Pinion Juniper 1

Long hike in the Pinion Juniper forest above town, Little Rainbow Trail, Methodist Mountain.  First warm, dry day in a week plus.  Got a late start.  Headed out at a little after noon, had some errands to run before I could get out.  This ended up restricting the hike to eight miles instead of the planned sixteen.  Sky was overcast with threats of rain, very warm- mid 60's.  Immediately the sounds of myriad bird species can be heard.  I love the PJ forest and I wish everyone else did too.  The townies call it "the desert" but this place is alive, green and vibrant.  Water flows just under the surface and collects in invisible pools feeding the gnarled and ancient trees.  The rocky soil, surface water, and snow and rain make a perfect meeting place for desert, prairie, and mountain life forms.  Pinions are just like little Podnerosa, but they have two hard and pointy needles instead of four long and soft ones.  These are the tree seeds that the jays and nutcrackers roam far and wide to feed on.  The soft prickled Junipers are where they roost.  Junipers have a special visage, old, shaggy, hardened by decades of harsh weather, and primitive with their short scaly needles.  They lend an aroma to the forest that is not replicated in any other forest.  Even the mighty High Pine forest cannot match the PJ for the pleasurable scent.  These are Rocky Mountain Juniper, their solidly blue berries give them away as such.  Utah Junipers have reddish brown and One seed berries are a dull blue to red, actually hard to describe the color. 

Rocky Mountain Juniper

There is no underbrush, big sagebrush is starting to unfurl it's large leaves like banners in the wind, globemallow has already bloomed, and the Mountain Mahogany (Alder Cercocarpus) is just beginning to bud out new leaves in short spikes.  The space in between the plants though show all the tan earth and crushed granite.  I've heard that you can find turquoise up here and I'm keeping my eye out.   The trail is visible at all times, a white scar through the yellow land.  Cacti intermingle, a fierce beauty in their fresh flowers. 

The bird calls are mostly little house finches, though a ravens coarse croak, the soft weird hons of the elusive pinion jay and the even weirder rattle-croak-growl of the nutcracker punctuate through the chorus of peeps. 

Cactus

There is an adult mule deer leg hanging about four feet up in a pinion tree.  Mountain Lion sign is more gruesome than the occasional pile of hair lined poop.  This becomes more common, a spine here, femur tucked in a rock crevice, and a scapula wedged into another pinion.

Proof of Mountain Lions

There's a nuthatch hammering on a pine, softer and less rhythmic than a woodpecker, the knocks highlightes with nasaly "yank" calls.  It's a common White Breasted, I watch him glean from a branch for several minutes.  He pounds his small stout bill into a bract of tree bark to loosen it before he flings it from the tree, he rapidly bobs his head and snaps up as many little flying midges as he can before they disperse to new bark bracts. He flies off, in search of beetles.  I move on.

some kind of Globemallow, i'm not that great with deciduous plants

There's a ravine from which I can hear raven territorial, 'gro gro gro' calls, incessant scrub jay chatter, pinion jay honking, and more nutcracker knock buzzing.  But one call holds sway, dusky blue, black crested Stellar's jays flit in and out to of the trees, their rasps welcoming a viewer to Jay Gulch.  The rest of the birds hide in the thick copse of trees, content to yell at each other. 

The only shot of a pinion jay that i was able to manage...

The rest of the walk tot he turn around point, CR108, is uneventful, just a solitary Juniper Tit.

On the way back i can hear a raptor, probably a red tail hawk, I tried pshing for several minutes and got no response.  I can hear Jay Gulch still active.  Rounding a bend in the trail I stumble upon two of the shy pinion jays.  The have no crest are about the size of the scrub jays, are powder blue and have very short tails.  The nutcrackers are all in a pinion a few feet further up and the toelrate my presence long enough for me to snap some pictures.  They responded positively to tongue clicks, buzz knocking back enthusiastically. 

This is the same nutcracker as the lead image

On my drive back to my apartment I saw a White Tailed Kite sitting on a powerline, though i did not lock up my brakes and get a picture, there were simply too many people behind me. 

The following day I rode to Buena Vista, boring, just got caught in some fierce wind.  My new bike is great, highly recommend the Giant Propel for all riders ever.

After the ride though I walked over to Frantz Lake, intent on hunkering down in the shadow of the Cottonwoods and rereading an old favorite, John Marzluff's, "In the Company of Crows and Ravens."  The moment i set foot on gravel it began to rain out of a perfectly blue sky. 

I took a few pictures of some new arrivals and I will include some here. 

Male Yellow Warbler

White Pelican

Black Neck Phalarope

White Face Ibis

Spotted Sandpiper, the bird is exceptionally well camouflaged but it is near frame left

Frantz Gallery

I have been walking or riding around Frantz lake everyday for the last week.  I have been blessed with some outstanding shots and views, so many that I don't really know how to write about them as either single walks/rides or as a cumulative story.  So this post is a little different, it will be a picture gallery with long explanations about what I'm showing you!  This is very picture heavy, so if you have a very slow connection or don't like my photos i will return to regular blogging tomorrow.

The Matriarch of the winter herd at Frantz Lake.  An old deer who has seen it all.  This doe has two fawns, one of them is crippled in the back right leg, the other is strong and healthy and ready to mvoe for the short summer migration up into the hills. 

 

The whole herd, about 10 deer, lay in this lakeside ravine in the afternoon, chewing their cud and resting for a long, cold, night time rummage.  The lame fawn stays here more often than not and is an expert at hiding.  Eventually the muscles and tendons in the crippled leg will atrophy and the young deer will follow its mother to the summer grounds.

I have no idea what these ducks are.  As you walk up the Arkansas river there are numerous small retention ponds on the west bank.  These ponds are shallow and green with algae, a dabbling duck paradise.

 Mt Antero as seen from the shore of Frantz Lake.  These behemoth is names after a Ute Indian chieftain who at first sued for piece then killed a bunch of people later in his life.  It also has an aqaumarine mine on the top and many people climb it to search for other semi precious stones including amethyst, topaz, and the rare emerald.

Goose Islands namesake.  Canada geese, as well as many ducks, passerines, and shorebirds stop at these "migrant traps" on their ways north and south.  There are also summer resident geese, pelicans, bluebirds and killdeer that will remain and brood here.

 To be honest I can't tell if this is a Western or Clark's grebe.  But it's one of the two.  The largest of the group these fearsome fishers are diving birds.  Weak flyers and abysmal on land these birds are perfectly in their element on and under the water.  

Another shot of the big grebe.  He's ( I think it's a he based off of colour) is looking not at us but at the geese that he has to listen to all day.  Everything about these birds is streamlined for diving.  One of the truly wild birds.

We had some late season coastal snow, about 18 inches in a single day, last week.  The result of the wet heavy snow, green grass, fertile soil, downed trees and branches.  The lake is ringed with ancient Cottonwoods that all show decades of endurance, beaver chews, deer rubs, fishing bobs, and scarred boughs and trunks.

I almost thought I was at a golf course with how green the grass already is!

To the west is a this industrial thing.  That's highway 291, and there are all sorts of heavy industry types of things over there.  A real eyesore in the middle of a perfect valley. Of course it's easy to condemn industry for it's ugliness and contributions to a sick and dying world, but I do love my car, bike, computer, and camera.

The water is that clear.  It looks and feels like ice.   I got to watch one of the pied-billed grebes chasing after fish and was simply too clumsy with the camera and the excitement. 

Mt Shavano massif right after all the snow.  Rain (those clouds in the picture) came after.

This is an eroded cement water diverter thing.  It now looks like a weathered fairy bridge or something.  I wish I had toy boat to float through it.

The marshes most common and showiest resident.  The red Shouldered blackbird.  Males lay claim to smallish territories and sing for hours before brawling over the middle of the lake.  The females are still en route but the males are already coloured up and fighting.

Methodist mountain shrouded in fog.  Turkey vultures soar, rather low with no thermals, in the mid ground.  This pair of buzzards buzzed my a few minutes before the headed for the mountain.

 Idyllic duck pond in fall with old guy fishing picture.  Except that it's spring, I didn't see that guy over there.  The four birds on the left of the frame are shovelers, they had monstrous bills that are far more effective at weeding than the other ducks smaller bills.  The two in the middle are mallards, then a pied billed grebe and an American coot round out the flotilla.

A blackbird.  The actual black bird simply called The Blackbird.  Related to the the red-shouldered this is another marsh resident. Smaller and less vocal than the reds I've only seen these guys on the lake shore proper, as it is here.

The marsh on the north, maybe south, maybe west, I'm not really sure, side of the lake.  This is where I saw the Avocet, killdeer, pelican, and many many coots and mallards.

Out for a stroll.  I actually love geese.  For me they represent endurance, grace, power, and an iron will.  These are birds that never back down from a storm, they set their minds to flying north or south through bitter rains, snows and wind storms.  When the going gets rough they never complain, they put their heads down and keep going.  Do work geese.

A family of geese! Early season breeders, the parents are the two closest to the right, the other geese follow them around and help to chase off any offending birds and beasts.  Yeah they totally attacked a deer fawn, hilarity ensued, neither animal is really well developed for attack or defense, just speed.

A house finch was repairing this nest that will soon be hidden in a densely covered bush.

Methodist Mountain

 
I woke up without an alarm, a rare occurrence.  But it's so cold in the house that I can barely shiver fast enough.  Coffee is brewing and it's savory aroma fills the entire place.  I'm checking the weather, it's supposed to hit the seventies, but it sure doesn't feel that way.  I've discovered that my camera fits into my ride bag, a purple Osprey Raven, with one lens.  So I grab my longer lens and pack a few bars in around it, all while muttering a prayer that today will not be the day that I have a catastrophic wreck.  It's actually pretty hard to land on your pack in a normal crash.  With great trepidation I roll outside.  And it's warm.  Perfectly warm.  And there is no wind, not even a breeze.  It is virtually the perfect day.  There have been a lot of those since I've moved here.  The weather is very mild to say the least. 

Shavano with a grebe in the foreground and goose island in midground

I roll down the concrete trail towards Frantz Lake in what is now my daily loop.  While the lake has so far only had Canada geese and mallards I know that as the spring moves steadfastly on more and more birds will show up.   We rumble across a wooden bridge and are in the park proper, already I can see a pied-bill grebe, a new arrival floating just off the beach.  Grebes have a funny final deterrent to predators.  They rise up on their short, little legs and run across the surface of the water at full tilt.  Their little wings stretch out halfway and they duck their necks down, the water lapping at their knees as they push down into the water as hard as they can.  After a few feet they settle back down and usually turn, quickly, to face their tormentor.   This one was in luck since I was trying to balance the bike while getting the camera.  Not much of a challenger for this tiny veteran of the skies and lakes.

Pied Billed Grebe

I lap the lake, just this new arrival today.  As I turn the final bend on the far side of the lake a flash of orange catches my eye.  American Avocet.  That's a weird one! Avocets are delicate looking shorebirds with slightly upturned black beaks.  The last time I saw one was in Florida.  This one settles in the marshy sedge before calling loudly in response to my hissing freewheel and taking to the air, out across the lake, wings beating in a slow but stiff manner.  A pair of Killdeer follow it, tweeting in chorus. 

Mt Antero with The Chalk Cliffs to frame right

Back on the road I slice through town and back up the bike trail to the other side of town.  Across Highway 50 is Chaffee County CR 110.  This road leads up Methodist Mountain looming at just over 12,000 feet over me.  The road turns skyward quickly and miles of gravel grinding up a light grade follow.  The ground and the air are dry.  I have left the riparian system that Salida sits in and have entered the High Desert, the scrubby Pinon Juniper Forest.  I listen intently for the cobalt jays and striking gray nutcrackers that inhabit this rocky paradise.  They do indeed call quite constantly too each other, but they are masters of camouflage and I have no hope of catching a glimpse of one let alone a photo. 

desert flower in the Pinon Juniper forest

Near the top of Methodist there is a turn off for the Little Rainbow Trail.  It should be called Painbow trail by non mountain bikers.  I stop here, I've decided to ride this trail to get the feeling for the gravel riding that Salida offers.  I am in a sea of mountains.  Their white peaks look exactly like the crests of mighty waves preparing to break over our tiny town.  There are mountains as far as I can see.  The Angel of Shavano is clearly visible, her hands raised on high praising The Lord. 

The Angel of Shavano

My heart sings at the spectacular sight of the Sawatch running forever north while the Sangre De Christos run forever south.  The Crestones are to the west and while I can't make out their individual forms I can see their jagged white peaks laid against the deep blue sky. 

Mount whatever, to the South west

Little Rainbow runs right through the PJ forest and I would highly recommend it to mountain bikers and hikers.  To us skinny tire enthusiasts I would simply say that it requires a high degree of very technical riding.  It is a slow crawl that will knock your wheels out of true and will claw at your side walls.  I did fall, but only bruised a knee and split the skin of my calf, no damage to the camera or bike.  Thank God for the small miracles.  It would seem that there are plenty of fire roads and paved roads, but nothing like the sweeping, smooth flow trails in Colorado Springs.  I've never been a very good mountain biker and I'm somewhat limited in my scope with just a gravel grinder.  But the experience is well worth the sweat and blood.

I ran out out of room but Shavano is too glorious to not share

I limp back into the parking lot, my boot slick with blood.  Tired and fulfilled, another glorious day.

Tarryall, a brief history and report.

There are two roads into Salida. More like two roads out of Salida and that's still a huge exaggeration. Both of the major roads follow the canyon that contains the Arkansas River however.  The more commonly used road is highway 50 and it cruises right next to the water course as it makes its way from Salida to the Gulf of Mexico.  The other; 285/hwy 24, runs along the other side of the canyon and then up into the high montagne desert before entering the Front Range near Woodland Park.  I am on highway 24 when my phone rings, it's Sherrie, one of the girls that I am meeting.  She wants to know where I am.  I think that I'm about 15 minutes away, in reality it's closer to thirty minutes.   I pas through the old town of Hartsel, it's a collection of very old buildings and a semi modern gas station.  It's the first ghost town that I will be visiting today.  The shrubby desert opens back up in front of me and I'm briefly reminded of another adventure that included Hartsel.  After a group of us climbed Mt. Qaundary, Robert "Bunny" Mitchell required a stop for what he claimed were the best buffalo burritos on the planet.  To date that claim has yet to be refuted. 

At this time of the year there is little in the desert, the wind rips through down from the mountains and freezes the dead grass that are scorching under the ever warming sun.  There are the ever present Pronghorn.  Glorious animal the Pronghorn, but they will have to wait.  Wilkerson Pass sees the first signs of the ecosystem change.  You climb into the cold and wet high pine forest, a dense mix of pinion, ponderosa, lodgepole, fir, aspen, and innumerable shrubs and flowers.  Wilkerson is an easy pass to drive both because of its scenic beauty in both directions as well as the actual driving which is only a little steep and only a little twisty.  The South Platte River, merely a creek at this point, makes an appearance through a marshy bog that is surrounded by ancient, towering conifers.  The river widens and the country opens up into high altitude hay meadows.  The long grasses are already starting to green up fed as they are by the clear, ever widening river.  Tarryall is directly across the road from Lake George.



Tarryall. Most people think of a small community of miners living up in the hills.  While people did, and still do live here it is not a town or a community.  There are small farmhouses every few miles complete with crumbling barns.  But Tarryall is still not really a place of human habitation.  The name is for a stretch of land that runs 29 miles south east from Como along The China Wall and the Tarryall creeks to Lake George and eleven mile canyon, where the Tarryall creeks empty into the South Platte.  This stretch of country is a wooded meadow with a dense forest on one side and a massive wall of rock to the other.  China Wall is aptly named.  The huge grey boulders, at the base of the sheer cliffs give an idea to the geological torture that this place has endured.  Just on the other side of the cliffs sits the Lost Creek Wilderness area.  An area of both ancient and recent geological destruction.  The main draw of Tarryall is the little reservoir at the far end, near Como, though inaccessible by road to it.  However, the area is also littered with the abandoned shells of human colonization.  Each building is hidden from the next and requires a lot more local knowledge than I have, in fact the only building I found was the old school.  This school is well known and is on the register of historic places, so that might be cheating.
 
Sherrie and Brandy were waiting in one of the parking lots.  This particular one allows for a quick entry into McCurdy Park via Lizard Rock, which is the back and much less traveled side of The Lost Creek.  Brandy is a long time friend from The Springs and she has been with me on another adventure, the first actually.  Sherrie is another long time friend, a pro photographer based in Tampa Florida, check out her work here. 

After customary hugs we decided to walk and stretch the ole legs after sitting in the car for so long before we began our search for the ghost buildings.  I thought about grabbing my camera but decided against it, we were only going for a lap around the parking lot.



About a mile later and into McCurdy Park I stopped the girls from chatting, a familiar call was floating around the pines.  There were two Clark's Nutcrackers flitting about, hoping for a handout.  It was strange to see them this low, but the winter was harsh this year and perhaps there vast food stores have run out.  Tarryall reminds you of how tiny you are.  All around are the signs of nature at both its worst; the abandoned, ruined buildings, twisted rock piles and gnarled, lightning strikes; and also at its best.  The trees continue to thrive, even local rarities such as the Foxtail Pine, looking like a very tall pinion pine with weeping branches and the short green needles speckled in dusty white resin spots.   Lower Tarryall creeks gurgle happily next to us, its crystalline waters glitter brilliantly in the afternoon sun.  And the entire forest is full of birdsong.  Finches, ravens, nutcrackers, and some kind of falcon call in alarm, while woodpeckers bore out their dinners in the cover of the archaic forest. 

We turn round and head back to the cars and cameras.  It's late in the day and we stop to shoot the old school, which is pretty cool before saying our goodbyes. 

Funny Circles

It is the perfect temperature outside.  The low 60's, sure the wind is howling from the west at 30 miles an hour but it's still warm.  I kit up into a yellow mountain bike jersey and baggy shorts.  Today I have another chance to roll around and really get a feel for my new town.  I turn due west, my shoes click click into the pedals and I pile face first through the fierce wind.  Blue and white Shavano beckons from the distance while shy Tabegauche peers over her sisters bulk for only a second.  There's a little cement path that runs next to whatever road I live on and i take it.  I haven't really been over here yet and it reminds of me home on the eastern plains.  hay meadows stretch to either side of the road, small farmhouses and rickety barns standing sentinel over the dead grass.  The fences are not white plastic though, they are chunky dry, peeling timbers.  Cows are abundant, black angus, and their are occasionally horses mixed into their herds.  These are multiple colours though, not the matte black of the cattle.  The path curves into the road and then ends with a sign on the other side that says "Bike Path" with a little stick figure bike under it.  So i cruise across the street and out of the winds direct path.  The meadows stretch on and I am struck by how much water there is.  Little ponds and creeks flow through every property.  The road splits and I can just make out the teally blue of a lake.  There's a sign that points out that this lake is Frantz Lake.  I about fall off my bike.  Some of you might remember that the first bird trip that I wrote about was to this very lake.  And now it's about a mile behind my house.  There are only a few common water birds resting on the lake, but soon this lake and its surrounding trees will be filled with birds, expect to read more soon.  I doubled back and then buzzed through town before following a different bike path out of town and west again.  The wind was killer.  This path brought me back out into the meadowlands and soon I was on the Poncha/Salida border, so I crossed highway 50.  As you can tell I was really just meandering.  A sign pointed towards Methodist Mountain, where I was told there was  a good trial for cyclocross bikes.  I followed the road south, and up for several thousand feet.  The cool lower riparian forest melted away into the dray desert montagne of the Pinion Juniper forest.  Most people are utterly impressed by this life zone but if you step to look there is life everywhere.  Ichneumon wasps were out, several carrying immobilized caterpillars, bumble bees hovered over pasque flower, bluebells and a few other flowers that i don't know.  I heard a soft bird call and the rustling of the pinion.  I stopped, very suddenly.  The call was like a mix between a scrub jay and a gray jay, soft but corvid in nature.  There's only bird that makes that call.  And I've never seen one.  Inside the pinion tree, struggling to pry open one of the pine cones a powder blue pinion jay sat.  I cursed for not having my camera! All around the birds hunted for seeds, maybe thirty of them, the entire flock.  moving from section to section searching to fill their starving bellies. They moved passed my after a few minutes and I continued my climb towards Methodist mountain.  I have seen every species of corvid in Colorado now, and on a return trip I will finish photographing every species of corvid too!

First Ride

I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment, I don't have anything in the way of furniture and I'm staring at my phone, waiting for it to ring.  It doesn't.  I remind myself that I cannot make my phone ring by looking at it.  I go back to searching through some of my books for places to hike, bird, and ride around Salida.  There are many, and my white board is filling.  I put stars next to a few that I couldn't find a lot of information on, that I need to ask the locals about.  It's 72 degrees out, the sun is low in the sky, and I give up hope that my phone will ring.  I look out the window at a flight of collared doves.  There are doves all over the place here.  They coo in groups in the overhanging wires, and chase each other with their weird buzzy, almost thursh like calls, and loud flappy wingbeats through the aspens, cottonwoods, and spruce.  An actual thrush sits slumped over in rest on the fence, an American Robin, and a big one.  There is one other bird in the yard, a red shafted flicker, dancing about looking for ants and beetles while trying its best to blend in with the slightly green grass. 

And then my phone rings! My bike is done! Other than the rear hub bearings which have caused an uproar for the last year.  I race to pick it up, she's even been cleaned, her stark red lines standing in contrast to the depthless, flat black of her main tubes.  Shod in wide, tubeless knobbies the Sportif is mean and ready to fly.  It's too late to ride but I know that after the internet installers show up tomorrow I will get my first chance to really explore the town.

But of course they're late!

I barely make it too work, but I am riding.  After a good day of throwing freight and paint my boss asks if I'd like to cut out a little early, I have to many hours on the schedule this week.  There is one answer, and soon I'm dressed back in my shorts and jersey and pounding down F street.  She's fast, smooth, and silent.  None of those things have been common with this bike until now.  The bike responds instantly to both power to the pedals and steering input. I watch one of the doves flit from a tall cottonwood, I assume it's because of the high pitched droning buzz from my freewheeling hub.  The brakes don't chirp when I stop the bike at an excessively long stop light. 

Salida is a gorgeous little town.  The buildings are old, some from the late 1800's and early 1900's.  Old painted murals and shop signs adorn every brick surface.  After several devastating fires in the 1860's all of the wooden buildings were turned into brick buildings and no new wooden structures were permitted.  There is nothing extremely modern on the outsides of the buildings.  The few shops and restaurants that I have been in though are very modern and nice.  I had read that Salida was an artsy town, and most mountain towns are.  There are a lot of art shops in town.  Painting, photography, some kind of puppet place, wood carving, textiles.  And most of the artists can be seen working on their pieces inside the shops. In true American Victorian style the shops have a single bedroom apartment above each and a small basement below.  The shop owners simply go downstairs to open the shop. 

I found the river walk, it's glorious, though very short, only a few blocks, with a scary low bridge at the end.  I rocket down Sackett Street with Tenderfoot/S mountain on my right.  The parking lot is filled with jeeps and subarus toting cross country mountain bikes.  A glance at the pyramidal mountain shows spider webs of trails through the dry, yellow grass. At the end of Sackett is the shop that repaired my Sportif, Subculture Bikes.  Ralph, one of the mechanics sees me and runs out, hollering a battlecry that sounds like a police siren.  There is a bike path that I think I can ride all the way home, the sun is setting behind Mt. Shavano, golden light spills out from the mighty snow covered mountain lighting the clouds with pink, red, orange and purple.  Mt. Princeton is off to the right, sharing in the suns final glory.  I turn into my parking lot and a small flock of chickadees calls from the pile of sticks that will turn into a dogwood tree in a few months.  It's almost perfect.



I apologise for there being no pictures.  I don't have the carrier on my bike yet and so I don't have my camera when I ride.  I will have a gallery up in the next few days, it's a cop out, sure, but...

Greetings! From... Salida?

This post is going to be a little bit different.  It's more about me then I'd normally like, and I'll try to keep it short.  However, something strange, serendipitous and a little frightening has happened during the last week. 

The story starts a little further back though, a few months actually.  I was working a dreary minimum wage warehouse job for a mega retailer and hating every minute of it.  I got a notice in the mail that my school loans, all 550,000,000,000,000,000,000 dollars worth were now due.  It was a real low point.  Canned soup every night, long 10-15 hour days, obscene shift start and end times.  The work itself wasn't wholly awful; just the regular kind of awful, but I was really debating wandering into traffic.  I was on the west side of Colorado Springs, a five minute ride to deep forest, twisting canyons, towering pink sandstone monoliths, the best food in town and I was so trashed and scattered from working that if I had day off I would either sleep or watch movies.  And so at the very end of my desperation I made an appointment to see my schools career placement adviser. A month later I had my first real job, firmly entrenched in the middle class and I had enough time to start riding, hiking, and writing again.  I paid off some bills, bought some books, a new sleeping bag.  Everything was really on the rise.  And then my company relocated me to Salida, Colorado.  That's not a bad thing, it's actually a really great thing.  The Arkansas river headwaters are in town, with the Bighorn Sheep Canyon right on the outskirts as well as miles of the last remaining pinyon juniper forests to the east, to the west, north and south are the great mountains, Shavano, Tabagauche, Princeton and the other Collegiate mountains, Massive, Antero, and the San Jaun range proudly flaunts it's 13ers.  There are two 12ers in town as well, S, and Methodist mountains.  All of these ecosystems;  montagne, desert, scrub, riparian and grassland are less than an hours drive from my apartment.  It's an exciting time.  Money is still an issue, but less of one, I simply have to plan my expenses tighter then I have before, but there will be more, and soon, from me about the flora and fauna of the great state of Colorado.  I am in the very heart of it now. 


Many thanks to my brother, Gregor for helping me move, my mother, Vandi for the dishes, food, and support, and my sisters Whitney and Piper for their support as well.  Thanks to Brandy Townsend, Robert "Bunny" Mitchell, and Pam and Jay Piper for their encouragement and excitement as I start this new part of my journey.  I hope to see you all soon.