Whispers From The Woods

Friday Flashback

 When I was 22, Ivan (my then boyfriend) and I headed west…to Denver, Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.  Our dream….find a place to live….find a decent job….and backpack the Rockies.  We found a little apartment that was a great price….we were both employed within a week after arriving…and we backpacked the Rockies….many, many times.  One of our favorite places was above Nederland, Colorado in the Arapaho National Forest…Indian Peaks Wilderness area.

 We would pack up the blazer, head up there very early in the morning and hike to one of the most beautiful and secluded areas you have ever seen…a place where we rarely saw another camper on the trail.  The packs were heavy, the trail was a long one…it took several hours to arrive at our destination.  Our campsite, a place we visited many, many times, was always deserted ~ just us or on occasion friends that accompanied us….and the millions of stars each night.    It was perfection….

This was Ivan at our base camp.   A dome tent with a protective cover was a necessity when camping at about 8500 feet above sea level…that and down sleeping bags.    The wind could pick up during the night and the shape of the dome would allow it to glide over better than a triangular tent.  There was more than one occasion we woke up in the very early morning hours to see it snowing…not heavy mind you because we generally only backpacked in the summer, but it was snowing all the same.  If the weather turned bad while you were there, time was spent in the tent until the weather passed….and it always did. 

As you can see….I was going for comfort, not fashion.  Hats prevented the top of my head from getting sunburned….sometimes I had to take what I could get.    It was generally very cool, if not cold at camp.  I should mention these images were taken on different trips…but you would always see plaid flannel shirts…they were my backpacking shirts.

There were numerous glacier lakes on the way to the site, as well as right next to where we camped.  As you can see, we are camping at about tree line…a short hike above tree line was another large glacier lake that we liked to visit….

The water was pristine…and freezing cold.  It was easy to wake up each morning after you went to the lakes to splash some water on your face. 

Yes…I do squint in the sunshine…it makes for more attractive photos right?  The memories of my weekends and vacations spent at this campsite are many….the fires at night…..the night sky filled with stars….no a sound to be heard, no cars, no trucks, no airplanes….quiet.  I miss it…Colorado….these times…the people I enjoyed them with.

There is a saying in Colorado….”When God takes a vacation, he goes to Colorado”.  Could be….could be.