We all need a little beauty in our lives. Memories and gilded reminders of places and times that capture the splendor of the natural world. Simple times and quiet places that sleep in our memories of wonder and longing.
I remember a time when all the roads out of Denver were winding dirt roads over the high mountain tundra passes sliced with glaciers and snow fields in July... alpine flowers and sweeping mountain vistas flowing down to the old mining towns of Dillon and Breckenridge. Steep gravel roads that switch backed across cascading streams and fluttering aspen groves alongside magnificent stands of pine and fir forests disappearing down to the empty desert valleys of the Eagle and Colorado rivers near Gypsum Colorado.
The dry valleys and eroded hills of Pinon pines, sagebrush and cheatgrass offer no clue to the lush meadows, temperate forests and alpine gardens of the Flat Tops Mountains of western Colorado. I often marvel at the concealed beauty of these mountain wilderness islands. Unnoticed and unrecognizable to the motorists whizzing down todays I-70 Interstate, it is always surprising to newcomers to wander off the beaten path to a place of verdunt beauty.
I've seen my first black bear, soaring Bald Eagles, rattlesnakes, coyotes, massive elk herds, mountain lions and yes... gray wolves in the Flat Top mountains.
And the fishing is always great.
As a 12 year old boy, I would catch 18 inch fat brown trout, rainbow trout, cuttroat trout and 12 inch brook trout for years before they shut the access to the creek downstream. We would always catch our limit and pack the fish down into ice chests. There is nothing like fresh trout stuffed with onions, tomato, lemon grass, ginger and garlic baked in wine on a dutch oven over the open camp fire. Some wild rice and asparagus with chanterell mushrooms in creamy dill sauce and you have gourmet mountain campfire cooking at it's very best. I've always liked picking gooseberries and wild strawberries, bleeding them with sugar and cooking them down in a saucepan as a compote on flapjacks cooked on the griddle with my morning coffee. The flavors are nothing like anything you can buy at a store.
We are headed for Sweetwater Lake at the base of the Flat Tops wilderness area, a place of spiritual renewal for me. It is the second largest wilderness in Colorado at 235,214 acres. Renting cabins, built in the 1920's on the edge of the lake and purported hangout and hideaway of gangster John Dillinger, are a treat for all of my family and friends. What a beautiful hideaway cabin tucked up into nowhere. Rustic and isolated without many of the modern amenities of today ...it is still a favorite retreat for the many long time people who remember the way Colorado used to be. The massive stone fireplace blackened over the years with log walls and white mortar chinking, creaky pine plank floors are reminiscent of a bygone era. Squeaky spring beds and the gaudy red ginham checked kitchen is a little too primitive for most people. It is still stocked with old dishes and blue enamel pots and pans for cooking. The big adjacent dining table with pine benches and chairs has room for 8 people in a ranch style setting. It's always been perfect to me.
I still like it after 40 years. The mice and spiders seem to un-nerve our lady friends, but a good sweeping and bustling around seems to send the critters scampering. I still look out across the lake from the screen porch staring at the volcanic cliffs and green forests across the dramatic valley settings, I close my eyes and and breathe in that clear crisp mountain air and somehow I feel timeless in a place that is timelessness itself. It always feels like home away from home. The big fire pit outside is always stocked with split pine logs and stumps for setting around the fire. At dusk the bats pour out of the eaves of the cabin darting around the scrub oak and aspen as the crickets,owls and coyotes add to the melody of the crackling fire, starry nights and flickering shadows. A good snort of hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps seems to mellow out the evenings and conversations when the embers glow.
The trails up to the wilderness are long and steep. Marmots, Pine Martens and Stellar blue jays squeak and squawk as you hike into their territories. The shadow of a circling red tailed hawk rising on warm air currents from the dramatic basalt and shale escarpments always silences the cacophony of the forest.
Wild flowers explode into a carpet of shapes and colors that words cannot capture nor photos illuminate. It simply has to be experienced in the panorama of being. I am always humbled and respectful to enter a literal garden of Eden this incredibly gorgeous, yet relatively untouched by humans. A land of enchantment with all the interesting variations of delicate blooms and blossoms on the hiking trails. The many different species of "black" flowers are always intriguing to Johnnie and I as are the unlimited varieties of mushrooms, insects, mammals and birds.
Even now, Johnnie and I go to Yampa on the northside of the Flat Tops and drive to Stillwater Reservoir where we hike the trails through endless meadows of carpeted Montaine wildflowers. We are always awestruck at the endless beauty of panoramic diversity in color, height, variety and shape. Just writing about it now ...makes me want to be there now. The dutch oven, tent, coolers and sleeping bags are stacked nicely in the garage; ready to throw in the pick-up truck and make the 3.5 hour trek.
Of course the oil, gas, mining and timber companies see something different then you and I and Johnnie.
Oil Shale development and gas drilling on the neighboring Roan Plateau has threatened the pristine beauty of the area for 50 years.
An early concept in the 1960s was to create a rubble chimney using a nuclear explosive.[33] However, this approach was abandoned for a variety of technical reasons. A variety of true in-situ processes were tried prior to the oil shale crash in the 1980s. Most notable are the Equity Oil process, which injected superheated steam in the permeable leached zone of Colorado’s Piceance Basin,[30] and the Geokinetics Process, which is a horizontal combustion retort in which permeability is formed by explosive uplift and rubblization (the generation of rubble consisting of various sized fragments).[31][32] Little yield information is available from the Equity process, but the Geokinetics process generally recovered 40-50 % of the Fischer Assay oil.[31]
Surface-mining of oil shale deposits has the same environmental impacts as those of open-pit mining. In addition, thermal processing technologies and underground rubble silos generate waste material, and the atmospheric emissions include carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Meanwhile, directional drilling and road access inevitably threaten watersheds, wildlife and groundwater aquifers...to say nothing of the scarred landscapes.
It is hard to imagine the greed and fanaticism of the energy companies, government agencies and lobbyists when I marvel at a rare penstemon or mushroom in the old growth forest or worry when a mountain thunderstorm blackens the afternoon sky. I am always glad that I packed the rain ponchos in my knapsack for the cold wet hike home. I also keep the whiskey flask handy for unforseen medicinal purposes of course...and don't forget a dry lighter in case one needs a small fire to keep warm. I've seen it snow in every month of the year in the high country.
There has been a lot of change in Colorado over the last 40 years. I am a sixth generation westerner. Like the old timers before me, I wonder if you will know the wonder and beauty that I have known of the public sanctuaries that are so threatened by the very powerful and determined interests of tomorrow?