Friday started with a hike to Hartenstein Lake, west of Buena Vista near Cottonwood Pass. Continue reading
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Michael R - The Compulsive Hiker
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Summer Sabbatical in Salida – Day 2
Day two was all about the kayaking. The Arkansas River flows through the valley that encompasses Salida and Buena Vista and draws many people to the area. You see many outfitters along the highways but we went with Rocky Mountain Outdoor Center. We had a choice of going on a raft or in kayaks. The kayaks sounded more fun and challenging and water levels were so low that rafters were spending a lot of time dragging the rafts. An easy choice. The kayaks aren’t the normal kinds – they’re inflatables called “duckies”. These are wider and more stable though apparently less maneuverable. I usually struggled to keep it going in a particular direction so I think I would have been okay with even less maneuverability.
Summer Sabbatical in Salida – Day 1
The first stop on Wednesday was Garden of the Gods. I was here when I was about 7 years old but remembered nothing about it until I saw Steamboat Rock. Then I just remembered that one rock. We took a short hike here on the Ute Trail and readily noticed the thinner atmosphere.
Summer Sabbatical in Salida
I’m hitting the road for a 4-day trip to the Salida/Buena Vista area of Colorado with 5 other members of the KC Adventure Club. The itinerary includes Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, the Royal Gorge, kayaking the Arkansas River, a couple short hikes to alpine lakes, and an attempt to climb 14003-foot Mt Huron.
Over KC
I went flying today with others from the Adventure Club in a rented Piper Arrow. It was my first time in a small plane since I was about 12. Continue reading
Friending the Kaw
I took part in a float trip on the Kansas (Kaw) River today – organized by local Sierra Club groups and conducted by Friends of the Kaw. American Rivers has named the Kaw one of the 10 most endangered rivers due to renewed threats from dredging. It was good to see the river up close and learn what could happen to it. Our flotilla of 23 canoes and kayaks put in at Desoto and went to Cedar Creek – about 5 miles.
St Francois Mountains trip wrap-up
At 9 nights, this was the longest outdoors trip I’ve ever done and the longest I’ve been away from home in at least 30 years. I saw a lot of areas I’d been wanting to see, hiked parts of 3 sections of the Ozark Trail, kayaked and canoed for the first time, and met some new people along the way. I was surprised at how little I thought about what might be happening back home or in the world in general. I wasn’t so disconnected that I was able to forget what day it was, however.
With no rain, I was sure my gardens would be suffering and the 3 cone flowers I planted the week before I left would be dead but everything survived! The bird feeders were probably empty the day after I left and the birds had mostly abandoned my yard but they’ve come back.
I had a pile of stuff to catch-up on, 524 photos to process, 200 emails to read, 3000 unread messages in my RSS feeds, a big Sierra Club project beginning the week I returned, and of course my employer expected me to spend some time on their projects. 🙂 Getting the blog updated took far longer than I expected.
I’ll sign-off with this haiku I was inspired to write during the trip:
f*cking whip-poor-will
calls shattering the night air
dreams interrupted
Dillard Mill State Historic Site
The final stop on the St Francois tour was the Dillard Mill State Historic Site. This turned out to be far more interesting than expected. You can wander the main floor for free, but for $4 I got the 40-minute guided tour of the main floor plus the basement and upper floors. A heck of a good deal.
Return to Bell Mountain
This was my second backpacking trip to the Bell Mountain Wilderness.
Council Bluff Recreation Area
Sunday afternoon (May 13 – day 3) I headed for Council Bluff Recreation Area (no, not in Iowa) to begin a week-long Volunteer Vacation with 3 other people, repairing parts of the 12-mile trail around the lake.
The Compulsive Hiker 