Day 20- MOOSE!!!!!! And Fort Collins

October 4^th 2010 Day 20 Monday

We got back yesterday evening from Steamboat Lake and I was happy to get the time to relax by myself and write in my journal about all the crazy events of the weekend. Tyler went out with Joel for a little bit and I was going to watch the Giants football game if I could get it on a broadcast channel on our television but it didn’t work. That was alright because watching the Giants recently has just depressed me. I have faith that they can get better though!

We decided to spend Sunday night in Steamboat so we could head out early this morning. We had everything in the travel trailer pretty much together so it didn’t take long for us to be travel ready once we’d woken up. I was happy to get the chance to hike Hanz up the hill for his morning jaunt one last time. It really is so beautiful here.

Tyler and I decided it was highly necessary for us to return to Creekside one last time for a delicious breakfast before we left Steamboat. We sat in the same spot outside next to the wrought iron fence so that Hanz could lie down nearby and across from a stream that trickled softly in the background. I ordered what they described as a French toast breakfast sandwich: baguette French toast with two scrambled eggs, ham, and swiss cheese. Holy cow was that amazing! The Creekside Café (http://www.creekside-cafe.com/) in Steamboat Springs, CO is definitely in my top 5 best eateries of all time!

French toast with scrambled eggs, ham and swiss cheese from the Creekside Cafe!

Me and Tyler at the Creekside Cafe

They were hiring, which made me very excited, and for a second I was tempted to just stay in Steamboat and live for a while but that wasn’t a very practical idea and we still had a huge leg of our trip to do. Really, this is just the beginning. But I am definitely scouting as we go to see where I would consider living.

After a very filling breakfast (of course I had leftovers!) we packed everything up, hugged Rayne and Bear goodbye, thanked them for their generous hospitality and hit the road towards Fort Collins. We went over Rabbit Ears pass, which gave us a great view of Steamboat from above.

Once we passed through Walden we entered into Roosevelt National Forest, which added some much appreciated scenery to our drive. 

A Gorgeous View Into Roosevelt National Forest

Along Hwy 14 I waited in anticipation for the Moose Visitor’s Center and kept my eyes open for Moose, since there was supposed to be a lot of them in this area because they love water. We traveled for miles with my head craning out the window, determined to see moose. I had only seen one moose in my whole life and that was a couple weeks ago in Ennis! We were driving down a small, two lane highway, surrounded by conifers when I looked out my window and saw 4 moose! There was a bull moose with huge antlers and 3 cows (cows are female moose for all of you in NY! <3). OMG I was so excited! About 2 miles down the road we got to the Moose Visitor’s Center. We went inside and I excitedly told the woman at the front desk what I’d seen and I got to write it on the “Moose Sightings” board! The woman was also excited because she said that there haven’t been many sightings this year. I felt so lucky! Another woman who also worked for the Colorado Parks Dept came in a few minutes later and said she had also seen them, except she had also seen a baby that had been lying on the ground! I wish I had seen that but as it was I felt so blessed I couldn’t really complain.

There was an amazing statue of a moose outside of the Visitor's Center. A local family team of wire sculpture artists (Louis, Carl and Brian Gueswel) worked over 700 hours. They used steel tubing and barbed wire as well as a rust converter to give it a lifelike color and appearance. The statue is almost 7 feet tall and is modeled after the real size of a record moose from the area! It's quite impressive in person, the detail it amazing!

Barbed Wire Sculpture at the Moose Visitor's Center in Walden, CO

Moose are such cool animals. Their sheer size is enough to wow you but then if you know anything about them it just makes them that much more amazing. Bull moose antlers can actually grow to over 6 feet in length but despite their incredible size they are really good swimmers. They can even fully submerge while swimming, usually for 30 seconds or more. On land they can run up to 35 mph. That would be a sight to see! Although it would probably also be the last sight you’d see.

When we arrived in Fort Collins we realized there wasn’t anywhere ideal for us to park for the night. Tyler’s friend Aaron said there was a parking lot behind his house where we could park. It was a small parking lot behind a building that was being converted into a women’s shelter. Aaron’s backyard butted up against the lot so it wasn’t completely sketchy but we did get some weird looks from neighbors. I think if we’d stayed for more than one night someone would have complained but it wasn’t a big deal for just one night.

Fort Collins was an alright city. It's crazy how flat it is, since it's in Colorado I assumed it would be in a valley in the mountains but that wasn't the case. I didn't really get the chance to get a good feel for life in Fort Collins because we didn't stay for very long but it seemed very sprawled and not very appealing. There didn't seem to be a real city center that was walkable and where you could spend a lot of time. I must be missing something though because this year Money magazine voted it the #6 best place to live in the country. I guess one thing that is pretty cool about Fort Collins is that it has five microbreweries!  

Aaron had a midterm the next day so we hung out for a while but then he had to meet a study group for a while. Tyler and I decided to go see the new Oliver Stone film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. It was pretty much what I had expected, entertaining but far from brilliant.

When we got back Tyler went over to Aaron’s to chill some more since it had been so long since they had seen each other. I was pretty tired since we’d gotten into the habit of going to bed early so I decided to lie in bed and read. I made the mistake of starting The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second book in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy and was quickly sucked in. Before I knew it, it was almost 1am!

I was kind of uneasy about sleeping in the lot because I was a bit worried that at any moment the police would knock on the door and tell us to scram but that didn’t happen. The anticipation was probably more stressful than anything else but it was only for one night so it was okay. And just in case any creepers came around I had my handy Costa Rican machete by the bed!

Day 19- Duck Feathers & Bear Messes with Tyler and Joel

October 3^rd 2010 Day 19 Sunday

This morning I walked Hanz again along the shores of Steamboat Lake. This time we saw a deer grazing in the large riparian area. When I got back I went out on the speedboat with Tyler, Rayne and Bear. We cruised around the lake and saw a buck and a doe grazing on the banks across the way. They were so beautiful and quiet. 

Deer Grazing by Steamboat Lake

The only disconcerting thing was that we had heard gunshots yesterday from duck hunters and certain sections of the lake were strewn with feathers. Obviously somebody had hit their target. Some of the ducks had obviously landed fairly far from the shore and it's amazing to think that retriever dogs swim that whole length and back. Hanz can swim but I think it would be pushing it to send him several hundred feet from land. His head is so low in the water because he hasn't been bred to be an efficient swimmer so he ends up swallowing a lot of water. If you watch a lab or another dog bred to retrieve game they swim with their heads far above the water and their short coat makes them have less resistance while they swim. It is interesting to be in a situation where you can actually see a big difference due to selective breeding in dog species of similar size. 

Aside from feeling a bit bad for the ducks who met their end in the waters surrounding our canoe we had a good time. It was chilly on the lake, especially when the boat would speed up and the breeze would rip the heat away from our bodies. Tyler, Hanz and I lounged on the front of the boat and I was happy that Hanz looked to be enjoying himself. He would tip his snout up in the wind and sniff sniff sniff. He's a very curious dog.

It's Chilly!

For breakfast we went back to Hahns Peak Café because supposedly they have the best eggs benedict. It was indeed a very delicious breakfast. I would highly recommend it to anyone who visits that area!

Hahn's Peak Cafe has delicious food and is very close to Steamboat Lake

After breakfast we crossed the street to where the remnants of the town of Hahns Peak still stood. Unfortunately the jail that normally can be toured as a museum was closed for the season. I suppose that because the summer weather ends fairly early around here, and it's not uncommon to have snow in early October, they weren't anticipating many crowds at this time of year. Oh well, I'll just put it on the list of places to which we have to return.

Hahns Peak

We got our trailer all ready and then went back out on the boat, this time it was me, Tyler, Joel, and Bear.

Joel and Tyler decided, even on this overcast day, to go tubing off the back of the speedboat. Tubing in my mind is getting in an inner tube, hopping into the river, drinking a beer and relaxing but lake tubing is obviously something quite different. 

Joel and Tyler getting ready for extreme tubing!

Tyler and Joel both got onto tubes but since Bear wanted to mess with them as soon as they got far away enough from the boat he ramped up the speed until we were whipping across the water, both Tyler and Joel holding on for dear life. Bear would wait until it looked like they were starting to get a handle on things and then make an abrupt turn, throwing them over the wake and cackling at their struggles. At the same time Joel and Tyler were trying to knock each other off of the tubes. It was a crazy enough ride being on the boat so I couldn’t imagine what it was like for them out on the water! Hanz and I were sitting in the boat holding on for dear life. Or rather Hanz was staring at Tyler and I was holding on to him so he didn’t go flying out of the boat! Normally Hanz would have been terrified but he had never seen Tyler do something like this before so he was too busy staring at him the whole time to make sure he was okay to really be scared. It was only after Tyler got pulled back in and onto the boat and Hanz knew that he was okay that he started to show that he was a bit nervous. He’s such a good dog, our little adventurer.

Bear looks very happy to be throwing Tyler and Joel across the boat's wake!

Hanz making sure Tyler is alright. Notice the look of intense concentration!

When we got back to the campground we packed everything up and headed back to Steamboat for one last night. 

Day 18- We Hike Hahns Peak & The Speedboat Runs Away!

October 2^nd 2010 Day 18 Saturday

We woke up bright and early this morning with the sun streaming in through our window. I looked outside at the lake and in the quiet of the early morning the fog rolling across the top of the lake looked eerie and almost unreal. If you walk down to the lakeside about 30 yards below our campsite there is a really nice trail that winds around the lake and into the riparian area and woods. Hanz loved walking down there because there weren’t any other people so he didn’t feel like he had to be on guard to protect me and there were tons of new and interesting smell trails for him to follow.

After cooking up some breakfast with Bear and Rayne we headed out to hike to the top of Hahns Peak in the Elkhead Mountain Range. I discovered later that Hahns Peak would be the highest peak in the region, topping out at 10,839, but for one other peak nearby that is 8 feet higher! Ugh. But I argue that we really did hike the highest peak because at the top of the mountain there is a fire tower and we went up into it and it was definitely greater than 8 feet above the peak… so there! It is ironic but this mountain range is generally considered to be low elevation because there are so many 14,000+ mountains in Colorado.

Soon after starting the gradual but constant ascent I was miffed at how out of breath I was getting. My chest felt tight and each breath seemed like more effort than normal. Tyler was kind enough to remind me that at such a high elevation this was normal until your body has adjusted to the altitude. Above 8,000 feet is commonly when people start to experience the side effects of altitude sickness.

The view from our campground of the lovely Hahns Peak

The trail was absolutely gorgeous and again, the fall colors here are amazingly brilliant. There were several points from which the views were just incredible. We would keep thinking we’d seen an awesome view and then we’d climb higher and the next time we had a view of the lake and valley below we’d say, No, that is awesome, and so on and so forth until we got to the top. The last quarter mile or so switchbacks up a real rock scramble. I started to freak myself out by wondering how deep the rocks were piled on top of the mountain and imaging them crumbling from underneath my feet. Luckily I soon saw that you could actually see the ground beneath the layers of rock so it couldn’t be too deep. Plus, they wouldn’t have been able to build a lookout tower and have it last for so long at the top if the mountain was so unstable. Hanz was being really cute because he was so focused on where he was stepping. The top scramble definitely made him a bit nervous but he is a great adventurer: when we got to the summit he even climbed up the fire tower with us! He is so loyal. You really couldn’t ask for a better dog. One of my favorite things about summiting Hahns Peak was that in the distance you could see Steamboat Lake including our campground and even the tiny dot that constituted our travel trailer.

Beware of Lightning!

On the trail

That tiny dot is our travel trailer!

We headed back down and enjoyed the crisp weather. I love putting effort into hiking and sweating and feeling every bit of the hike because then when you go back down, especially if there’s some breeze, it’s so refreshing and just plain fun because the hard part is over. Now you just have to try not to kill your knees going downhill! When we got back to the campground by the Lake I was ready to hang out by myself for a bit since we’d been very active and social for the past week. Joel had gotten off from work so he and Tyler took off to have some guy time and I cleaned up a bit in the trailer.

Rayne had a couple friends join them for lunch and she invited me to come over to their campsite. I made some grilled cheeses on delicious sourdough bread and then sat down with them at the picnic table. After lunch they were going to take the boat out on the lake but there were four of them and a huge dog so that coupled with the fact that I really wanted nothing more than to curl up with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and finish it made me more inclined to stay behind. I went into the trailer and had just sat down when I heard Rayne remark, Where’s the boat?! Bear had taken the boat out for some early morning fishing and obviously didn’t secure it in the best way because sure enough if you looked across the lake there was the motor boat drifting across the lake and almost at the opposite shore. A minute later I saw Bear in our canoe making his way towards the boat. Crisis averted! 

Day 17- Steamboat Lake and Jarvie Ranch History

October 1^st 2010 Day 17 Friday

Tyler and I had decided to stay for the weekend so we could go up to Steamboat Lake and camp out with Bear, Rayne and Joel. Tyler brought our camper up there early in the day to secure a couple of choice camp grounds and Bear followed up with his RV, speedboat in tow.

I stayed in Steamboat with Rayne, helping her to pack up the RV before Bear took it to the lake. We went to a great river-side restaurant for some appetizers and cocktails before meeting the guys. The person who owns this restaurant in Steamboat is a woman who went to a gas station to buy some birthday candles for her husband’s cake and decided, for the first time in her life I might add, to buy a lottery ticket. She ended up winning some absurd amount, I think it was around $20 million and so she bought this restaurant! Some people are just super lucky I guess.

I really like talking to Rayne, especially because we are both really interested in history and western culture. She knows so much about this part of the country and has tons of fascinating books that I’ve been combing through. One of them, a BLM Utah book about Brown’s Park and the old Jarvie ranch historic site, I would love to buy but it seems you can’t get it anywhere but at that physical site! The ranch is very close to the Colorado border in Utah, not too far from where we were at Steamboat Lake but unfortunately not in the direction we were generally headed. Although we are trying to be super flexible so we can stop in all the interesting places we come across we have some limitations since we get terrible gas mileage with the travel trailer. I wish I had known how cool that site was before we came to Steamboat Springs because we could have worked it then but oh well. I’m sure we’ll be in this area again fairly soon so I’ll have the opportunity at some point to check it out.  

The BLM book I mentioned is basically a compilation of many great stories from when John Jarvie was alive. Common characters in the stories are Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and many other wonderfully notorious individuals from back in the day. In such a lawless time and place everyone was pretty sketchy and questionably ethical but outlaws, Native Americans and laypeople in this particular area tended to live harmoniously. It wasn’t until the Sand Creek Massacre that relations between settlers and the victimized and understandably suspicious Native Americans started to deteriorate (For more info on that see the entry for Day 9).

There were several stories that almost had me in tears I was laughing so hard. One described Butch Cassidy, at the first formal dinner the town had put together, as being incredibly nervous having to formally serve the tea even though he was completely composed in such simple acts as robbing a train or bank. He had to be taken into the back of the dining area and taught how to pour the tea correctly but even still he was a nervous wreck. I loved reading real stories about the everyday lives of people like him who are so often shrouded in a cloud of mystery and legend. Reading about their personal quirks really humanizes them.

Rayne and I drove up to the lake in the late afternoon. I went out on the speedboat with Tyler, Joel and Joel’s friend for a quick spin around the lake once we got there. When contemplating the weekend we weren’t sure if we wanted to go up to Steamboat Lake because Tyler grew up camping here when it had not yet been decimated by the Japanese pine beetles and we were afraid it would be too depressing if it looked terribly unhealthy. Although the beetles have done a number on the pine trees out here it’s a slight consolation to see the trees growing back and we were glad to have come out. I guess the beetles aren’t fans of the young trees, which is great because it gives them some time to make a comeback.

Hanz contemplating Steamboat Lake from his bed

Tyler with the beetle-ravaged pine trees in the background

We all went out to dinner in the town of Hahns Peak at the Hahns Peak Café which wasn’t kidding with its old wooden sign stating “If you’re in a hurry you’re in the wrong place.” Hahns Peak is technically now a ghost town and it has a very small population of people that all know each other. In the time of Butch Cassidy and the wild, wild West it actually held the county seat and a large jail for housing prisoners. We spent several hours there because of course Rayne and Bear knew every single person there and they all wanted to know who we were. The food and company were both great so it wasn’t until fairly late that we got back from the restaurant/bar.

We made a fire at the campsite and sat around talking and making s’mores for dessert. I think I’ve had about as many s’mores on this trip as I have in my whole life, hahaha. I guess it’s because this trip has been super conducive to having campfires and s’mores are a natural extension of that! 

Day 16- Hot Springs and Steamboat History

Day 16: September 30th 2010, Thursday

Today Tyler and I checked out the nearby hot springs in the morning before it got too hot. It was the perfect time of day to go because there was still a chill in the air from the cold of night. The hot springs were developed but in the best possible way. They weren't like Lolo Hot Springs in Montana where it's basically just a pool that happens to be heated by geothermal energy. The springs in Steamboat were very extensive and stratified at different heights ranging in temperature from creek-water cold to scalding hot. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and because it was the off season and it was still early in the day there were very few people so it was peaceful and relaxing. 

The water feels so nice in the early morning chill

A view of the main hot springs pools from above

Steamboat Springs got its name because early settlers thought the spring, in the middle of what would become the downtown, sounded like a steamboat. Evidently it's a world-renowned winter destination because of the quality of the ski slopes on the mountains overlooking town. Even walking around the town in the fall, I could feel that winter would be a great time in Steamboat. First of all because there is a crazy huge ski jump that you can easily see from downtown. You could be hanging out down there and watch people take the jump, one after another. Steamboat also has a really cool sounding winter event called Winter Carnival, held I believe every February, which consists of various events like dog sledding, slalom, horse-drawn children on skis, and more, all through the main street. This tradition began in 1914 as a way to bring some cheer to the residents who had to live with a very long and harsh winter. I think having the event in February is a great idea because it's after Christmas and seems like a good way to mark that spring is kind of almost on its way! An interesting fact about this event is that volunteers get snow, approximately 400 tons of it, from surrounding areas and pile it up on the main street! Also the high school marching band performs and actually marches down the street playing their instruments while on skis; that is some skill! It's interesting that skiing became so popular in towns like Steamboat Springs because it was the easiest form of transportation in the winter.

The American Indian tribe that called this area home before white settlers came along, were the Utes. They would hunt in the valley in the summer. Trappers and ranchers started moving into the area around the 1800's and soon after, in 1879, the Utes were forced off of the prime land and onto a reservation in Utah, hence the influence on the state name. The Utes were never actually a unified "tribe" but rather consisted of individual nomadic groups that associated with one another.