Adventure of The Day: Watrous Gulch Trail

Adventure of the Day – Herman Gulch Trail

Watrous Gulch Trail

July 19, 2015

The overcast morning and forecast for afternoon thunderstorms in the high country did not dissuade me from heading out on my Adventure of the Day to Herman Gulch Trail. It’s in the Arapaho National Forest, Exit 218 off I-70 just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel. In my haste to use the Port-O-Potty, I did not notice the map, which, if it fell on me would have killed me.

So after climbing the trail for about 10 minutes, I came to a split where I had to choose left or right. No signpost for guidance. I chose right, which was actually wrong, but I was left with the impression it was the right decision. Left would have taken me up the Herman Gulch Trail, which would have been a little more challenging, and my friend, Carol, told me there are fields of wild columbine. Right took me along the Watrous Gulch Trail, and I was not disappointed with the difficulty level or the wildflowers.

It’s a good climb, starting at 10,400 feet on up to about 12,000. Much of the trail is rock-strewn, and other parts are shared with water runoff making its way down the mountainside. I must backtrack a little. The exit sign on the Interstate does not give a destination, just Exit 218. As soon as you turn right, BAM! There’s the sign for the Arapaho National Forest Herman Gulch trailhead. Right next to that sign is a very impressive water feature, with three creeks splashing over rocks and converging right near that sign. I didn’t see it but I heard it from the parking lot. The temperature was about 15 degrees lower than where I started in Denver, 58 opposed to 73 degrees. I put on a nylon jacket at “base camp.”

Back to the trail. The early portion of the hike provided multitudes of wildflowers: Arkansas roses (rosa arkansana), fireweeds (chamerion angustifolim), golden ragwort (packera aurea), wedelia (sphagneticola trilobata), canada anemones (anemone canadensis), asters, bulbous buttercups (ranunculus bulbosus). And although there wasn’t a field of them, I saw plenty of Colorado’s state flower, the columbine (aquilegia).

Rosa Arkansana. Opening up.

Columbine.

Queen Anne’s Lace. I grew this in my Rochester Garden, but did not know it was here in Colorado.

Wild Snapdragons.

Canada Anemones.

Golden Ragwort.

The Arkansas Rose, fully opened.

The Scarlet Paintbrush. As with the Columbine and many other plants, it is illegal to pick Indian Paintbrushes and other wildflowers in Colorado parks.

Virginia Bluebell.

About the time my lungs started burning, I came across cut timber, supposedly dating back to gold mining days in the 1880s to early 1900s. Common sense tells me it was more recent, but that’s what it said on the info board. Immersed in the sight of the felled forest below, a twig snapped up the slope. I turned, too late to capture it on camera, but a chestnut-colored deer loped across the clearing into the dense thicket. It did not appear as stocky as the mule deer that are common in the area, but I did not see its head. I paused, quietly waiting to see if others might follow but they did not.

The only people I saw on the trail were a father and daughter, and a family of four. I chatted with Wag and Beth a bit, and we marveled at the clouds wrapping around the Torry and Greys. Wag mentioned that people were still skiing the snow-covered parts of the slopes, and one was called Dead Dog Run. As soon as he said it, Wagner, Jr.’s face scrunched up and tears filled his eyes. “A puppy didn’t die there, did it?” Mom and Dad had no response, so I told him, “No. They just call it that to scare people who might go skiing there.” And his tears stopped. Whew! Mom, Dad… little Wagner, Jr. is never going to compete in the X Games.

Torrey’s Peak. The middle run, starting at the peak, is Dead Dog Couloir. It’s still covered in snow in late July.

By this point, I was overheating and put the nylon jacket back in my pack. The trail split again, and I followed along Watrous Gulch Trail, leaving the Bard Creek Trail for another day, after I can brush up on my Shakespeare. That trail leads to Mount Parnassus, which provides a spectacular view of other peaks along the Divide. My decision was rewarded with rushing waters, some impressive pines and spruce, and two unforgettable “friends.” The first was The Yawning Rock. The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” popped into my head – Had it been another day, I might have looked the other way… I imagined this grumpy, centuries-old boulder waking up from a slumber. Further up the trail, I encountered another rock, which I’m naming Kerry’s Cleft. Wildlife Alert! Inside the cleft, a Rocky Mountain Least Chipmunk was cavorting. I sat down for a few minutes and took a few pictures. He’s quite a photogenic little guy.

The Least Chipmunk. A part of the squirrel family, they feature five stripes on their backs, and across their face. They’re high altitude lovers, and can survive over 14,000 feet.

Least Chipmunk. I love this shot.

The Yawning Rock.

Shortly after that, rain started to fall. I did not wish to be stuck up to mountain as electricity gathered in the heavens, so I made my way down.

This was my first hike where the altitude change affected me severely. A few times when I bent over to take photos, I got a little dizzy with a touch of vertigo.

A raging creek with a rock cascade carves through grass and sedum meadows along the Watrous Gulch Trail.

I was hiking on parts of the Continental Divide Trail.

Kerry Gleason with Kerry’s Cleft and his little Least buddy perched and posed.

Part of the trail looked like this.

Much of the trail was rock-strewn and sometimes part of the creek bed.

The adventure was hardly over. I still had to navigate traffic on I-70. At 1:30 p.m., it was almost at a standstill heading back toward Denver. In the next lane was a car with New York plates, and when my lane moved forward, I noticed the plate holder from O’Connor Chevrolet. The young lady in the back seat had the window open, so I asked, “Are you from Rochester?” She was. “Me, too.” Then my lane sped up and I had to move forward. She probably wondered how I figured they were from Rochester. It adds to my mystique.

I left without having anything to eat or bring anything with me, so I was famished. It took about 45 minutes, but I pulled off to get a $1 Cheesy Bean and Rice burrito at Taco Bell. The place was packed with dozens of people waiting to get their food. Nobody complained because it was better than sitting in their cars on I-70 and not moving. Well, one woman complained. Her name was Mary, as in “You can cancel my order. The name is Mary,” which we all heard about a dozen times before she finally left. But I heard the Taco Bell manager say the most unimaginable thing ever. She said, “We are almost out of food.”

When I heard that, my heart stopped, almost the same as when I eat the $1 Cheesy Bean and Rice burrito. I mean, if Taco Bell runs out of food, the world must surely be coming to an end. So when it was my turn at the front of the line, I ordered two.

“SOLITUDE”
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more.
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin: His control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
-BYRON, Childe Harold

All photos Copyright Inspiration Point Productions, 2015