture, and urban areas covered by roads and strip malls. This conversion from land that once was legally owned by no one, not even the Native American tribes that populated the riverbanks and hunted in its expanses, to land that was plowed, covered and sold for profit originated with the way the law was constructed by America’s Founding Fathers. The last phrase contained in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states that, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This paradigm that land could be bought and sold and owned privately was a construct that shaped the landscape of America.

Native Americans saw the land in terms of ecosystems and areas where bison would migrate, where rivers would flow, where grasses and timber could be gathered to make shelter and where they could count on sustaining their livelihood year after year. The animals that lived there were seen as spirit guides. If a young man saw a certain animal during a vision quest, that animal would become his source of wisdom and inspiration his entire life. Bison were viewed as sacred because their flesh enabled entire villages to thrive, clothe themselves and survive long, harsh winters.

While Native Americans saw the land as sacred—a place that could sustain generations of families with everything they needed to live and thrive, both physically and spiritually—white settlers and homesteaders saw the land as an economic opportunity.

When pioneers and homesteaders arrived in the West, they dreamed of converting the land they acquired into a personal fortune. The government and industry laid down a map of the West and divided the prairie into even squares, measuring one mile by one mile, or 640 acres. Each square was then subdivided into smaller squares and sold or given away. No consideration was given to the migration of animals or the viability of certain areas for farming or grazing. The question of whether there was enough rain each year to grow anything other than native grasses was dismissed, and acre after acre was plowed, wells and irrigation canals excavated, and non-native livestock brought in to graze. The value of the land was measured in how much profit it could generate and what could be extracted from it. It certainly didn’t hold the same value to pioneers and American industry that it held to Natives.

Native Americans saw this mathematical dissection of land as white people’s insanity. They didn’t understand how a person or a community could survive by limiting themselves to just a few acres, without the ability to track game or move to different regions in summer and winter. They didn’t understand how a person could claim to own a piece of land, to the exclusion of everyone else. While it’s true that they themselves fought over the best hunting and farming grounds, there were no such things as “For Sale” signs, realtors or title companies in Native American culture. The land belonged to all people, and the people belonged to the land.

This view of land as having economic, versus intrinsic or ecological value, is a notion that is ingrained in our Western culture. It is ingrained in our thinking whether we agree with it or not. We view colorful, lush lands with scenic vistas as having more value than arid lands with less-than-enchanting landscapes. We view cities with complex architecture as having more value than an empty lot covered in weeds. In fact, the mere notion that driving out to the Pawnee National Grasslands and thinking, “There’s nothing out here” is a symptom of our Western paradigm. What is the “something” that would make this area more valuable in our mind? Bustling industry? Large homes on manicured lawns? Stores and streets? Pump jacks?

A Native American of 300 years ago would look at this prairie and say that everything is here. Everything that he needs to survive and live happily is contained in this sea of grass. The value of land is not some arbitrary number a developer or government places on it, but its value to the animals, to the tribe, to the nation. It is the value of beauty and abundance and ecological balance. It is the value of all life that is sustained there. It is priceless.

The Activity
The first thing to do as you begin your hike is to ask yourself what kinds of thoughts were running through your head as you drove out to this area of Colorado. Did you find yourself placing value on the land in the sense of the Western paradigm or the indigenous paradigm? Or a little of both?

Consider the adjectives you would use to describe the area around the Pawnee Buttes. (Is it lush, vast, empty, quiet, economically depressed, abandoned, thriving?)

As you begin hiking down the canyon and toward the Buttes, imagine a time several hundred years ago when this wasn’t an established trail or land owned by the U.S. government. Imagine spending several days or weeks here by yourself, living in a leather tent with a generous ration of food and water. What relationship would you have to the land in that situation—meaning, how would you feel about your time here and what would you do?

Now imagine living here for the same period of time without a ration of supplies. How would your relationship to the land change?

Considering these differences, why do you think it’s so easy for most Americans to buy and sell property or move from place to place?

Can you see why the way we place value on land may have something to do with how we treat land and the animals that live there?