The site of recent outdoor adventuring: Golden, Colorado’s Clear Creek Canyon. Golden is a way-cool little town on the west side of Denver. It still has a slight Old West feel in its downtown area, which is also the location of a kayak park and the Coors brewery. Dip into Clear Creek Canyon, just west outside of Golden on Highway 6, and the towering rock walls will quickly put you in your place. The canyon is only thirteen miles long, but there is something to climb at every pullout. And while you’re out there rock climbing, kayakers and rafters will be yahoo-ing through the rapids below. This has been the experience, at least, in the last two weekends, as I’ve been meeting up with friends to climb there. Last weekend, we checked out the Tunnel 2 area for some sport climbing along the River Wall and High Wire areas (pictured right and below).
I always get super-excited to see wildlife in its element, and while we didn’t stumble upon any mountain goats or rattlesnakes, we found some spring (or is it summer now?) flowers instead. This yellow cactus bloom stuck out beautifully against its dusty brown background:
Back in Vail, the creek continues to churn powerfully outside my window, and yellow pollen grains are scattering themselves all over the place. Summer is perhaps just starting in the mountains: cool blue skies in the mornings and threatening black clouds rolling over the peaks in the afternoons.
Anyone out there want to guess what American city has been photographed here? I’ll try to give a few hints, as the photos are a bit nonspecific. Let’s see. This city is in a state that most people say is shaped like your right hand (when you look at it with your palm turned towards your eyes).
The state produces berries like crazy in the summer, and it can be wickedly cold and windy during the winter months. That narrows it down a tad. Now, this city is the second largest one in the state, and it is on the banks of a river. The river allowed the area’s first European inhabitants to trade fur and textiles, but the Ottawa Indians had already been establishing settlements along the river since around 1700 A.D.
Being a non-city person, I especially appreciated its open spaces and parks, such as this one in the downtown area:
And, of course, I had to make a trip to the city’s art museum, which currently has a fantastic Andy Warhol exhibit on display:
Most of Down and Out’s landscape posts focus on natural beauty in some way, and being in this city reminded me how cities, too, can be naturally beautiful. This photo is a detail of the waterfall outside at the art museum:
Any guesses what this city might be?? I’ll follow up with an answer in the next post.
“The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.” -Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I can’t talk about creeks with nearly as much eloquence as Annie Dillard in her Pulitzer Prize-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974). Even so, I know something about creeks. There’s one running through my back yard: Vail, Colorado’s Gore Creek. Just a few weeks ago, this creek was a nearly-frozen trickle. But now it looks like a dangerous beast, frothing and roaring as it runs down valley. The change took place last week in a mere forty-eight hours. Maybe this means that the snow is finally starting to melt, even though the sky spit out some snow just yesterday morning. The sound of rushing water has a rhythm to it, a certain beauty.
I open my window at night to hear the sound. I turn off the radio now when I write so that I can hear the water-music. I can’t explain how or why this sound has the ability to move me, but I agree with Annie Dillard, who says:
“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.”
For more from “Down and Out” on Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, click here.
Castleton Tower is one of the most distinctive desert rock towers along Utah SR-128. It sticks up all alone out there, a red sandstone pillar, weathered and webbed with vertical cracks characteristic of this type of rock. The cracks make for good rock climbing, as you can wedge your hands and feet into them and scoot upwards, and the mild springtime temperatures make now a good time of the year to take up the challenge. Now that the ski lifts have closed at Vail, I am finding that it is just as easy to convince me to go climb as it was to convince me to go ski during the winter. Last week, I decided to roadtrip out to Moab for a few days to climb with my friend John, who is a local with a great van. I had never climbed Castleton Tower, and he had not done it in a while, so we camped nearby the night before and set out early in order to beat the crowds that turn up there at this time of the year.
It was a super-windy day out, and a bit on the cold side, but after a few hours of grunting and moaning through the tight chimneys on the Kor-Ingalls route, we topped out for a view of the other magnificent towers in the area.
John led, and I climbed second behind him, mostly glad that I was not the one leading (but, of course, wishing that I were good enough to do it as smoothly as he did).
Yee haw. More springtime adventures upcoming.
Living in a yurt probably would not be all that convenient. It is not like you would just want to set one of these things up in the suburbs, which is okay by me. The bigger the backyard, the better. As mentioned in the last post, the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse (pictured below)
had me thinking about what it would be like to live in a yurt. After we finished our dinner and walked back outside, the sun had set, and nightlight was coloring the snow in shades of purple and gray.
Maybe if I lived in a place like this, I would have to snowshoe or ski home each night. But then I would sit out on the porch, and I would look out over a backyard like this and take a deep breath. Then slowly, slowly, I would watch stars hang themselves over the mountains in an inky night sky.
Vanscape: it’s what you get when you view a Volkswagen van against the backdrop of some stellar scene. I think that I made this word up a few months ago when I drove my 1970 Volkswagen to Utah for a few weeks (to view the original post, click here for “Down and Out” on Landscape: Vanscape?). At that time, I drove the van along Utah’s super-scenic SR-128, visited a friend in Moab, camped in Arches National Park, and then camped and climbed at Indian Creek. It was a good trip, and I’m always plotting return visits. On my recent return, I took some time to catch a few photos of what I’d consider to be the ultimate Volkswagen graveyard, a place called Tom Tom’s in Moab. As far as I’ve heard, Tom Tom’s is no longer operational; you can’t just show up and barter for parts. At one time, I think that you could, but then Tom Tom evidently passed away, and people started complaining about the mess. Or what they considered a mess.
So supposedly Tom Tom’s is now a museum, but as long as I’ve known about the place, I’ve never seen it open. Seeing all of those broken-down vans makes a van owner like myself sort of fearful. I don’t want my van to end up like that, but at the same time, I know that most vehicles that old are on the verge of being left behind. I’ve thought about it many times—pretty much every time I hand over stacks of cash to a VW mechanic, I think about driving mine into the desert and leaving it there. Or better yet, starting it on fire and watching it burn. Tom Tom’s is a testament to the fact that other van owners think of doing the same things and that some of them do.
For now, I’m thankful that my Old Lady is still chugging along, as she was above in Arches at sunrise. I’m waiting for the snow to melt here in Vail before bringing her out and getting back on the road.
It’s embarrassing, I know, but for some reason I like kitschy run-down motels, the kind you can find in don’t-blink towns like Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado. On the recent girls-only weekend, we opted to stay in this one, the Ute Trail Motel, located right off the main road through town. Merriam-Webster.com defines “kitsch” as “something that appeals to popular and lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality.” I find that definition funny; I mean, does this mean that I’ve got lowbrow taste and a penchant for things of poor quality if I’m finding something beautiful in this scene? I’ll admit—and you can see from the photos—that this motel is no Four Seasons. But help me out here, folks. Anyone else out there finding something redeeming here? (If so, or not, leave me a comment and let me know what you think).
Maybe it was the sign, the cowboy riding a bucking bronco that made me love the place from the start, or maybe it was the billboard advertising that rooms with kitchenettes were only $60 a night, or maybe it was the way that the neon lights blurred into the evening sky.
Yes, that’s it, the way the fluorescent pink letters melted into the mountains, and later, into a black void studded with stars.
“…gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate, and I eliminate the possibility of ever finishing. So it was now as I looked at the bright-colored projection of monster America.” –John Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley: In Search of America
A roadmap of the United States hangs on my wall, much like the midsection of an arm or a leg spread out two-dimensionally in an anatomy textbook. Eggshell blue bodies of water lap up against the white skin of the land, splotched green and orange and brown. Vein-like roads tangle in the East, crisscrossing north and south. By the time they hit the Mississippi, they’re widening, opening up to the West. Nevada’s only got a few lifelines. Montana, North Dakota, and New Mexico are showing a lot of skin. Red and blue bundles circle the cities: pulse points. This map reads like life-sized invitation to get back out on the road. A constant temptation. I’m trying to settle down.
I’ve been in the process of settling down. For about five years. Or forever. But for at least five years. During the last few weeks, as I’ve been transitioning to a more permanent residence, only a few things have seemed to calm me: shoveling snow (a repetitive, almost meditative motion), mountains, and the night. Recently, I got a good dose of all three while staying at an earthship in Silverthorne, Colorado. The adobe-style/enviro-friendly house is nestled into the side of the mountain, accessible only by trucks or plows. So I had to park my wimpy car at a trailhead and hike in to the place each evening, carrying food and water and clothes. Then, I’d eat dinner and shovel snowdrifts in the dark so that I wouldn’t have to shovel out so much in the morning. The wonders of living on the side of a mountain in Summit County, Colorado are many, but I didn’t quite see how I could sustain that living arrangement and also hold down another (paying) job. I didn’t stay for too long, but I stayed long enough to hear coyotes singing at night. To get my snow-shoveling biceps back. To watch the sky turn light purple, then inky blue, then black.
Covered bridges are a unique aspect of the Vermont landscape, adding—I suppose—to the state’s old-world charm. Over 100 covered bridges can be found across the Vermont countryside, many of them historic sites. On recent family roadtrip trip to Killington, we were able to see a few covered bridges in Vermont’s South Central region (the Woodstock/Quechee/Rutland part of the state). In the 1800s, many Vermont towns charged a bridge toll to help pay for the construction, but we weren’t charged anything to drive over (or under) the ones we crossed. My big question about covered bridges was: why are covered bridges covered in the first place? No one on the roadtrip knew the answer for sure, but I just visited the Vermont Only website to find out. No—it’s not because they would get slippery in all of the snow, as we speculated, but rather that a cover over a bridge helps protect the trusses that keep it together. All of that sun, wind, rain, and snow might only allow the trusses to do their job for a decade, but once covered, they’re good for a century. Good to know. Pictured at right and below is the Taftsville Bridge:
The Taftsville Bridge is located just outside of Woodstock, and it was built in 1836. It is the state’s third oldest bridge. A newer bridge we crossed was the Quechee bridge, built in 1970:
If you’re entering Quechee from Highway 4, you’ll cross this bridge. While the bridges, themselves, add to the landscape, it’s worth getting out of the car to see what’s running under and around them. Here’s a nice dusky evening view from the Quechee bridge:
One bridge worth mentioning is Middle Bridge in Woodstock. I don’t have any photos, but if you’re walking around in Woodstock (which I highly recommend doing), you can walk to the bridge from the town center. Middle Bridge was built in 1969 as a reproduction, and even though it’s not really that old, it looks ancient, and it would have made a good photo–if only I had taken one. Anyhow, seeing things first-hand is better than a photograph anyway, so put Middle Bridge on your list of things to explore next time you’re in Vermont!
The site of recent outdoor adventuring: Golden, Colorado’s Clear Creek Canyon. Golden is a way-cool little town on the west side of Denver. It still has a slight Old West feel in its downtown area, which is also the location of a kayak park and the Coors brewery. Dip into Clear Creek Canyon, just west outside of Golden on Highway 6, and the towering rock walls will quickly put you in your place. The canyon is only thirteen miles long, but there is something to climb at every pullout. And while you’re out there rock climbing, kayakers and rafters will be yahoo-ing through the rapids below. This has been the experience, at least, in the last two weekends, as I’ve been meeting up with friends to climb there. Last weekend, we checked out the Tunnel 2 area for some sport climbing along the River Wall and High Wire areas (pictured right and below).
